‘Monkey’ Regulates on Pac Cup Fleet

Jody and Skip McCormack’s Farr 30 Trunk Monkey is currently in the process of putting one of its namesake’s signature beat-downs on the doublehanded and crewed divisions that started the ’10 Pacific Cup on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. The husband and wife team celebrated their honeymoon during the last edition of the race — oddly enough, prior to getting married on Kaneohe Bay’s Sand Bar after the finish — aboard Peter Stoneberg and Mark Jones’ TP 52 Flash. This year they’re doublehanding Monkey, which they purchased and retrofitted expressly for the race. According to today’s sked, the duo is already putting up some good numbers as the breeze seems to have picked up all across the race course. Trunk Monkey is the closest boat to Hawaii by a 16-mile margin — situated toward the middle of extreme north-south split among the boats who’ve already started.

Today’s sked was published just prior to this posting and it would appear that all the boats are moving now after a frustratingingly light and lumpy few days. Thankfully the boats’ ETAs have receded from around August 1 back to July 20 as they’ve picked up speed.

The southerly boats seem to be in good shape, and as of yesterday’s sked were leading their respective divisions. Divison D started yesterday, and it seems as if that group has had better luck with the breeze so far, claiming the top eight overall spots ahead of Trunk Monkey, with Wayne Zittel’s SC 50 T J/World’s Hula Girl leading the division.

It should be an interesting few days with the weather forecast for a 5- to 15-knot southwesterly clocking to a northwesterly for Saturday’s starters’ first couple days. Saturday marks the final Pac Cup start and features some of the most blinged-out boats in the fleet, so if you’ve got the time, head out there for the 2:30 p.m. start off the Cityfront. The division leaders so far are:

Doublehanded 1 —  Moonshine, Dog Patch 26, Dylan Benjamin/Rufus Sjoberg
Doublehanded 2 — Trunk Monkey, Farr 30, Jody and Skip McCormack
Division A — Nancy, Wyliecat 30, Pat Broderick
Division B — Sweet Okole, Farr 36, Dean Treadway
Division C — Summer Moon, Synergy 1000, Joshua Grass
Division D — J/World’s Hula Girl, SC 50 T, Wayne Zittel