Pacific Cup Starts Today

If you’re looking for an excuse to ditch work this week, we suggest you sneak out the back door, head down to your boat and go witness the departure of the 2012 Pacific Cup fleet. This is the 17th edition of the 2,070-mile San Francisco-to-Hawaii race, which ends at Oahu’s Kaneohe Bay.

As always, the entry list has been broken down so boats that are theoretically slower will start first (beginning today at 1 p.m.) and the fastest boats will start last (Thursday at 2:45 p.m.), with additional starts Tuesday and Wednesday.

It’s as fair a system as anyone’s been able to come up with, but needless to say, sailing conditions from one day to the next are the wild card here. Strong winds around 25 knots are predicted for this afternoon, but looking at the long-range forecast, some racers, including the always-competitive Andy Costello, skipper of the J/125 Double Trouble, think later starters may luck out: “We’ve started to look at the weather and it’s looking better for our start later in the week than it is for the earlier starts, so that may help us get to Hawaii faster.”

With 46 boats, ranging in size from 30 to 68 feet, the PacCup’s fleet size is down a bit, but should be as hotly contested as in years past. For a complete preview of this year’s event see the current (July) issue of Latitude 38 magazine, available for free at marine retailers all along the West Coast, or download the issue for free at our website.