A Healthy Transpac Fleet
As of this morning, Transpacific YC has received 62 entries for the 48th edition of the classic 2,225-mile Transpac race from Los Angeles to Hawaii, indicating a very healthy fleet. While most entries are from the West Coast, a number are from Japan, Mexico, Australia and Canada, and there’s even one from Monaco.
Given decent winds, there will be a strong assault on Alfa Romeo II’s all-time monohull elapsed-time record of 5 days, 14 hours, set in 2009, as the entry list already includes three lightning-fast 100-footers. They are Wild Oats XI, co-skippered by Roy P. Disney and Robert Oatley, winner of eight Rolex Sydney Hobarts; Ragamuffin 100, the ageless Syd Fischer’s super maxi, and, new from the West Coast, the redone Rio100 owned by Manouch Moshayedi, which did surprisingly well in the last Rolex Sydney Hobart.
The reason we’ve used a photo of two hull-flying Gunboat 66s from this year’s Heineken in St. Maarten to illustrate a Transpac story is that for the first time there should be a highly competitive multihull division in the Transpac. The multihull fleet includes John Gallager’s Del Mar-based Chim Chim, Gunboat 62 hull #2, which is in the midst of a total rebuild at Driscoll’s in San Diego. Also new this year will be Pat Benz’s Santa Barbara-based Gunboat 66 Extreme H2O. And returning from the last Transpac is Lloyd Thornburg’s Santa Fe-based Gunboat 66 Phaedo, which did 428 miles in the last run to Hawaii before being dismasted. We’d actually been hoping that Thornburg would enter his new-to-him MOD70 Phaedo3, with which he just hit 40.6 knots, but the busy 35-year-old has entered her in the Transatlantic and Fastnet races.
As much as we love the hot new boats, there are three classics we’re pulling for, including Sam and Willie Bell’s wooden Lapworth 50 Westward, which was built in 1962. Dean Treadway’s cold-molded Hawaii-built Farr 36 Sweet Okole, which he’s owned almost since she was built in 1976, was leading her division in last year’s Pacific Cup until the rudder broke. The Richmond YC-based Sweet Okole has sailed four Transpacs — winning overall in 1981 and placing second in 1985 — and five Pacific Cups. And, lastly, the legendary S&S 79 Kialoa III, which, under the ownership of Jim Kilroy, was probably the boat most instrumental in the growth of international big-boat racing.
The final entry deadline for the Transpac is June 1, and the race starts will begin on July 13.
While we’re on the subject of long-distance offshore racing, we want to put in a plug for the SoCal 300, the first edition of which will be held this year starting on May 22. The course will take the fleet from Santa Barbara, outside the Channel Islands, to San Diego. The race will be an official qualifier for the Transpac.