Competition Heating Up for TransPac

In a recent ‘Lectronic about Lloyd Thornburg’s Gunboat 66 Phaedo leaving the Caribbean for the July start of the TransPac, we wrote that it was too bad their only competition going to Hawaii would be a Lagoon 45 cruising cat. That statement was based on the TransPac entry list as of a few days ago. John Sangmeister of Long Beach, we’re told by Jim Anderson and others, is intending to enter his 72-ft trimaran Tritium the TransPac also. That would be a load of competition for Phaedo.

Tritium started life as the ORMA 60 ocean racing trimaran Gitana 12. She was then brought to Alameda by the Artemis America’s Cup syndicate, lengthened to 72 feet, and tricked out to become the test platform for their wing. By putting the wing on a trimaran instead of a catamaran, Artemis was able to circumvent the rules and test their wing before other syndicates.

Sangmeister, a very experienced sailor, became the new owner of the tri a few months ago, and has stated that his goal is to beat the TransPac multihull record of 5d, 9h. That record was set in ancient history — 1997 — by Bruno Peyron aboard the then 86-ft Commodore Explorer. It’s as soft as a creampuff.

There are currently 62 entries in the TransPac so far, and with the entry deadline on June 1, plenty of time for Tritium and others to still join the fleet. This year’s big guy is Syd Fischer’s Elliot 100 Ragamuffin from Sydney. Fischer is tied with Sir Thomas Lipton with the record for America’s Cup challenges at five. But the more remarkable thing is that Syd was born in 1927, which makes him 86 years old!