Don Jesberg’s ‘VIVA’ Prepares for 2026 Pacific Cup
2026 is officially a Pacific Cup year, with boats set to depart the friendly confines of San Francisco Bay for Kaneohe, HI, in early July. Many boats have already signed up, and in preparation for the race, Latitude 38 will be profiling boats and crews in the months leading up to the start sequence.
The first boat that we will be profiling is a vessel under the command of one of San Francisco Bay’s great racers, who is no stranger to sailing to Hawaii. Don Jesberg of San Francisco Yacht Club (SFYC) will be making his 10th crossing to Hawaii on board his Cal 40 VIVA.
“We got the boat in 2017 and completely rebuilt it with the goal of sailing it in the 2019 Transpac, which we did,” Jesberg tells Latitude of his team’s ride. “We found a boat in Seattle that hadn’t been screwed up too badly, and spent 18 months basically rebuilding it completely. We tore out all of the electronics, all of the electrical, every winch, and rebuilt it as if it were a new boat. It was a fun project. It’s a very pretty boat to own. I grew up around them. My dad had a Cal 33, which was designed to be the Cal 40 beater. They were very close in performance. It’s a fun boat to have that performs really well in the ocean because it’s got a long keel and a hull that looks like a surfboard. It’s perfect for the Transpac or the Pacific Cup.”
“I’ve got a son who lives in Colorado, and he said he’d come out and sail to Hawaii with us, so that was enough of an inspiration for us to put it together and say, ‘Let’s do it again,'” Jesberg tells us. “Last time we sailed to Hawaii, Sean Mulvihill joined us, and originally his son Jeff was supposed to join us also but he had a work commitment right in the middle of the Pac Cup so he couldn’t go, but this time he’s available! It’s a dual father-and-son boat, plus John Bonds. It’ll be a fun, nice sail to Hawaii, and hopefully we’ll do it in 11 to 12 days. It’ll be the 10th time that I’ve sailed to Hawaii. This will be the second time with my son.”
There’s no question that VIVA will have a good amount of ocean racing experience. When asked about some of his favorite memories of sailing to Hawaii, Jesberg highlighted both memories of sailing with family and friends, and dominant past wins in one-design ocean racing.
“Doing it with my dad was special,” he tells us. “I sailed to Hawaii with my dad twice. My dad did the first Pac Cup in his Cal 33 with my brother and a bunch of friends. Will and Trevor Baylis were on the boat as well. At a young age they all had a lot of fun. I did it three or four times in the Santa Cruz 70s; when we had a big fleet of SC70s, that was really fun. That was the mid-’80s to ’90s. Being able to do it in the centennial in 2004 was fun; we literally finished 11.5 hours ahead of the second Cal 40.”
The Cal 40 isn’t the only one of Jesberg’s boats bearing the name “VIVA.” He also races a Knarr and an Etchells that bear the same name.
“My mother’s name was Violet,” Jesberg tells us of the inspiration for the name of his boats. “We always tried to include’Vi’ in the names of boats, because that’s what we called her. We had Etchells called Ultra Violet and Vicarious and eventually I went, ‘Hold on,’ and came up with ‘VIVA,’ with the VI for my mom, and VIVA means to live well, so it comes from my mom.”