Doublehanders Frank and Sergei Race Their First Pacific Cup

This year’s Pacific Cup fleet is well on its way to Hawaii. In rounding off our Pac Cup profile series highlighting some of the sailors and teams racing to Hawaii in this year’s event, we’re featuring Frank van Diggelen and Sergei Podshivalov of the Sunfast 3300 Sun Dragon.

Frank van Diggelen and Sergei Podshivalov are co-skippering Sun Dragon in the Doublehanded ORR division under the banner of the Santa Cruz Yacht Club. Sun Dragon was among the 26 boats, across four divisions, that started the race on Tuesday. As of this morning’s standings, at 10 a.m. (PDT), the pair are in 10th place on the leaderboard.

This is the first time racing across the Pacific for both of them, and, they tell us, ” … first for a Sunfast 3300.”

Frank, a lifelong sailor, identifies as a “dinghy sailor” but has long been wanting to sail to Hawaii. He sailed in college and in the South African navy.

Sergei had never stepped onto a boat before he started sailing in Santa Cruz in his early 50s. They entered the Pacific Cup Race for “the adventure of it.”

The pair bought Sun Dragon three years ago, specifically for the Pac Cup. “We’ve both aspired to race to Hawaii, and bought the boat to do this,” Frank and Sergei tell us. They’ve since been racing their way to the start line. “Can’t believe it’s here already!”

We wish Frank and Sergei fair winds and a safe race. If you’re curious about how the fleet stacks up, take a look at Andy Schwenk’s picks in this month’s issue of Latitude 38, out now.

You can follow the race on the tracker here.