Lending Club 2 Smokin’ Toward Hawaii

When your intent is to break a prestigious ocean crossing record, picking the perfect ‘go’ date is, of course, crucial. It appears that Renaud Laplanche and Ryan Breymaier’s instincts were spot-on Wednesday morning, when they made the unexpected decision to withdraw their 105-ft maxi tri Lending Club 2 from the Transpac (before they’d even started) and instead pursue the outright Los Angeles-to-Honolulu record independently.

At this writing, 48 hours after they started, the smokin’-hot tri is within about 100 miles of the halfway point, blasting west at more than the 30 knots. If conditions remain favorable, they could knock many hours — and possibly close to a full day — off the outright record of 4d, 19h, 31m, 37s, set in 2005 by Frenchman Olivier de Kersauson and crew aboard the 110-ft tri Geronimo. That benchmark is 14 hours faster than the Transpac race record set in 1997 by the 86-ft maxi cat Explorer (5d, 9h, 20m).