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North Pacific High Shuffles Pacific Cup Deck

Joby Easton and Bill Huseby have Raindrop headed up the overall standings and towards Kaneohe Bay.

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© Latitude 38 Media, LLC

With some of the earliest starters in the neighborhood of their halfway points, the Pacific Cup fleet is experiencing a massive shuffle of positions. Following the satellite tracker over the weekend, it became clear that the wind was progressively clocking and abating, despite what the gribs are saying. As such, many boats in the fleet have jibed — without having even reached their halfway points.

"The high seems to be weakening, and it looks like there’s just been a big drop in pressure," said Pineapple Sails’ Kame Richards, who like us is enjoying watching this one on the computer screen. "Typically the first jibe would be in the last third of the race. I think the motivating reason for jibing is that it’s going to get lighter further north, but if you’re already living and dying by the north [side of the course], jibing is certain death."

The daily standings bear this out. Yesterday’s overall leader, Paul Cayard’s SC 50 Hula Girl, has dropped to the 4th overall spot, and yesterday’s 5th-place Jamani, Sean Mulvihill’s J/120, has plummeted to 16th overall. The latter was one of the boats farthest to north – on the opposite end of the spectrum in their division, the farthest south, Todd Hedin’s E.T. has vaulted from 17th to 7th overall. Joby Easton’s Cascade 36 Raindrop is leading Doublehanded 1. Easton and Bill Huseby looked to be getting lifted into oblivion until they jibed yesterday, carrying with them enough pressure to post a 170-mile day and inch up a spot to 2nd in the overall standings after moving up from 8th the day before.

Dean Daniels’ Hobie 33 Sleeping Dragon has reclaimed the overall lead in the 2008 Pacific Cup from Paul Cayard’s SC 50 Hula Girl. A strengthened and extended ridge off the North Pacific High has slowed the latter, as well as the other big boats that started on Thursday and Saturday.

latitude/Rob
© Latitude 38 Media, LLC

Pre-race predictions of breeze the whole way across, and a sound beating of the earlier starters who had to wait 24 hours for wind, are no longer such sureties. What’s for certain is that this tightly knotted fleet — in Division A, less than two and a half hours separates the top five boats — is paying close attention to the weather.

"It’s surprising to me that they’ve all jibed at once — it’s like they all got the same email at the same time," Richards said, laughing. "It looks like most of them are paying attention to the same information."

Check out www.pacificcup.org to follow this very competitive and not-so-predictable race.

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Mark Deppe on Alchera crossed the halfway point in the Singlehanded TransPac yesterday.