Solo Sailors Keep on Truckin’
The 23 racers in the Singlehanded TransPac have pushed through the uncomfortable beam seas of the first third of the course and are now enjoying a more comfortable ride, if not an abundance of wind and sun. Smaller boats with solar as their sole source of energy production, such as the Moore 24s Hope for the Warriors (US101) and RushMoore sailed by Ronnie Simpson and Ruben Gabriel respectively, are suffering. Simpson’s brother Rj noted yesterday, "Today’s phone call started with Ronnie wanting to know the best way to tie a noose. He said it’s still cloudy and the batteries are dead. He is hand steering downwind in very light air, less than 5 knots. He is also without any weather information." Gabriel, on the other hand, reported to the race committee this morning that last night’s sharp turn south yielded better wind, though still no sun so he’s also hand steering — and has been for three days. "I’ve had three hours sleep in the last six days," he said.
With just 650 miles to go before crossing the finish line at idyllic Hanalei Bay on the island of Kauai, Alex Mehran on the Open 50 Truth is set to break the race’s elapsed time record of 10d, 22h, 53m set by Ray Thayer in 1996 on his Open 60 Wild Thing. "If he keeps up his pace," said Race Chair Rob Tryon, "he should make it in Sunday."
The rest of the fleet have sailed south of the rhumbline and have stayed suprisingly close together throughout the race. Many of the boats have been within VHF range — if not shouting range — of other boats, crossing within just a few miles on occasion. A glitch in the race tracker algorithms caused some confusion for the first couple days about who was leading, but with it fixed, shoreside fans can now see that Tom Watson’s Pearson Triton Darwind is leading the Plastic Classics fleet, Whitall Stokes’ Tartan Ten Slacker is leading 30 Somethings, Brian VanderZanden’s Hobie 33 TurboCamper is leading the Fast & Fun boats, and Jim Quanci’s Cal 40 Green Buffalo is at the head of the Big & Comfy class and is currently in first for overall monohull honors. Watch the tracker at the link above, or download the Yellowbrick Race Viewer app for your iToy or smartphone and buy the race for a little over $3. And be sure to read the racers’ log updates — they’re very illuminating, and often quite hilarious.
