Transpac Almost a Wrap

Almost all the finishers have now arrived at Waikiki in the 48th Transpac Race from Los Angeles, and we can safely say that James McDowell’s Santa Cruz 70 Grand Illusion has taken overall ORR honors on corrected time, followed by Chuck Nichols racing the Andrews 70 Pyewacket, with Craig Reynolds’s TP52 Bolt in third place. None of the above appear to be involved in any of the numerous protests, which almost exclusively involve procedural infractions and not boat-to-boat incidents on the race course.

We’ll have an extensive interim report in our August issue of Latitude 38, coming out on July 31, followed by a complete wrap-up in the September 1 issue. One correction already to the August story, which was sent to press before the ‘provisional’ finishes were tallied into ‘preliminary’ results: Lloyd Thornburg’s Gunboat 66 Phaedo did indeed correct out over Pat Benz’s sistership, Extreme H2O, which finished first in the three-Gunboat multihull division but has a faster rating.

In an interesting side project, the Ocean Cleanup has partnered with the Transpac to collect data in an exercise called The Mega Expedition, in which about 35 Transpac boats heading back to the mainland after the race will proceed along transit lanes aligned on lines of latitude and record what they see, as well as take samples.