Who’s Racing in This Summer’s Pacific Cup?

The upcoming Pacific Cup currently has 83 entries, on boats ranging from 24-ft to 80-ft. We’ve reached out to a few of the sailors to learn more about their planned San Francisco to Hawaii race, starting on July 15. We recently wrote about Heather Richard, who will be racing doublehanded with her son Julian, and now we catch up with Elliott James, who will be racing aboard his well-known Mancebo 31 Bloom County. At 31-ft, Bloom County will be fitting in with the smaller boats, which are mostly racing doublehanded. Elliott will be among the doublehanded fleet with his crew, Kyle Vanderspek.

The duo was out for the recent Three Bridge Fiasco, after which Elliott reported, “It definitely lived up to its namesake. We felt like we were doing really well, until we weren’t.”

Though Elliott has never done a Pacific Cup, he has done a lot of offshore racing. “I used to live on the SV Concordia when I was in high school as part of a class afloat program, and sailed all over the world. I’ve done many offshore races and did the Baja Ha-Ha in 2021 with Bloom County. I sailed the Transpac in 2019 on the Hobie 33 Aloha, but the rudder broke and we had to limp in from 250 miles off L.A.”

Elliott continues, “I’ve wanted to do [a] Pacific Cup for many years. I’ve never been to Hawaii and am looking forward to my first time visiting via boat. Kyle has done [the] Transpac and the Pacific Cup several times. He won the Singlehanded Transpacific race in 2021 aboard his Hobie 33 Aloha.”

We asked what they were planning to do for meals during the race, to which Elliott replied, “I’m not sure what our meal situation will be. Likely freeze-dried and maybe some burritos on the first day.” They report they are planning to bring Starlink along for the ride since Kyle had a great experience with it aboard Merlin on the last Transpac.