Pacific Cup - Riding Rufless across the Pacific

by Pressure-Drop.US on 26 Jul 2016 2016 Pacific Cup - We begin this tale with the fundamental roots. The Melges 32 featured in this story is not a tock Melges 32' by any means. The former Bronco was a well sailed class boat the ridden hard and put away wet. When found a few years ago in a San Diego boat yard, she was in sad shape and in need of a good home.

Enter Rufus Sjoberg, a San Francisco Bay sailor with a penchant for retooling and re-purposing boats for missions they were never intended or expected to perform. Then sailing them in conditions in which they were not originally intended. A primary example was the 11 Meter he reconstructed and raced in offshore events including the Farallones race.

Always keen on the boats savvy hull design, immense sail area and quick as lightening acceleration, Rufus managed to refrain himself from entering the game while the boats were massively popular on the West Coast, when the market softened substantially in recent years the door opened, he cautiously entered. The idea of getting his hands on one of these beasts for pennies on the dollar, too irresistible. Rufus's gift with all things carbon on a known quantity in this neck of the woods, one that was enhanced tremendously with a gig working on the Volvo 65's during the last cycle.

'It was really a great learning experience working side by side with the best in the business. All the tricks and the techniques along with the understanding of stress points and loads, and how to build the most bomb proof sailing machines on the planet' Rufus indicated

The intention was to make his Melges 32' a ruthless offshore go fast machine capable of handling whatever Mother Nature dished out. A couple thousand man hours of labor and yards of cloth and buckets of resin later, Rufless was reunited with water and put to the test. The OYRA series, The Ditch Run, YRA point to point events SSS events, the Spinnaker Cup and this year the Coastal Cup, all working up to the grand plan, sail her in the Pacific Cup, 2070 nm from San Francisco to Kaneohe, Hawaii.

It would a solid core of gung ho, no fear crew. One that can face diversity in the face and laugh. One that gets along and gets stronger when the shit hits the fan. Enter Dylan Benjamin, Ruben Gabriel, Benjamin Allen and Jonny 'Ocean' Goldsberry. The quintuple had all sailed with one another in various form over the decades but never on the same boat, at the time. With tens of thousands of ocean miles under their belts, all except Jonny Ocean had logged on numerous transpacific races. It was to be Jonny's virgin Pac Cup.

'I was supposed to be on the east coast, sailing in a Marstrom 32 event, but when Rufus invited me on for the ride, I couldn't say no' Jonny says. 'I wasn't sure what to expect, and have buoy raced the Melges 32 for years, and done lots of shorter ocean races on various boats, but to sail A Melges 32 all the way to Hawaii... That is insane, I'm in!'

The routing numbers before the start suggested a quick ride, and solid winds in the 15-25 range, with maybe a day or two of stronger, certainly within range of what the boats 'sweet spot' which could propel them to the islands in seven to eight days, if all goes to plan.

The first three days were wet, cold and bumpy as all get up. 36 hours of confused seas, and up to 40 knots of breeze. The crew fought hard tight reaching with a jib until the third day. They burned through a set of sheets, broke the mast head halyard and a couple blocks before even setting a kite. 'Fortunately we had some back up for everything' Rufus explains. Jonny had a hard time keeping his meals down and was sick as dog for first three days. 'The guys made me drink Gatorade and eat some bars, even though I didn't feel like it' Jonny recalls 'Then after a safety meeting on the third day things felt much better'.

They set the small fractional kite on the third day. Things were looking up! They started reeling in the bigger boats in the division, which had taken and early lead. They got two day in on the shy kite and on the second night, things got crazy.

The breeze remained relentless and during the pitch black of night, the crew attempting to sleep below heard Benjamin's voice up on the deck. 'F%#&, F%#&, No, No, No'! Emerging from the hatch they see Benjamin retrieving what's left of the one small kite, sheared cleanly just above the tack patch. The crew were in a tough spot. Without a back-up small kite they were forced back on to the jib and main, something they really did not embellish. The thought of tying knots in the clew and head of the existing kites was bounced around. Anything to get the boat back up to speed. 'It was an interesting idea' Rufus says' But each of those babies are $12K apiece and that would have destroyed them'

The pitching and rolling of the Melges 32 in such conditions is one thing, when the ultra-light gets slammed by a wave is a whole another adventure. The plans to cook some freeze dried meals, canned stew or ramen was diminished early. The gimbaled camp stove would allow user to just start getting things warm before the boat would get slammed and the contents would be strewn all over the galley. 'It was hopeless Ruben laughs.

The Melges 32's sweet spot is in the 15-20 knot range and is manageable in 25 knots, but when it gets in to the 30 knot range it gets sketchy, compound that by day after day of sailing, the demanding conditions wear on a crew, especially an under fueled crew. They also noticed some sluggishness in the boats handling during the couple day with the fractional. Assuming they picked up some kelp, they ran the kelp cutter to no avail. Backing down accomplished nothing.' The trash in the water around the bottom of the high was alarming' Jonny exclaimed' I had read about it, but seeing it first hand was eye opening. We dodged all sorts of large debris, like pilings and large fishing nets, so picking up something was a really possibility.

Adding to the problems were the readings on the instruments, which need to be spot on work the polars, so critical in a high performance boat like the Melges. 'They seemed off, and when we checked against the hand held GPS and figured they were about two knots off' Rufus said.

After two days of frustration under jib and main, the crew set the big kite again and were back in full race mode. Only problem with the Melges 32 class kite in big ocean swell is they are too much kite: The boat would get to the wave tops and accelerate into the high teens as it surfed down the face and then slam into the next wave on the bottom, decelerate to less than 10 knots and the kite would collapse. It would take 30-45 seconds to get the kite to power up, and start the process over again. 'About every 20th wave, we would crash hard, pull the snuffer down, reset and start the process over' Rufus said,' The snuffer was a life saver and I think are all converted Snufferupaguses'

They pushed the boat hard for the last two days but took a break on the last night. 'We were all exhausted and decided to go with the jib for a while' Rufus sighs' With all hands on deck and in the cockpit and I was driving during the wee hours, he looked at the crew and they were all dead asleep on the rail doing 20 knots!

With 100 nm to go, the crew reset the large kite and pushed the boat with all they had left, leaving nothing on the race course. They arrived in Kaneohe after nine days, five hours, forty-three minutes and six seconds at sea. The first Melges 32 to complete a trans Pacific race!

'We just wanted to get to those damn Mai Tai's so bad' Jonny elates, and food... I ate two cheeseburgers at the dock, a whole plate of sushi in the club and two pounds of pasta when we got back to the house!

The biggest surprise of the trip came shortly after tying up the dock, seeing 15' of 2' fishing rope wrapped around the bulb of the keel, which they presumably had dragged 1/2 way across the Pacific. A feeling of elation combine with a large dish of 'what if' settled across the crew, and they vow to complete the unfinished business ruminates from the crew. With lessons learned on what went right, what can be improved on. Rufus rehab on the Melges made a buoy chasing boat into a real ocean racing contender, with the right crew.

The custom dodger was a life saver, the refitted rudder bearing assembly with a custom reinforced box were key. 'We would have ripped out the rudder on day one if we had a stock bearing' Jonny notes' 'And the custom life raft elevated platform was huge in getting the weight aft were it needs to be' . Rufus notes. 'But we need flatter kites, the class kite are just too full'. There will be lots of minor tweaks here and there for future attempt, but the crew vow to ride in this rodeo together again.' We just had too much fun together, despite all the challenges, and we all got along in the most trying of times.

The Team Rufless, will ride again!