Transpac Race 2011 has officially ended

by Kimball Livingston on 22 Jul 2011
On a day in which many recently-finished Transpac crews went off exploring beaches or waterfalls, Yoshihiko Murase rallied up his race crew, delivery crew and friends and cast off Bengal 7's lines for a mission of his own. The last Transpac boat still at sea was inbound, and he wanted to be there to greet Larry Malmberg's Hassle at Diamond Head.

Having brought one Bengal or another all the way from Japan for every race since 2001, Murase knows a thing or two about persistence, and the crew of Hassle had been persisting since their get-go from Point Fermin, San Pedro on the Fourth of July. Seventeen days.

Do the math on Bengal. It's roughly 5,000 miles from Nagoya, a port city of two million on Japan's Pacific Coast, to the Transpac start line at San Pedro, California. Bengal 7 is now roughly halfway home on this trip after covering (this is very, very rough) 57,500 miles since 2001 in the name of Transpac.

There were rain showers aplenty in the morning today, coming from the east, so Hassle got the rain first, then Bengal 7. But as things go in at Latitude 21, Longitude 158, everybody was dry by the 1118 HST official finish time for Malmberg's Catalina 38. Murase sailed upwind to a rendezvous point, then downwind alongside . . .

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Hassle crew may not have known they were being serenaded by a ukulele . . .

Dockside at the Waikiki Yacht Club, the Hassle crew was in high spirits (okay, I admit, I was relieved to observe the fact) with lots of toasts to the greatest skipper, the greatest crew, the greatest cook, and so on. Crewman Dennis Wolfe allowed, 'We got here with all our sails. There may be more pieces of them than there were when we started, is all.'

I suppose it is incumbent upon me to record that this is two races in a row in which Hassle has won the tail end charley award. I'm curious if that is a record, but too lazy to do the research at the moment. Reader advice is welcome. Meanwhile, aboard Bengal 7, I snapped a pic of a real photographer, lead Kazi shooter Yoichi Yabe.

Also aboard and working minute by minute was Mayuko Terao, who writes the Bengal 7 blog. She did the delivery from Nagoya, and she'll do the delivery home from Honolulu. We'll be reading, Mayuko.

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And that's my report. No big deal. Just our long-distance competitors from hard-put Japan, adding a little Aloha spirit of their own to Transpac 2011. I thought you ought to know.

Full Standings: http://www.transpacrace.com/docs/2011racedocs/DailyStandings/TP2011.V22.pdf

Transpac race http://www.transpacrace.com!website!

All times below are Hawaii Standard Time (HST)
** = Pau, Boat has Finished

Boat Name	100 Mile Time	25 Mile Time	Makapuu Time	ETA/Finish
Bella Mente	14/2345	15/0407	15/0515	15/05:44:28**
Espiritu Santi	16/0321	16/1208	16/1400	16/14:50:32**
Magnitude 80	Email Probs	15/0730	15/0756	15/08:35:07**
Medicine Man	16/0505	16/1003	16/1102	16/11:38:44**
O Canada	15/1419	15/2053	15/2218	15/23:02:38**
Peligroso	16/0341	16/0759	16/0908	16/09:50:32**
Pendragon VI	15/2044	16/0200	16/0218	16/03:19:06**
Paddy Wagon	16/1225	16/1955	16/2106	16/22:01:08**
Patches	16/1248	16/1816	16/1950	16/20:39:38**
Vincitore	16/1659	16/2222	16/2354	17/00:46:43**
Pegasus-Motion X	16/1703	16/2252	16/2356	17/00:44:39**
NAOS 2	16/1819	17/0212	17/0342	17/04:39:20**
Alpha Puppy	16/1851	17/0235	17/0406	17/05:02:16**
Grand Illusion	16/1935	17/0119	17/0220	17/02:59:23**
Bebe	16/2143	17/0643	17/0818	17/09:20:27**
Alchemy	16/2232	17/0427	17/0524	17/06:02:17**
Holua	16/2248	17/0432	17/0548	17/06:28:47**
Katana	17/0111	17/0757	17/0909	17/09:43:00**
Truth	17/0153	17/0715	17/0848	17/09:37:15**
Pyewacket	17/0154	17/0813	17/0914	17/09:53:00**
Peregrine 33	17/0318	17/1142	17/1312	17/14:03:54**
Criminal Mischief	17/0319	17/0945	17/1053	17/11:37:22**
Condor	17/0402	17/1105	17/1301	17/13:05:13**
Cheetah	17/0648	17/1247	17/1422	17/15:07:37**
Celerity	17/0725	17/1531	17/1726	1718:32:50**
Alaska Eagle	17/1005	17/1829	18/2004	17/21:17:36**
Between the Sheets	17/1706	18/0153	18/0342	18/04:55:22**
Sauvage	17/2109	18/0635	18/0823	18/09:33:06**
Locomotion	17/2252	18/0450	18/0700	18/06:54:13**
Gracie	17/2355	18/0847	18/1049	18/12:00:13**
Relentless 32	18/0015	18/1032	18/1117	18/1212:33**
Bengal 7	18/0055	18/0651	18/0650	18/08:47:34**
Rapid Transit	18/0205	18/0823	18/0942	18/10:27:40**
Wind Dancer	18/0615	18/1505	18/1657	18/17:53:36**
Horizon	18/0700	18/1239	18/1407	18/14:59:56**
Bad Pak	18/0817	18/1556	18/1716	18/17:56:24**
Allure	18/0824	18/1726	18/1820	18/19:03:12**
J-World Hula Girl	18/1105	18/1928	18/2107	18/22:23:01**
Relentless 52	18/1145	18/1806	18/1916	18/20:03:39**
Deception	18/1223	18/1941	18/2057	18/21:46:09**
Prevail	18/1241	18/1923	18/2039	18/21:19:07**
Wind Dancer	18/0614	18/1506	18/1656	18/17:53:36**
CaZan	18/1614	19/0003	19/0100	19/02:08:35**
Victoire	18/1704	19/0312	19/0505	19/06:20:12**
Paranoia	18/1809	19/0137	19/0314	19/04:04:13**
Flaca	18/1910	19/0317	19/0448	19/05:54:38**
Traveler	18/2322	19/0931		19/13:02:55**
Second Chance	19/0247	19/1123	19/1344	19/15:25:30**
ROY'S Chasch Mer	19/1454	19/2150	19/2338	20/00:52:17**
Hassle	20/2205	21/0752		21/11:18:10**