Is the south starting to pay? - Transpac 2007

by Rich Roberts on 17 Jul 2007 The puzzle that plagues navigators racing to Hawaii is seldom to find the shortest course but the fastest, and this 44th biennial Transpacific Yacht Race to Hawaii has evolved into a classic example.

Pyewacket's Stan Honey said Sunday before the big boats started that he would make the call---north, south or in between---at 'about 6 o'clock tonight,' not far past Santa Catalina Island 22 miles off the Southern California coast---and every other eye in the race was on Honey to see which way he'd go. Wouldn't you like to know what the last Volvo Ocean Race winner was thinking?

According to Flagship tracking charts Monday, Honey may have gone conservative. Pyewacket was headed generally southwest straight toward the islands, making 13 knots, with Division 1 rivals Doug Baker's Magnitude 80 and Mike Campbell and Dale Williams' Peligroso falling in behind, well ahead of Bob Lane's Medicine Man, which tried the north for awhile before dipping back down on a parallel course.

A notable exception was Roger Sturgeon's Rosebud, a new STP 65 that flashed impressive speed in two inshore regattas leading up to Transpac. Rosebud was headed almost due south at 13 knots without losing significant distance to its division rivals, except Pyewacket, and building leverage for when it turns west into the trade winds.

Not far back was Morning Light, a Transpac 52 sailing at 10.8 knots but not as far south as two other Division 2 boats, the Santa Cruz 70s Westerly and Skylark, streaking side by side at 11.3 knots.

Back among the last starters in Division 2, Philippe Kahn reported from Pegasus 101, an Open 50 doublehanded entry, 'At Catalina we had a decision to make. I spent an hour crunching weather information [and] Richard [Clarke] and I debated. We saw most of the fleet go north. We decided to go south. It will take a few days to figure out who got it right.'

It seems the south is paying off. David Clark, sailing the Santa Cruz 50 Adrenalin that started Thursday and led 50/52 division for awhile, wrote: 'Things appear to have changed some. Breeze has been lightening and continually keeping us north of our desired waypoints. Boats north of us are taking the worst of this and those to the south are benefiting but must sail much farther.'

The south scenario was advanced among earlier starters with much shuffling of the running orders in the various divisions. Those that lost miles by going south are now cashing in their strategic, if risky, investments. New leaders Monday included Steve Calhoun's Cal 40 Psyche in Division 6, Ross Pearlman's Between the Sheets in Aloha A and Bill Myers' Cirrus from Honolulu in Aloha B.

Myers is sailing with a four-woman crew led by Lindsey Austin, 22, who was a finalist for the Morning Light team.

In a battle of Cal 40s, Calhoun had jumped to first place in Division 6 but said, '[I'm] worrying about whether to sail even farther south to cover Far Far, wondering if the rest of the fleet would just pass us by. We knew there was a bit more wind to the south. Today the weather maps showed that there was substantially more wind to the south. More specifically, there is a disturbance? Is it a depression?'

It may not even be a factor. Alaska Eagle, a long-ago Whitbread Round the World Race winner that serves as the communications vessel and is sailing out in front of everyone, reported that tropical storm Cosme was feeding them some wind and helping them to pick up speed, but that 'it probably will not bother the fleet on its current course.'

Earlier, Ed Feo's Locomotion from Long Beach checked in with 'we rounded the west end [of Catalina] a bit after 1700 [5 p.m. PDT]. We were the sixth boat, which is not too shabby for the smallest and slowest boat that started [Sunday]. We have competitors all around us, and as it got dark about the only boat we could not account for was Pyewacket, presumably off into the sunset.'

Bill McKinley on Denali, from Grosse Point, Mich. described 'a slow start as the winds were light and the spectator boats many. We thought we were in a DMZ zone with all the helicopters [that were] mostly focused on Morning Light and her mega sister ship, Pyewacket. It was slow going for a couple of hours until the west breeze filled it at around 10 knots.

'As we passed the west end [of Catalina] we were in some good company with Skylark, Medicine Man and the media darlings of the race, Morning Light. I am sure that all the navigators and skippers have been scratching their heads on which way to go, like the brain trust of Denali.'

On the Edge of Destiny's five young sailors on a 1D35 also went south and have improved their position to third place in Division 5. Skipper Sean Doyle, 19, reported: 'The wind has clocked around to pretty far behind us and we put up the big yellow symmetrical kite today. We have been surfing fairly well when the wind is up at 18-20, and luckily we haven't seen below 10 knots of wind speed yet. These are our conditions because we are so light we just have to push hard to surf when no one else can.'

A day earlier their steering went out.

'We had switched back to the big white kite and the boat suddenly spins out,' Doyle said. 'A shackle in the steering chain had bent open and the wheel was just spinning in the wind. Luckily, it happened during the day with everyone on deck and we had the boat back on course with the emergency tiller and the kite back up within a minute or two.'

Doyle also said that Roscoe Fowler had repaired the broken radio that prevented them from reporting their daily positions.

More information: www.transpacificyc.org

Transpac 2007 standings (By corrected handicap time. ORR rating allowances in parentheses in days:hours:minutes:seconds based on handicap distance of 2,300 n.m.; subtract time allowance from actual final elapsed time to determine corrected handicap time)

Positions at 8 a.m. Monday

Division 1 (Started July 15)
1. Pyewacket (Reichel/Pugh 90), Roy P. Disney/Gregg Hedrick, Burbank, Calif. (minus-21 hours, 9 minutes, 13 seconds), 2,046 miles to go.
2. Magnitude 80 (Andrews 80), Doug Baker, Long Beach, Calif. (00:4:32:33), 2,073.
3. Rosebud (STP 65), Roger Sturgeon, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (1:04:09:36), 2,085.
4. Peligroso (Kernan 70), Mike Campbell/Dale Williams, Long Beach (1:05:17:12), 2,088.
5. Medicine Man (Andrews 63), Bob Lane, Long Beach (1:07:02:37), 2,125.


Division 2 (Started July 15)
1. Holua (Santa Cruz 70), Brack Duker, Pasadena, Calif. (2:08:51:12), 2,094.
2. Samba Pa Ti (Transpac 52), John Kilroy Jr., Los Angeles (2:04:02:17), 2,105.
3. Lucky (Transpac 52), Bryon Ehrhart, Chicago (2:05:26:28), 2,120.
4. Morning Light (Transpac 52), Jeremy Wilmot, Honolulu (2:05:27:19), 2,122.
5. Hugo Boss (Volvo 60), Andy Tourell, Gosport, UK (1:23:10:32), 2,121.
6. Skylark (Santa Cruz 70), Doug Ayres, Newport Beach, Calif. (2:06:24:05), 2,129.
7. Westerly (Santa Cruz 70), Thomas and Timothy Hogan, Newport Beach (2:06:06:45), 2,131.
8. DH-Pegasus 101 (Open 50), Philippe Kahn/Richard Clarke, Honolulu (2:00:47:54), 2,161.
9. Trader (Transpac 52), Fred Detwiler, Pompano Beach, Fla. (2:09:31:32), 2,171.


Division 3 (Started July 15)
1. Denali (Nelson/Marek 70), William McKinley, Grosse Pointe, Mich. (2:13:37:33), 2,113.
2. Pendragon IV (Davidson 52), John MacLaurin, Encino, Calif. (2:19:54:52), 2,128.
3. Locomotion (Andrews 45), Ed Feo, Long Beach (3:03:56:13), 2,132.
4. It's OK (Andrews 50), Tres Gordo Sailing, Glendora, Calif. (2:14:25:31), 1,135.
5. Bengal 7 (Ohashi 46), Yoshihiko Murase, Nagoya, Japan (3:03:43:16), 2,141.
6. Cheetah (ULDB 70), Chris Slagerman, Los Angeles (2:18:18:28), 2,168.
7. Ragtime (Spencer 65), Chris Welsh, Newport Beach (2:23:51:49), 2,174.
8. Yumehyotan (Nelson/Marek 68), Yasuo Sano, Osaka, Japan (2:22:57:25