2nd Transpac starters face grim wind prospects

by Rich Roberts on 12 Jul 2007 'Have you imagined yourself a sole survivor of a shipwreck in a small vessel with no power, drifting alone in the Pacific? Do it now.'

So read the grim e-mail report from Psyche, Steve Calhoun's Cal 40 from Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. that started the 44th Transpacific Yacht Race to Hawaii with 22 other boats Monday.

Although breezes up to 18 knots blew over the Southern California beaches Wednesday, the morning's position reports placed the early starters only 54 (Anna Katarina) to 105 (Peregrine) nautical miles offshore, averaging 1.6 (Lady Liberty) to 3.5 (Mysteré) knots in speed in winds described as light to nonexistent.

Jorge Morales Mysteré, a Swan 42 from Dana Point, Calif., was farthest along the 2,225-nautical mile track with 2,082 miles to go, while Michael Lawler's North Wind 47, Traveler, had logged only 64 miles after a six-hour re-start because of a crew injury.

One boat grew impatient, dropped its sails and turned on its engine. According to the Flagship satellite tracking system, Jim Partridge's Cal 2-46 from Pasadena, Calif. was motoring southwest directly toward Hawaii at 7.5 knots.

'They just want to get to Honolulu,' a Transpac official concluded.

Such was the prospect facing 27 boats in the Divisions 4 and 5, plus nine Santa Cruz 50s and 52s due to start Thursday at 1 p.m. off Point Fermin in San Pedro. Public sendoff ceremonies at Rainbow Harbor in downtown Long Beach start at 10 a.m., and the start may be viewed from the bluff at Point Fermin Park.

The last 23 boats will start Sunday on the same time schedule.

Thursday's starters will include not only Transpac's youngest crew ever---five sailors aboard On the Edge of Destiny averaging 19.8 years, as noted earlier---but the race's oldest crew ever, if doublehanded crews count. Michael Abraham, skipper of the J/133 Tango, is 70, and navigator Philip Rowe's 70th birthday is Thursday. The Newport Beach duo also sailed the race in 2001 and swore they'd never do it again.

Now Abraham says, 'I'd like to tell people of AARP age that once you go on Medicare you gotta keep going on with your life. Our wives think we're crazy. I think mine called our agent to see if my life insurance was still good. We'll be okay. We're loading four gallons of Geritol.'

The youngest sailor in this year's race? It could be Justin Diepenbrock, 15, the son of Mike Diepenbrock, skipper of Rancho Deluxe, a Swan 45 from Sacramento and nephew of Diepenbrock, the navigator.

'Transpac is something we always wanted to do together,' Mike said, 'so after a few years of raising our kids we figured we'd better get on with it.'

Another Thursday starter will be Honolulu businessman Gib Black's Stag's Leap Winery, a Santa Cruz 50 recently named for its new sponsor. It lived the first 28 years of its life as Chasch Mer, something of an icon as the first of its kind in a long line of successful ultralight racers hatched from designer Bill Lee's legendary chicken coop in Soquel, Calif.

Randy Parker sailed it in its first Transpac in 1979 and it has done five more since. Black bought it when Parker died two years ago. The boat is a perfect fit for Transpac's following trade winds.

'This is the boat I was in love with,' Black recalled. 'I was a surfer as a kid, and this is just a big surfboard.'

For those already at sea, it was hardly surfing conditions.

Calhoun messaged from Psyche, 'Night fell, and so did the wind, teasing us with 6-knot 'gusts,' and then dropping to nil. Our first goose eggs on the knot meter occurred about midnight. This is the second most discouraging event, consequent to the wind dropping. The first most discouraging, yet to occur this year, is the '360,' which refers to what happens to a sailboat when the wind is so absolutely zero that the boat is no longer moving forward. At all.

'But life could be worse. We are presently sipping wine and watching the sun go down with [another Cal 40] Far Far on the horizon.'

www.transpacificyc.org/