Morning Light meets the new Pyewacket

by Rich Roberts on 27 Jun 2007 Sooner or later, the boats Morning Light and Pyewacket were destined to meet before starting the Transpacific Yacht Race, and when they did the younger sailors were awestruck.

'Holy cow!' was one of the milder reactions when they returned to Rainbow Harbor in downtown Long Beach last Sunday after a two-night offshore cruise to find Roy E. Disney's other boat---newly and radically modified---in their usual parking spot along Pine Avenue Pier. They had sailed on the maxZ86 Pyewacket after the team tryouts last year, but now it had grown eight feet and sprouted wings.

Jesse Fielding said, 'It's the wildest sailboat I've ever seen.'

After the 2005 Transpac Disney, now 77, announced his retirement from racing and donated the boat to the Orange Coast College School of Sailing and Seamanship, then changed his mind, chartered it back and ordered major changes that would stretch it to 94 feet and add wings for stacking sails and bodies as ballast.

His Morning Light team will be sailing a more conventional Transpac 52---not bad; it's the former Pegasus that clocked the fastest elapsed time in Division 2 in 2005. Since resuming training on the mainland the team has done several overnight sails. The latest, which took them nearly 200 miles offshore over 44 hours, gave them a taste of what the first days of Transpac may be like.

They started off Point Fermin in San Pedro where they'll start alongside Pyewacket and other Division 1, 2 and 3 boats on Sunday, July 15. Unfortunately, conditions were a light and fluky Catalina eddy from the southeast instead of the usual sea breeze from west or southwest.

'I don't want to start [Transpac] in that,' co-navigator Piet van Os said.

But that night off San Nicolas Island they found a transition zone with 25 knots from southwest to northwest that had them hitting a top speed of 25.6 knots before turning around off Mexico's Baja California peninsula.

Skipper Jeremy Wilmot said the crew, none of whom has sailed Transpac, is just about ready for the main event.

'After this trip we're definitely feeling better,' he said.

Earlier, the team competed in last month's big-boat First Team Real Estate Invitational Regatta for the Hoag Cup at Newport Beach and placed fifth overall among 15 entries, including several sailed by professionals.

Later, they visited northern Nevada to tour North Sails' 3DL sail plant in Minden and spend an evening with 200 junior sailors from Nevada and Northern California at a fund-raiser for Sierra Nevada Community Sailing, which is based at Sparks Marina near Reno.

Rog Jones, the facility's director, said, 'The Morning Light crew had our dinner audience on their feet five or six times during the evening as they answered questions from the audience. It was just amazing. They were the most positive thing that have happened in my time of running a sailing non-profit.'

The highlight was a five-minute sneak preview of footage gathered toward the documentary film that will recount the Morning Light project.

'It was a 'teaser' reel that just blew the audience away,' Disney said. 'It gives a sense of what the final documentary will be.'

At this point, the team---strangers 10 months ago---has come together 'like family,' co-navigator Chris Branning said. '[At] 21, 22 years old, to be given this opportunity is unheard of. I've never even been a member of a yacht club.'

Van Os said, 'Sailing is such a team sport that if you don't help out somebody next to you you're not going to succeed.'

To which Mark Towill commented, 'The people who tried to make [the tryouts] a competition weeded themselves out.'

There are two females among the final 15, Genny Tulloch and Kate Theisen. The latter is an alternate for the 11 who will sail Transpac.

Tulloch said, 'For us it wasn't an issue. We do need big, strong guys on the boat, but they wouldn't disregard our sailing ability for someone with more muscle.'

And for the lot, it's more about sailing than a movie.

'We just want the movie to show hardcore sailing [and to demonstrate] that this is what it's like,' Tulloch said.

Branning said, 'I never worked this hard in school.'


Manson accepted by SUNY Maritime College

Morning Light team member Steve Manson of Baltimore has been accepted in the naval architecture program at SUNY Maritime College, Fort Schuyler, N.Y., it was announced by Jerry Hauprich, executive director of the city's Downtown Sailing Center. Manson, 22, will start classes this fall.

Manson launched his sailing career from scratch out of Baltimore's inner city by asking for a job at the Sailing Center. DSC is assisting in raising funds to pay the expected tuition of $19,000 a year.

Morning Light on the Web
Photos of the team in training may be viewed at www.papahui.com/

More information: www.pacifichighproductions.com/ and www.transpacificyc.org

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