It's a quiet day at Transpac
by Transpacific Yacht Club 13 Jul 2023 12:29 AEST
It's quiet today around the Ala Wai Marina: the first awards party last night packed Waikiki Yacht Club into the late hours and there are no new finishers at Diamond Head until late tonight when Doug Pasnik's Andrews 70 TRADER is expected.
With no new arrivals today the lawn tent that has been hosting Aloha parties for the past few days is empty and quiet, for the time being, and the more than 100 volunteers of the Honolulu Committee have gotten a bit of a breather.
Teams that finished in the last two days have exhausted their stories, are now rested, and are busy hosing down and cleaning their boats. Some are also bricking up their race sails on any available lawn space in the marina and installing delivery sails to help those crews prepare for their long journeys home. Some are at the fuel dock getting the jerry jugs filled and others at the markets getting provisions, fishing gear, and lawn chairs. Engines and water makers are being serviced, as are the all-important autopilots.
In fact, some have already left, leaving their PASHA HAWAII YB trackers on to chart their progress, while some others are taking advantage of PASHA HAWAII's shipping option to save on any additional wear and tear on the boat.
There is, however, one boat here that is preparing for another race and in another direction besides northeast. Jason Carroll's team on his MOD 70 ARGO had to retire from Transpac due to engine problems but came to Hawaii on a delivery to prepare for another long trip. The World Record for multihull sailing 3750 miles from Honolulu to Yokohama is 13 days 20 hours, set by Steve Fossett in 1995 on LAKOTA, one of the original ORMA 60's, with an average speed of 11.3 knots...with any kind of decent weather this would be a crawl for a MOD 70.
ARGO project manager Chad Corning said they needed to get ARGO on the other side of the planet by the end of the summer to Lanzarote in the Canary Islands in preparation for the Transatlantic Race, so they see this trip as an added bonus to having to make this long journey anyway.
"We are going to start looking at weather windows from August 1st," said Corning. "Our routing suggests this could be as fast 7 to 8 days. We see this as being about 75% downwind Tradewinds sailing, followed by more complicated patterns in the western Pacific. The X-factor will be any tropical storm weather that may arise, but we should have advance warning of any of these."
ARGO will have six crew on this trip, one of whom was with Fossett in 1995: offshore multihull expert Brian Thompson, who was the navigator on ARGO's Transpac crew.
Although today was quiet, the first of the infamous Transpac parties is hosted tonight at Waikiki Yacht Club. Everyone should pace themselves because there are more awards celebrations and parties to come throughout the week.
Check out the schedule at transpacyc.com/race-info/2023-race-info.
Daily analyses of the race, interviews, blogs and more are found on the TPYC YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/c/TranspacRace.
All entries in Transpac can be tracked on the YB system, sponsored by Pasha Hawaii. The positions, speeds and headings of each entry can be found on this system on either the browser of app versions. There is a built-in 4 hour delay for each entry, except when within 200 miles of the finish when the tracker goes live. Use this link to follow the fleet: cf.yb.tl/transpac2023#.
Official results can be found on Yacht Scoring.
For more information on the 2023 Transpac, visit transpacyc.com.