Transpac 2025: Third and final starters depart LA for Diamond Head
by David Schmidt / Transpacific Yacht Club 6 Jul 13:05 NZST
July 5, 2025
Transpac 2025 © Doug Gifford
The 20 biggest, fastest boats racing in the 2025 Transpac began their offshore sprint from Los Angeles, California, to Honolulu, Hawaii, on Saturday. Ranging in length from 51 to 88 feet, these boats are competing in four divisions and also aiming to win the race's two most prestigious prizes. The Barn Door Trophy honors the boat with the fastest elapsed time across the 2,225 nautical mile racecourse, while the King Kalakaua Trophy is awarded to the team that posts the fastest corrected time using the Offshore Racing Rule handicap system.
Today's start was the third and final of the 2025 Transpac's three pursuit-style send-offs, held on July 1, July 3 and July 5. The biennial race is organized by the Transpacific Yacht Club and is considered one of the world's greatest offshore events.
Under clear skies with flat seas and a light six-knot west-southwesterly, all 19 starting monohulls were across the line by 1301:07. John Raymont's Ker 52 Fast Exit was OCS ("On Course Side," or over early) but turned back to restart and exonerate herself. Don Wilson's Convexity2, competing in the smithREgroup Multihull Division, began racing on schedule at 1330 in eight knots of southwesterly breeze, which was forecast to build throughout the afternoon.
At the time of this writing and according to the Pasha YB Tracker, today's starters were on a southwesterly course and clear of the west end of Catalina Island, with Bryon Ehrhart's 88ft Juan Kouyoumdjian-designed Lucky (née Rambler 88) around first. Andries Verder's Marten 72 Aragon was leading the push in the Boatswain's Locker/Yanmar Division 1; Thomas Furlong's Vitesse was frontrunner in the Mount Gay Division 2; and Jack Jennings' Pied Piper was topping the leaderboard in the Whittier Trust Division 3.
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While all 52 boats that are still racing in the 2025 Transpac (see below) are competing for the King Kalakaua Trophy, the Barn Door Trophy is a different matter. This coveted prize celebrates sheer speed and is pursued by the boats with the longest waterlines and the most polished crews, prepared to tackle the sometimes-mammoth loads generated by these boats' towering rigs.
"We're about half and half," said Thomas Furlong, owner and skipper of the Reichel/Pugh 52 Vitesse, referring to his blend of amateur and professional crewmembers. On the amateur side, Furlong's crew includes his niece, Sarah Young, who just graduated from Dartmouth, in addition to several friends who have raced with him for years. While all aboard are accomplished sailors, "Professionals are really good at helping us push," he said. "It's always good to have somebody say, 'you know, it's time to slow down' or 'you can go faster.'"
For Furlong, the 2025 Transpac was four years in the making. He raced it in 2019 and 2021, but just before the start of the 2023 event, his insurance company declined to issue an out-of-area waiver. While unfortunate news, the silver lining was a long lead-time to get organized for this year. "We've had a progression in our sail inventory that has been focused on reaching," Furlong said, noting that things felt less frantic in the final push before today's start. "We've been on that journey for over four years."
Fewer journeys to the Transpac starting line have been longer or more celebrated than those of Ragtime, the Spencer 65 owned and skippered by Tina Roberts, and Merlin, the Bill Lee 68 owned and skippered by Chip Merlin. These two legendary boats, which began racing today in the Whittier Trust Division 3, have each sailed 15 Transpacs, and neither is a stranger to the awards-ceremony spotlight.
Ragtime (née Infidel in 1963) won the Barn Door twice, in 1973 and 1975, while Merlin, which was designed and built to beat Ragtime, claimed the prize in 1977 while also setting a new course record of 8 days, 11 hours, 1 minute, and 45 seconds, that stood for 20 years (hold that thought). Both boats have also undergone significant refits—Merlin in 2019, while Ragtime relaunched in 2024 after several years on the hard. The refits preserved their historic lines, but turbo-charged their on-the-water performance.
When asked if a rivalry existed, both Merlin and Roberts were quick to focus on the big picture.
"Every boat in the fleet is our competition this year," said Roberts. "We don't know how Ragtime's going to perform. We've built a new boat."
Roberts' refit journey is one that Merlin understands well. "We hope that Ragtime does well. I hope they push the heck out of us, and I wish them nothing but the best," said Merlin, noting that he'd still like to win.
While both Merlin and Ragtime are in capable hands as they race across the Pacific, world-famous navigator Adrienne Cahalan is one of Merlin's not-so-secret weapons. "She can drive that boat as well as anybody else," said Merlin, noting that while Cahalan is a ringer, most of his crew are good amateurs, not pros.
Back to Merlin's 1977 elapsed-time record.
In 1997, Roy P. Disney's Santa Cruz 70, Pyewacket, usurped Merlin's record sailing Transpac's 2,225-mile course in 7 days, 15 hours, 24 minutes, and 40 seconds.
That year also marked the first time that the Pyewacket team held a traditional Hawaiian blessing ceremony before their race. "I like to honor the Hawaiian culture," said Disney, who continued this dockside tradition on Wednesday. "These people found Hawaii in a rowboat from 3,000 miles away by looking at swell patterns and birds and fish on the water. I can't find my way down the 405 freeway, so I respect that, and I honor that," he said.
"And, by the way, in 1997, I broke the record by 24 hours," Disney said of the tradition's auspicious origins.
These days, however, Disney said he's more focused on winning the King Kalakaua Trophy than chasing the Barn Door, which he last won in 2021. "If you want to get to that level of the game, you've got to spend to that level of the game," he said, noting that the design of today's Barn Door contenders—for example, Lucky—has progressed considerably. "I don't do that anymore," he said. "For us, it's about the corrected overall, which is also just equally as hard, if not harder."
Transpac is already a demanding race, but Disney said he often adds to the challenge by dropping his coffee habit ahead of the race. "It makes my sleep patterns much easier because we're on four-hour shifts, and you have to be able to get that sleep when you're off-hours," he said, joking that the admission price for improved onboard slumber is caffeine-withdrawal symptoms. "You have to be a little bit narcoleptic."
While Disney started his 27th Transpac today and is contending for the most Transpacs ever sailed (he began this journey at age 17), he calls this a secondary goal compared to winning.
"One of our speed secrets is our cohesiveness," Disney said, describing his connection with his crew, and how—at sea—absolute trust is a prerequisite. "When it gets tough, when there's no sleep, and guys are cranky, we still love each other. My dad taught me that," he continued.
As for the gravity that keeps pulling him back to Transpac, Disney said that the race has always been magical—from the whales to the sunsets. The sunrises, however, are a special kind of pixie dust.
"When you get through the night, when you get through pitch black, and all of a sudden, there's an orange glow behind you, and that sun pops up, you realize you won," he said. "That's a victory."
Personal victories aside, sailboat racing is a mechanical sport. Last night, Vortices 2, Chris Saxon's J/125, which began racing on July 3 in the Garmin Division 6, was forced to retire about 85 nautical miles offshore due to unrepairable rudder-bearing problems. All aboard are well and, in a quirk of timing, Vortices 2 safely entered the jetty at Marina del Rey just as today's monohulls were exiting the starting line.
Find out more at www.transpacyc.com