Transpac 2025 Update: Moon River Tonight!
by David Schmidt / Transpacific Yacht Club 11 Jul 10:26 AEST
July 10, 2025
The magic of offshore racing in the 2025 Transpac
A vast ocean separates Los Angeles, California, from Honolulu, Hawaii, but the boats racing in this year's Transpac have now crossed the halfway mark. Race leaders are in the tradewinds and making their approach to the Aloha State. The 2025 Transpac began last week with 53 boats lining up in a series of three pursuit-style starts on July 1, July 3 and July 5, allowing all to finish within a few days of each other. Four boats have since retired from racing and the remaining fleet, ranging in size from 35 to 88 feet, is competing for both the fastest elapsed time to the finish line off Honolulu's Diamond Head, and for the best corrected time results using the Offshore Racing Rule handicap system.
While the winner of the King Kalakaua Trophy, which is the race's top handicap trophy, won't be known until the entire fleet finishes, all eyes are on Bryon Ehrhart's 88-foot Juan Kouyoumdjian-designed Lucky (née Rambler 88), which is currently leading the hunt for the race's famous Barn Door Trophy for fastest elapsed time.
Lucky might have started about 96 hours astern of the 16 boats that started on Tuesday, July 1, but—as of this writing—Ehrhart's team had traveled over 400 miles in 24 hours, and less than 350 nautical miles separate their bow from the finish line. According to Stan Honey, the team's navigator, Lucky is expected to finish the 2,225 nautical mile race early on the morning of Friday, July 11.
While Lucky has been throwing down some impressive 24-hour runs after escaping the clutches of a vexing upper-level low that caused an expansive area of light winds, other teams have found the sailing a little stickier than usual.
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"I'm calling it the Pacific Pothole," said Roy P. Disney, the owner and skipper of Andrews 70 Pyewacket, in an at-sea interview on Wednesday night. "We've had to go a lot farther south than we normally would ever do," he said, referring to the team's weather-routing strategy. "The seas out here just haven't organized themselves at all. Right now, I'm looking at 15 knots of wind, and we're doing 12 knots of boatspeed. It's been like that now for two and a half, three days."
While Disney, who is competing in his 26th Transpac, is one of the most experienced sailors and skippers in the race's history, it's the opposite end of the spectrum for 19-year-old Oscar Perry, who just finished his freshman year at Cal Maritime Academy and is racing aboard Santa Cruz 50 T/S Cal Maritime-Oaxaca. Not only is this his first Transpac — it's also his first offshore race.
When asked about his longest race prior to the 2025 Transpac, Perry's answer was as unique as his Transpac experience of getting hit with two squids, on two separate night watches: "Probably 15-20 nautical miles on an inshore course," he said in an at-sea interview on Wednesday.
Transpac's 2,225-nautical-mile course might be a massive sea change for Perry, but the excitement was evident in his voice. "I definitely want to keep doing them," he said of the race so far, describing moments such as seeing dolphins swimming through bioluminescence. "It's an awesome boat, an awesome team, and definitely a lifelong memory."
Brothers Dan and Steve Firestone, who co-own the Santa Cruz 52 Heroic Heart with their lifelong friend and fellow shipmate Mike Wolfe, might have all circumnavigated together as teenagers in the 1970s, but the 2025 Transpac is also their first serious ocean race.
"I was asking Steve for a refund of our entry fee after 24 hours in the lull," joked Wolfe, referring to the ghostly light airs that bedeviled the pack of boats that started racing on Wednesday, July 3. Fortunately, any talk of refunds ceased once Heroic Heart's kite usurped its jib.
When asked about his best watches of the race so far, Dan Firestone, who handles bow duties, pointed to one of offshore sailing's unique requirements. "Getting woken up from a dead sleep, getting my bearings and getting dressed is no easy task," he said. "And then being up on the foredeck at night in the semi-dark gybing the kite...It came together beautifully."
Brother Steve shared this sentiment, albeit from the helm. "Last night was the first night with the big A2 up," he said. "And heading deep downwind and just feeling like, 'okay, this is real—this is what we came for.' There was some apprehension. But getting through those watches and really mastering it was probably the most rewarding part of the trip so far."
The offshore-racing bug has clearly infected Heroic Heart.
Dan Firestone again: "An indication of how we're feeling about the trip is that we've already started our list of things we want to do differently next time."
When pressed about what changes he would make if he could borrow the Delorian from Back to the Future and have a pre-start chat with himself, Dan was succinct: "Don't bring the J3."
Perhaps most telling about the Heroic Heart crew's lifelong nautical journey, Wolfe offered this vignette about the team's first night at sea. "We've sailed forever, and I got seasick—it was shocking to me," he said, as he was previously unacquainted with the leeward rail. "It was a bit debilitating...I had a splitting headache and felt awful. But the rest of the team was like, 'hey, we'll get you through this.' And they took care of me. We really support each other."
This throughline of racing with family and friends runs deep throughout the fleet, but it's especially familiar aboard Tom Holthus' Botin 56 BadPak. Holthus is sailing in his ninth Transpac, while his 20-year-old son, Kelly, is already on his fifth.
"What a change he's undergone—when Kelly was 12, it was all new and pretty scary," said Tom in an at-sea interview call. "And now, he's one of our bowmen, out on the sprit pole. He loves it."
Cooler still, Kelly, a Tulane student, brought along three friends who are either students or recent grads. "You put a sheet in their hand or on the helm, and they drive the boat like it's a dinghy," Tom said, noting that two of the three are accompanied by their fathers. "They're all great sailors."
When asked about the squalls that often feature prominently in Transpac, Tom Furlong, owner and skipper of Reichel/Pugh 52 Vitesse, described this year's race as an outlier. "No squalls that are significant," he said during an at-sea interview. "We've had little spats of rain here and there, but it's not the squall-squalls that we're used to, where you get a six or eight knot increase in breeze and really hard rain."
Tradewinds and squalls may be subdued this year, but this hasn't dampened moments of onboard magic.
"We're getting into territory now where we're seeing some of the higher breeze," Furlong reported. "It's what these planing boats want—you want to get into that breeze and really start planing. I was driving last night for a little while with just under 20 knots of breeze, and it was a really nice evening."
Tales of improving fortunes were echoed elsewhere.
"The last 24 hours have been great," said Ivan Batanov, owner and skipper of Reichel/Pugh 51 Zero Gravity 51. "We've seen really nice conditions, mostly in the 16-18-knot range, and we're pointed straight at Hawaii."
Better still, Batanov said that most of the crew have ditched seaboots for Crocs or bare feet, however salopettes remain de rigueur due to the spray.
While Batanov's memories of specific watches are bleeding into each other, he said evening is always a special time. "We all get together for dinner and we're having super nice meals, thanks to my spouse, Melanie," he said, noting that the menu has included steak, roasted potatoes and asparagus. "We're thinking that maybe the next thing we need to install is a gimballed wine rack," he joked.
While Batanov reported that the team broke one sail, their snack supply remains in bull-market territory.
"The joke I make is that the snacks are free, but you have to pay for whatever's left in your snack bag after the race," Batanov said, referring to extraneous weight. "I'm sure that in a couple of days, we're going to start seeing some snack trading as people start running out of their favorites. That's always a fun team event."
Onboard commodities trading aside, all sailors can look forward to tonight's full moon.
"That'll be the best, when it's full, and you're sailing into a moon path," said Disney about the race's magic, which increases in tempo as one approaches Hawaii. "Every night gets better."
Find out more at www.transpacyc.com