Transpac Race: 8th July Update

Pegasus 50. Image copyright Lynn Fitzpatrick.

LATEST UPDATE FROM PHILIPPE KAHN ON PEGASUS 50

The following is a snippet from Phil Kahn's blog coming from Pegasus 50. Kahn prides himself in his boats and his equipment. His nav station, with its redundant systems, is the envy of navigators.

"...we never take anything for granted and keep on crunching a lot of weather information. We've been consistently reading 1019 on the barometer, which means that we are sailing down the 1019 isobar. We feel very comfortable with that.
At this morning's schedule, we saw that a lot of boats were heading North. That would mean a rapidly rising barometer and ultimately a "spin into the high." So we like what we are doing. All the automated routing programs seem to point to a Northerly track. We're contrarians and disagree. We'll know soon enough."


Alfa Romeo flying along at 16 knots in the Trade Winds. Image copyright Alfa Romeo.

TRANSPAC RACERS ARE IN THE TRADEWINDS

Relentless, the modified Nelson Marek One-Design 35 has crossed the most meridians, but somewhere around 140º west, the Criminal Mischief crew will say "Aloha! See you in Hawaii!" to Tim Fuller and Erik Shampain on Relentless.

Alfa Romeo, is flying at 16 knots just north of 26º30' and has recently passed Bengal 7, the Division 3 leader and the frontrunner among the Japanese Transpac Race entries. Later today, Alfa will storm out ahead of the entire fleet and will probably overtake the communications vessel, Alaska Eagle.

Early this morning, we received word from Murray Spence on Alfa, "Day 3 goes down as the day we reached the Trade Winds. The grey overcast skies have given way to sunshine and the wind has veered round to be east of north and filled in nicely. The down wind Code Zero has been doing good service and the remaining sails are all stacked on the weather rail giving us fast comfortable sailing. Our second day's run was just on 400nm and our third should be much better than that.

We had to do 2 more back downs today to remove firstly a piece of fishing net from the keel and then a plastic bag from the rudder. These followed one back down on the first day to remove some seaweed from the keel. These back downs are quite costly, but the drag on the boat from not removing the debris would be much worse over the long run. The full moon is out tonight giving wonderful sailing conditions."

The Barn Door trophy for the fastest elapsed time is up for grabs. Akela, Bill Turpin's Reichel Pugh 78, leads the traditionally ballasted boats. OEX and Pyewacket have sailed over 700 miles and are separated by less than 5 nautical miles. Grand Illusion is within striking distance and could surf past Pyewacket or OEX if either of them have to back down to remove kelp from their keels.

You need to zoom out to super high resolution to separate Flash and Samba Pa Ti, the leading TP 52's from Medicine Man, another frontrunner in Division II.

It's not a green flash that Division I and Division II boats are seeing to the far south, it's Lynx firing off cannon in honor of the racers that are passing them. Don't worry; Lynx is many parallels below the Division I and II stampede.


Pyewacket. Image copyright Lynn Fitzpatrick.

NOTE FROM PYEWACKET

Piet Van Os, navigator on Morning Light in the 2007 Transpacific Yacht Race reported into Roy E. Disney, a man dedicated to sailing in Southern California, the Transpac Race and fostering young talent. After completing his 15th consecutive Transpac in 2005, Roy E. Disney retired from racing, but it hasn't stopped him from being intimately involved with Pyewacket campaigns and keeping tabs on friends like Robbie Haines, Ben Mitchell and Doug Rostello and family (Roy P. Disney), who crewed for him on many Transpacs, and youngsters, Jeremy Wilmot, Jesse Fielding and Piet Van Os.

The following is a note about the race, Pyewacket and the close sled race that has developed. It comes from Piet Van Os on the evening of July 7, 2008 to Roy E. Disney:

Hi Roy!

We're currently at 27-49N, 129-23W. You've done the race enough times to know exactly what we're going through right now...Crossing the ridge with winds veering and entering the "slotcar" part of the race where I'm sure to be stressing about my choice on the ridge.

Things have gone great so far. We started and sailed the boat really well on starboard to Aero Point on Catalina, short tacked up the coast before rounding the tip and heading out at 220. 220 set us up nicely for a ridge crossing at 28N, 130W. While trying to keep the boat rumbling we ended up about 20 miles south of the waypoint but I'm still very happy with where we are crossing. We have had great breeze almost the whole time and yesterday had a daily run of 288 miles. Not quite as good as Stan's day run on Alfa which I'm sure you heard broke the daily record with 399 miles. So congrats to Stan is in order again (is he ever going to stop winning things?? ha-ha)

This race so far (I'm knocking on wood) has turned out to be a "traditional" Transpac and I'm loving it!! We had some 22-24 kt winds the first night and it was a little chilly but since then we've been seeing a pretty constant 12-17kts (with some usual ups and downs). It seems to be a little shifty this year with 20+ degree oscillations throughout the day.

We're really enjoying sailing this 70. Robbie and all the guys keep telling stories of the last time they sailed sleds and how much they love these boat and the good times they had on Pyewacket II. Jeremy, Jesse and I are in awe of how "livable" this race boat is and how much more comfortable and pleasant this is than Morning Light! Oh, and we like not having cameras in our faces ha-ha! We were joking about how on day 3 last year we were on port going upwind towards Alaska, not sailing 700 miles almost directly at Hawaii! This is great!.

I'm loving the nav station and being on the wheel in 18-20 in this boat feels like you're driving a platform quickly towards Hawaii. Right now we are heading 240 at about 14-16kts in about 14-18kts of wind at 140 true so we're just sailing towards Hawaii getting more and more lifted around the high. Right now the breeze is out of 010-025 and we're expecting much more of a shift in the next day so we can start gybing on port poles that are favorite to get further south for "free".

For the past three days we have had both Grand Illusion and OEX within a few miles and have been having a great drag race with them. We are positioned north of the rest of the fleet and I feel pretty good about our position. As of the last two roll calls we have been 2nd in class and 2nd overall. GI is 1st and 1st so we're looking to extend from them.

The weather is shaping up pretty well and I we expect to finish sometime on the 13th, maybe even during the day so we could get some good pitures..that would be nice. Just wanted to write and say hi from everyone onboard, we're all thinking of you and wish you were here with us. When the boat gets back to the mainland you're going to love doing some races on it, it's such a great boat (as I'm sure you remember).

Love from all onboard.

Piet


Akela, a Reichel Pugh 78, prior to the start of Transpac '09. Image copyright Lynn Fitzpatrick.

DESIGNER INSIGHT - REICHEL PUGH

Alfa Romeo, Akela and Criminal Mischief are knocking at the door of Transpac Division wins and course records for traditionally ballasted monohulls and RRS 51 and 52 waiver boats. There is still a lot more Pacific Ocean to cross before reaching Hawaii, and as Jim Pugh of the San Diego firm, Reichel/Pugh Yacht Design cautions, "If you finish first, first you must finish."

Pugh has had years of experience watching his designs win races all over the world. Reichel Pugh designs have an illustrious Transpac past dating all the way back to Blade Runner's first in class finish In 1987. About that time, Reichel Pugh found in Michael Rouse, an owner who wanted to work with them to build a boat that would compete with the Bill Lee-designed sleds. During the 1989 Transpac, the sleds Silver Bullet, Blondie, Taxi Dancer and Mongoose crossed the finish line within a 37-minute span. Taxi Dancer, the Reichel Pugh design, finished third among 19 sleds and corrected out to become the overall Transpac Race winner.

Morning Glory, Exile, the modified Kathmandu, Pyewacket and Grand Illusion added to Reichel Pugh's reputation during the 1990's. In 1997, Pyewacket, the turbo-charged ULDB, smashed a 20-year Transpac record of 7:15:24:40. Later in the decade, Roy E. Disney's maxi sled set another Transpac elapsed time record of 7:11:41:27.

Philippe Kahn's Pegasus 76, another Reichel Pugh design, dominated the 2001 and 2003 Transpacs by claiming the Barn Door in 2001 and winning on elapsed time in 2003. Disney's Pyewacket took second to Pegasus both times.

In 2005, Hasso Plattner's canting ballast maxZ86, Morning Glory, a Reichel Pugh 86, was in the limelight for the Centennial Transpac, logging 393 miles during its first day at sea and going on to obliterate the Transpac course record. In light to moderate conditions, Morning Glory averaged 13.9 knots and chopped nearly 16 hours off of the record held by Pyewacket. During the same Transpac race, Roger and Isobel Sturgeon's Reichel Pugh-designed TP 52, Rosebud, claimed the King Kalakaua Trophy with the best corrected time in the fleet.

Pugh credits his clients for much of the success. He says, "We're lucky we have good owners. We work hard to treat them well and to retain them."


Criminal Mischief, a Reichel Pugh 45, before Transpac '09 start. Image copyright Rick Rosen.

One of the services the design company offers its boat owners is optimizing their boats for specific racecourses. It also stays abreast of the Transpac rules and ratings. "Committing to sail a Transpac is like starting a business," says Pugh. "The owners commit a considerable amount of time and resources to the project. In effect they are hiring staff, purchasing and modifying equipment, outsourcing and working closely with consultants."

All involved in preparing Neville Crichton's Alfa Romeo for the Transpac admit that time flew between February and the July start date and they wish that they could have done more to maximize the boat to the new Transpac rating system for the Unlimited Class. For the sleighride to Hawaii, they complemented its new Southern Spar rig with a new and larger North Sails inventory by modifying the tankage for the boati. Likewise, Bill Turpin, Akela's owner, having been first in class and first in fleet in 2003 with Alta Vita, and Chip Megeath, Criminal Mischief's owner, who was first in class and third in fleet with Kokopelli 2 in 2007, respectively, know that doing well in the world's most enduring and greatest yacht race takes quite a bit of boat and team preparation.

Transpac Race '09