(Los Angeles, CA)- The Transpac YC’s 2,225nm Transpac Race has been
underway since July 13th when the first of the three starts took place.
First off to Honolulu was Division 7 with four J teams sailing-
Yasuhide Kobayashi’s J/120 JULIAN from Zushi Marina YC in Japan; Ed
Sanford’s J/105 CREATIVE from San Diego YC; the Jorgensen Brothers’
J/133 PICANTE from Los Angeles YC and Paul Stemier’s J/44 PATRIOT from
Newport Harbor YC. On the same start in Division 8 was Robert Pace’s
J/46 ANDIAMO from Coronado Racing Association. Three days later, Division 4 took off on July 16th with three J/125s vying for offshore bragging rights. The trio includes Greg Slyngstad’s HAMACHI, Tim Fuller’s RESOLUTE and Viggo Torbenson’s TIMESHAVER.
Tuesday update- 7/20
In the morning reports, boats in the lead group reported Northeast winds 15-20 knots, with higher gusts in squalls, and good progress being made to Hawaii, even if they are looking for some sun. Paul Stemler’s J/44 PATRIOT continues to lead Division 7 and is first in ORR Fleet overall with 700nm to go! Greg Slyngstad’s J/125 Hamachi is leading Division 4. Here are recent reports from J/Teams on the race track.
J/105 CREATIVE:
“We noticed there wasn’t much tension on the backstay, and after some investigation discovered that the forestay had detached from the mast. It was being held up by the halyard only (jib was furled). After a few hours of bravery and ingenuity, we dropped the forestay and jib onto the deck, rigged up a temporary forestay, and are continuing on our way to Hawaii, although at a more cautious pace. Everyone is bummed, but we are all safe and still able to sail the boat, so onward we go!”
J/125 RESOLUTE:“We tried to readjust our bobstay in the very front of the boat. It’s a high strength line that connects to the outboard end of our sprit pole through a hole in the bow at the water line. Well it appears we broke the caulking seal around the line that goes through the bow, and as a result we are taking on a fair amount of water. We slipped a tennis ball we had on board (on the anchor ends) over that line and pushed it against the hull to act as a damn. We then layered 5200 caulk over the secure end of that line inside the boat. That has minimized things for now but we’ll have to keep applying that over time and hope it dries wet as 3M advertises.” Thanks for these two “untold stories” from Scuttlebutt- http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2015/07/20/transpac-race-the-untold-stories/
J/125 TIMESHAVER:
“So we decided to abort the Cabo Race record attempt (since that seems to be popular these days) in order to join this race that was going on north of us. Everyone was talking about bad weather… well, we were burning up hot and I took a look around and realized this was not Transpac! We found a place to gybe, the wind finally cooperated, and we ripped along all afternoon doing 10+ and into the night we saw 20kts of wind with speeds of 15! Clouds and pitch-black skies meant we entered the race course. We are still behind by a fair amount but now we are in line with the weather and progressing up the rankings. On YellowBrick at 10:30pm last night we were going 2 kts faster than our entire fleet. Finally. We managed to make up some distance and pass some 50s and other randoms so we are a little more excited.” Read more of Keith Magnussen’s report here on Sailing Anarchy- http://sailinganarchy.com/2015/07/19/dont-be-a-stranger/
While the warm tradewinds are still a rumor, the field is enjoying offwind angles as they aim toward the Mai Tai mainland. Looking forward, there are some potholes ahead that the northern route will help to avoid, though the wind has been clocking, enticing some of the northern teams to bite on the shift and gybe. Time will tell whether the consolidation bites back.
All boats have GPS trackers provided by Yellowbrick, where the boat’s position, speed and heading will be continuously reported on the Yellowbrick website (with a 6 hour delay). Sailing photo credits- Sharon Green/ Ultimate Sailing. See Yellow Brick tracker to follow the fleet! For more Transpac Race sailing information
|
