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Rescue at sea in Transpac 50

On the 50th edition of the Transpacific YC's 2225-mile race from LA to Honolulu, at 0200 Pacific Daylight Time this morning the YB tracking system had activated an emergency signal from John Sangmeister's Santa Cruz 70 OEX, followed one hour later by a message from Roy Disney's Andrews 68 Pyewacketcontacting the Transpacific YC's race headquarters that they had picked up the crew of OEX and all were safe.

Prevail Race Blog

Every day in every way things gets better and better... that may be the best way to sum up sailing in Transpac. You pay a price before getting to sail 24/7 downwind through blue water. In our case that price was a forced diet for all and a cleanse for some but last night things starting getting better. After agonizing about when to make sail changes and whether putting up a kite would cause us to lose the leverage we paid dearly for the night before (by staying north of the fleet) we split the baby, threw up our super reachy kite and sailed lower and faster for most of the afternoon. At the point we started seeing a few boats coming our way we decided to head back to a higher angle put up the blast reacher and started debating when we should put the kite back up.

Dark Star Race Blog

Seas lumpy 5-6’. 7/8 overcast. Wind 310-320@17-20kt. Baro 1020mb. Great start. Sun, smiles, fair winds. Cleared Catalina however and the cocktails got stowed pretty quickly. Hard, wet, queasy reaching all night and for what appears to be the next couple of days as well. The cabin of a Hobie 33 in these conditions looks as you would expect it to look. Still some dry spots but you need to be strategic. No one much felt like eating the pancake breakfast with fresh strawberries and maple syrup that I packed us back in LA! Maybe because it was discovered in the bilge under a sailbag. Right, time for a sail change. Till tomorrow.

Maverick Race Blog

Patience paid off, blast reaching since we broke into the synoptic breeze feeling good as we charge along the route. Had some fun with the Navy life firing demonstration yesterday. Had to commence negotiations with them at 0800hrs on the 14th as the commanded us to deviate from our 230 degree course to due south 180 degrees for 35 nautical miles. Once we explained to them what we were up to, and noted another 20 boats were following a similar line they agreed to allow us to steer 200 degrees... a great result given the alternative... Hope everyone is having a great race, next 24-48 hrs tweaking the slot will be interesting. All the best. Mike Team Maverick

OEX Retires With Rudder Post Damage, Crew Returning to Port Aboard Pyewacket

At 0200 PDT Monday morning, the YB race tracking system activated an emergency signal from Santa Cruz 70 OEX, and one hour later Pyewacket contacted us that they had picked up the crew of OEX and all were safe.

We understand from the email communications that the trouble experienced by OEX and cause to abandon ship was due to water ingress due to damage to their rudder post. At this stage we’re not certain about the cause of that damage.

There are no reports of injuries, and all 9 crewmembers from OEX and 10 on Pyewacket are about 200 miles out and are proceeding back to port at about 10-11 knots of speed, so we would expect both crews safely back ashore in less than 24 hours.