July 9, 2017, 1930
A great day! Moved the folks to the north back in bearing and gained gauge to leeward. Hit a UFO and had to do a back down in 19 knots true. The kid is now driving. Chef @Pete Lehmar prepared outstanding Western Australian lobster for supper tonight. Hoping for continued better pressure on our southern track. Standing by from onboard the Mighty OEX...
Read moreDobbs Davis recaps the positioning of the boats on Sunday, and describes the classic Transpac racing line.
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July 9, 2017, 1200
MaseratiMulti70, the Italian high performance offshore flying multihull yacht skippered by Giovanni Soldini, has broken one of its rudders in a high-speed collision with an unidentified floating object, while in second place in the Transpac Race from Los Angeles to Hawaii.
The crew have been able to retrieve the shattered rudder on the back of the starboard (right hand) hull of the trimaran. The other rudders on the port (left hand) and the central hulls are undamaged and the crew are continuing to race towards the finish in Honolulu.
“We were sailing fast at 28 – 30 knots when we heard a big bang,” Soldini reported today. “We immediately stopped the boat and managed to retrieve the rudder blade that was still attached by a retaining line. That was quite a difficult procedure because it was during the night, with lots of wind and waves”.
When the incident happened Soldini’s crew were in second place in the multihull division and in a tight race with Mighty Merloe ahead and Phaedo3 behind. Maserati Multi70 had been sailing well south of the course “rhumb line”– the shortest most direct route between Los Angles and Honolulu – in an attempt to find more wind and to try to avoid the worst of the ocean debris littering the course further north.
“Our choice to stay south was also because we wanted to avoid the areas with more debris,” Soldini explained. “But yesterday, during the day, we saw at least 15 floating objects, including a net, a very big rope line, a buoy with an iron pole, and many smaller buoys. At one point, we caught a large piece of plastic sheeting on one of the rudders.”
The broken rudder is part of a new assembly fitted to the boat before the start of the race, designed to give the crew more control of the boat in fast flying mode.
“The bushes are still intact but the force of the impact completely destroyed the stock and blade,” Soldini said. “The rudder on the other side and the central rudder are OK, but cannot sail too fast on the side without the rudder, as sometimes we lose control and the boat spins out.”
At 16.00 Italian time today, 04.00 in Hawaii, MaseratiMulti70 was third on the water and was sailing south west (230 degrees) at 25.9 knots with 846.7 miles to race. Further north, Mighty Merloe and Phaedo3 were a sailing parallel course with 798.3 and 822.9 miles to go, respectively.
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July 8, 2017, 1745
In the last 24 hours, Varuna witnessed something that very few sailors will get to see - multiple hundred footers blowing past them days into the race at close quarters!
We picked our routing line a few days ago and so far it has done us well (first in class). Anyway, as we tracked ours and our competitors progress we had to take notice of Comanche to see if/how they might break the record. Well they passed 1/4 mile to winward after 400 miles of sailing (day 2) We greeted them on the radio as they blew past us doing 25 knots with a full triple headrig. Of course, we were proud that our 'line' had been vindicated by the venerable Stan Honey driven Comanche!
That alone would normally make a great conversation piece for the race, but then the very next day (18 hours later - 600 miles down the pike)) another hundred footer,RIO, came right down our path and this time, they went a 1/4 mile to leeward (very nice of them). We chatted with the owner on Rio 100 who offered us some broiled chicken in place of our MREs (he also said hi to his realtor who is one of our regular crew).
So there you have it, a little 46 footer racing neck and neck (okay getting blown away) by two world class hundred footers, hundreds of miles in to the race and having nice chats with each. They looked impressive, especially since 2 of our boats could sit on their decks!! (oh and I still think we picked the right line!).
Varuna
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Trivia for the day: Comanche's 24 hour run (0800 roll call to roll call) was 484.1 nm, a new Transpac race record, a 20.2 knot average speed. The previous record of 453 nm by Wild Oats XI in 2015. Previously, it was set at 431 nm by Alfa Romeo II in 2009 when they set the monohull course record which still stands (for now).
Alfa Romeo II's monohull course record time from 2009 was 5 days, 14 hours, 36 minutes, 20 seconds. Comanche will need to finish by 12:36:19 AM (Honolulu time) on 7/12/17 to break the record.
Interestingly enough Stan Honey, navigator aboard Comanche is looking to break a record he helped establish, as he was also the navigator aboard Alfa Romeo II in 2009. Stan has said what's key is not necessarily having a windy race but just having the wind be consistent.
For more about the current standing records, visit http://transpacyc.com/history/race-records.
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July 7, 2017
All is well on Loco-motive. Daily position report has us still in 1st and gained a bit in our division. Wind has been progressively getting better with more consistent 14+ knots. Our best 24 hour run is 188 nautical miles and we are pushing to get 200+ for tomorrow. Top boat speed currently goes to Larry, Doug and Charlie who have all hit 12 knots. Previous to that, it was held by Sean and Mickey at 11.8 knots. Still kind of a hazy cloudy day. We’ve had to do 2 back-downs due to getting fishing net stuck on keel. One was this morning at 6am and the other at 3pm. Both requires everyone on deck as we drop the kite and back down the boat by pushing out the mainsail. We are getting fairly proficient at this and getting the whole process done in a couple minutes.
We finally switched over to drinking from the water maker or the many water bottles we brought. Previously, we were drinking from the boat bladders which is hose water – not very good.
Dinner last night was bbq pork and again, very good. Still looking for the clouds to break up and see the sun and especially have a nice moonlit ocean at night.
We’ve seen some more flying fish and had two baby squids jump up on deck and died. Doug argues for us to keep them and cook them up for some nice calamari.
Looking forward to our halfway mark in a day or two.
Mahalo!
Team Loco-motive
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Beautiful SoCal conditions sends off Divisions 1, 2 and 0 towards Hawaii
Los Angeles, CA – Another perfect Southern California summer day yielded perfect conditions for the final wave of 17 fast monohulls and five fast multihulls to set off on their 2225-mile odyssey to the finish in Honolulu of the 2017 Transpac Race. The breeze started at a light 6-8 knots, but quickly built up to 10-12 knots after the start allowing the fleet to speed towards their first – and only – mark of the course at the West End of Catalina.
In this 49th edition of this classic biennial ocean race there is a healthy mix of sentimental favorites – such as Bill Lee’s 68-foot Merlin, a boat of his design and build who made its debut exactly 40 years ago to set a course record then and re-write ocean racing design on the West Coast and beyond – and the newest generation record-breakers, such as Jim Clark’s 100-footer Comanche. Both were out at the start today, Lee with some of his original 1977 crew, such as Jack Halterman who like Lee is an integral part of Santa Cruz racing history.
Read moreHear from Ken Read and Stan Honey (Comanche), Roy Disney (Pyewacket), Lloyd Thornburg (Phaedo3), and Kelly Holthus (BadPak, youngest sailor in 2017 Transpac).
Ken Read on what brought Comanche to Transpac this year: "Comanche is here on the west coast because this is one of the big five races, one of the classic ocean races that this boat was really made to do. We always chase records, that's kind of the boats M.O., and this is a really prestigious record."
Roy Disney, who has sailed the Transpac Race over 20 times has advice for any young Transpac sailors: "My advice to somebody who's starting out, the 12 year olds on this race, the 14 year olds is cherish every job that nobody else wants to do, listen to the people that know how to do it, learn, and be open.
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