The Story of the 1987 Transpacific Yacht Race

Transpac ’87 had all the classic elements: an extremely competitive 55-boat fleet, hard sailing the first few days, incredible mid-Pacific surfing, several new records set, a dramatic rescue, and close finishes. The only thing lacking was wind in thefinal days of the race.

After sorting out from an aggressive light-air start July 2, the fleet got around Catalina’s west end in a building westerly that increased all night. By the first morning’s roll call the boats were setting a blistering rail-down pace that increased over the next five days.

Major interest was on the Class A fleet which comprised of eleven ultra-light maxi sleds. Gunning for MERLIN’s 1977 record, the 70-raters had an incredible race. They were soon ahead of MERLIN’s 1977 track and, as the tradewinds increased into the 25-30 knot range halfway through the race, it seemed all of them would break the record. During this two days of heavy tradewind sailing, the maxis surfed at speeds up to 23 knots. They all shattered MERLIN’s 1977 day’s run record of 304 miles. Pat Farrah’s BLONDIE created a new Transpac record by scoring three consecutive 300 mile days. The Santa Cruz 70 posted runs of 306, 323 and 300 miles. During this period of hard sailing, none of the boats suffered serious damage.

By the sixth day out, the Pacific high expanded and the strong trades gradually diminished. The maxis sailed the last 600 miles to Honolulu in 14-18 knot winds. And a few days later, the rest of the fleet struggled with less than 10 knots of breeze. The first-to-finish race remained very close as the Class A fleet came within 400 miles of Diamond Head. Eight of the eleven maxi boats were still in contention for line honors, but as the wind made a persistent shift to the east, Donn Campion’s MERLIN worked north for a perfect angle to Honolulu. A definite dark horse against 10 newer maxis, MERLIN worked some magic when she flew past Diamond Head first, just after 10 p.m. HST, July 10. The 10-year-old boat missed her own record by just 64 minutes and became the third boat in Transpac history to score three elapsed time victories.

Don Ayres’ Nelson/Marek 68 DRUMBEAT was second to finish, an hour behind MERLIN, correcting out on the Bill Lee boat and winning Class A overall. The margin was close however. PANDEMONIUM, a Nelson/Marek 66 sailed by Bill Packer and Dennis Durgan, was third across the line 33 minutes behind DRUMBEAT. since DRUMBEAT owed PANDEMONIUM 27 minutes on corrected time, Durgan and his crew missed winning Class A by just six minutes.

Therest of the Class A fleet finished within six hours. Three days later, when thelast of the Class D boats failed to savetheir time on DRUMBEAT, Ayres was declared the overall winner of Transpac ’87. Class A boats swept thefirsteight places overall. PANDEMONIUM missed first overall to DRUMBEAT by that same six-minute margin making for the closest overall win margin in Transpac history. Light winds at the finish and a shortened handicap distance allowed the Class A boats to win for the first time since the ’75 race.

Class B was won by Charles Jacobson’s Santa Cruz 50 ALLURE, which broke the previous Santa Cruz 50 race record by more than nine hours. Bill Twist’s 47-foot IOR boat BLADE RUNNER won Class C despite an incredible mid-Pacific round-down that blew out three sails at once. Top boat in Class D was Rod Park’s one tonner JAZZ. For a few days a serious contender for the overall prize, JAZZ’s crew was let down by the wind 200 miles from the finish and ended up 10th overall behind the Class A boats and AllURE.

Transpac ’87 proved that MERLIN’s 10-year-old record of 08:11:04:45 can easily be broken if conditions are right. And the race also reaffirmed what Transpac veterans never forget: when the tradewinds blow, the race to Honolulu is sailing’s best.

- Brad Avery

NOTE: MERLIN’s first-to-finish run was briefly threatened a day out of Honolulu when a crew member fell off the stern as the boat was surfing at 12 knots. After immediately rounding up and dropping the spinnaker, the man was recovered. MERLIN was squared away and back up to racing speed in 18 minutes. For their well-executed effort, MERLIN’s crew was awarded the Steve Newmark Seamanship Trophy.