History

The 1981 race was one of the great ones. There were enough thrills, chills, and spills to satisfy everyone—steady winds all the way, two men overboard, a rescued crew from a broken up catamaran, a record-breaking passage attempt that failed by 46 seconds, four disabled rudders, two dismastings, and the longest boat-for-boat, headto-head duel in Transpac history.

The start was scheduled for 1300 PDT Friday, July 3. In contrast to the normal pattern of Transpac starts, the westerly began to fill in early this year, and by race time it was blowing 12 to 15 knots; later in the afternoon, it increased to 18 knots.

The Thirtieth Honolulu Race set several new records, though not including speed! It had the largest fleet, probably the finest fleet, and the largest foreign entry list.

The start, west of Point Fermin, was in little wind, which quickly turned to a fresh northwest breeze and by morning roll call from uss PRAIRIE, record first-day runs were posted; some over 200 miles. Considering that the first day is only 19 hours, that’s a record. Two boats, NIAD and TAHUNA dropped out off of Catalina with rigging failures.

The Eleventh Tahiti race was sailed by four boats. The start was conducted from Harold Barneson’s DRUMMUIR with winds of 8 to 10 knots which got the fleet around Catalina before the afternoon winds died. SORCERY took an early lead and seesawed with TULA on corrected positions.

The 29th Transpac Race was a race of new records both glad and sad. The glad part was the new records that were set and the sad part was the record number of dismastings, all of which occurred on a single night.