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Steve Sellinger's Santa Cruz 52 Triumph sailed the 2021 Transpac with the fastest SC52 elapsed time in Transpac history. Hear about sailing professional Chris Snow's first Transpac Race experience from his own perspective on www.thefavoredend.com.
Someone’s tugging on my foot. What the %^&*? It’s my crew mate, Brad Wheeler, and I hear a muffled “You can sleep when you’re dead, Chris, you’re going to want to see this, get up.” I am hearing him through the foam ear plugs I am wearing to muffle the sound of the primary winch that’s 12” over my head, not exactly sure I’m hearing him right. Nevertheless, I slither backwards out of the quarter berth I’m in. It’s hot and sticky down below and I’m shirtless and shoeless, I can smell myself. It’s not good. I poke my head out of the hatch. It’s just barely getting light. Brad’s close by and I give him a nod. I keep my head low to not block the instruments, so the helmsman can see their red glow in the darkness. Astern, to the east, the edges of towering tropical clouds are just becoming visible. Ahead it looks black, scary black. Squall cloud black and that’s not what you want to be sailing toward in this part of the Pacific. I’d only been asleep for a couple hours.
I pop back down below and get my gear on. I grab my deck shoes, hat, glasses, safety harness with tether and gloves from near my bunk and put them on. Back on deck, I take a spot in the cockpit out of the way and let my eyes adjust to the darkness. It’s blowing 22 knots and we’re going 14,15,16 straight into the darkness, I can make out the white spray of the bow wave as we surf over wave after wave. We are on port jibe and have our A 2.5 spinnaker and spinnaker staysail up. Justin’s driving, Nick’s on the grinding pedestal and Zack on the spinnaker sheet. We’ve been at this now for nine days racing our way 2225 miles across the Pacific from LA to Honolulu in the 2021 Transpac Race.
Ahead, every ten seconds, the sweep of Kalaupapa Light on the north shore of Molokai is visible. It’s pretty close now, two hours ago when I went off watch it was just a faint blip on the horizon. We’re getting close now and will be finishing this morning sometime. The veterans on the boat are excited because finishing during the day means there likely will be a helicopter to photograph our crossing the line at Diamond Head, and more folks at our arrival party. The Molokai Channel awaits.
The light is coming on more now and I see the wisdom to Brad’s getting me up. The black ahead is not a squall at all, but the sheer cliffs of the Northside of Molokai. As the lighting gets a little better the black turns to grey and pink with swaths of tropical green. The cliffs are massive, towering 3500 feet above the ocean at points. Waves breaking at the foot. It looks a lot like the opening scenes of “Jurassic Park”. The coastline is deserted.
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