News
An irony of this year’s Transpac is that the teams that raced the fastest boats were expected to be in days ago and therefore celebrating their division victories first would make sense for efficient event planning. Yet two of these winning teams finished just in the last 24 hours, with one crossing the finish at Diamond Head only this morning at 5:30 AM, less than 12 hours before the awards.
The reason is the lighter winds experienced by all the Saturday July 1st starters in this race, particularly in the first 24 hours getting off the coast of California. While the earlier starting divisions sped away to the west, nearly all the entries in these three classes took almost as long to get to Hawaii as their slower-rated rivals. This affected their overall fleet results, where the top places went to entries among the groups who started on Thursday June 29th and will be recognized at the next trophy ceremony at Hawaii Yacht Club this Thursday July 13th.
Nonetheless, the winners of Divisions 1, 2 and 3 were celebrated today at Waikiki Yacht Club. Even though sometimes separated in elapsed time by wide margins, the competition in corrected time was at times very close.
This was particularly true in SD Boatworks Division 2 where Ivan Batanov and Lawrence Andrews’ Reichel/Pugh 51 ZERO GRAVITY defeated John Raymont’s Ker 52 FAST EXIT II for the title win by a mere 20 minutes and 3 seconds in corrected time after over 9 days of sailing. In third was John Brynjolfsson's TP 52 SAGA.
Among the seven entries in Cal Maritime Division 1 it was Doug Baker’s Dencho/Kernan 68 PELIGROSO that took the title by a margin of 3 hours 35 minutes over runner-up Tom Holtus’ Botin 56 BADPAK.
In third place was Michael Firmin's Infinity 52 ZEUS from Australia, the brand new design from Hugh Welbourn with the bright yellow DSS foils protruding from the hull on windward and leeward sides.
And among the nine ULDB Sled entries in Whittier Trust Division 3 Roy Disney’s team on his Andrews 68 PYEWACKET won the title by a similar margin over runner-up David Clark’s Santa Cruz 70 GRAND ILLUSION.
PYEWACKET had the best corrected time score among these three divisions at 20th in fleet overall.
In third in this division was Jack Jennings' Santa Cruz 70 PIED PIPER.
Meanwhile there are still three teams out in the Pacific approaching the finish: Doug Pasnik’s Whittier Trust Division 3 entry TRADER, an Andrews 70 about 330 miles out; Larry Goshorn’s Catalina 445 IMAGINE TOO in smithREgroup Division 8 about 380 miles out; and the event’s only Double Handed entry, Russ Johnson’s Jeanneau 52 BLUE MOON, a Hawaii-based entry in PASHA HAWAII Division 6 that is about 570 miles out.
Daily analyses of the race, interviews, blogs and more are found on the TPYC YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/c/TranspacRace.
All entries in Transpac can be tracked on the YB system, sponsored by Pasha Hawaii. The positions, speeds and headings of each entry can be found on this system on either the browser of app versions. There is a built-in 4 hour delay for each entry, except when within 200 miles of the finish when the tracker goes live. Use this link to follow the fleet: https://cf.yb.tl/transpac2023.
Photos from the 2023 Transpac and earlier editions can be found at www.flickr.com/photos/transpac/albums. Videos can be found at https://transpacyc.com/media/video/2023-videos.