44th
Transpacific Yacht Race
Los
Angeles to Honolulu
Starts July 9, 12 and 15, 2007
2,225 nautical miles
A
second century of racing across the Pacific
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And so
The year-long
documentary from crew selection through the race is scheduled to hit the
big screen next spring, but who will believe the ending was for real?
"Honest, only God
could do this at the finish," Disney said. "He clearly understood the
title of the movie."
It hardly seemed to
matter that another TP52, John Kilroy Jr.'s Samba Pa Ti, had finished in
the dark more than four hours earlier to leapfrog Brack Duker's Santa
Cruz 70 Holua, the Division 2 frontrunner, for first place in the
division, leaving Morning Light in third.
The younger sailors
felt no disappointment---"None whatsoever," said Charlie Enright, 22, of
Piet van Os, 23, of
At Friday night's
awards dinner they will share the podium with two strong teams of
professionals, including world-class navigators Mark Rudiger on Holua
and Nick White, who made the gutsy call that brought Samba Pa Ti a
roundabout win. Holua finished less than an hour behind Morning Light,
which owed it about 3 1/2 hours in handicap time.
Other finishers
Thursday included, alphabetically, Denali, Enchilado, Hugo Boss II,
Narrow Escape, Pegasus 101, Relentless, Skylark, Tabasco, Tango and
Westerly. Twenty of the 73 starters remained at see as this was
written. Five had dropped out.
Kilroy explained
Samba Pa Ti's sudden detour: "We went on the great navigator Nick
White’s Pacific tour. Since our boat is optimized for higher speeds, we
had to find wind. The wind was too light for our boat. Even still, it
was fun to be out of the office.”
White, a New
Zealander with a strong ocean racing résumé, said, “We were sailing our
own race. I saw the pressure and knew it was time to go. Some thought we
went too far south, but it looks like it worked out."
Van Os said, "I was
trying to think why they did it. We thought it was a flyer. We didn't
think it was going to work. We saw it but it looked too risky. But their
boat reaches better than ours, so if I was in that position again I'd
make the same call we made."
Morning Light was
accompanied over the 2,225 nautical miles by
Kilroy said, “We
were all impressed with the kids on Morning Light. Obviously they are
talented and were well trained . . . [although] it was actually quite
distracting at times having such a large escort vessel around. In an
ocean race you’re used to being out there alone. We were glad when we
turned down.”
The Morning Light
sailors enjoyed the mid-Pacific competition while it lasted.
Mark Towill, a
native Hawaiian, said, "One morning we woke up and they were two lengths
behind us. It's a crew full of professionals who have gone around the
world and stuff."
The Morning Light
team averaged 21.2 years in age, which put them in step with the local
On the Edge of Destiny team of five young men averaging 19.8 years that
placed third in Division 5 a day earlier as the youngest team ever to
sail Transpac.
The Morning Light
skipper was Jeremy Wilmot, a 21-year-old Australian who was elected to
the position by his American peers.
"That was the
longest, hardest, struggling, stressful thing I've ever done in my
life," Wilmot said. "But at the end of the day I loved it."
Morning Light made
an unusual zigzag move of its own when after passing the Koko Head
peninsula near Diamond Head it turned into shore, then jibed and sailed
back out before jibing again to finish. A cynic might have thought the
youngsters were playing to the two helicopters and various photo craft
recording their every move for the documentary.
Wilmot explained,
with Aussie humor, "We thought we'd get killed by the production team if
we ruled out finishing with a spinnaker."
Van Os said,
actually, that "we learned when we were training here for four months
that usually you get good puffs coming down that valley, but they
weren't there so we went back out."
Robbie Haines,
Disney's longtime Pyewacket sailing manager who doubled as Morning
Light's head coach, said, "They practiced that."
Jesse Fielding, 20,
of
Genny Tulloch, 22,
of Houston, the only woman on the boat, said, "For me, being an ocean
racer is a whole new world to me. I grew up in dinghies. It's a
different language. I didn't even know what a '[spinnaker] peel' meant.
Hopefully, I can be a role model to show anyone can do it."
Haines: "It's way
beyond my expectations how well they did [and] how well they got along."
Disney: "It's not
about how they did. It changed people's lives. They've all gone through
a life-changing transition."
That's a wrap.
Quotes
of the day
Mark
Rudiger, navigator, Holua:
“We
looked to the north for some wind. After it left, we came down with the
rest of the
Philippe Kahn/owner
and co-skipper, Pegasus:
“This is my 10th
time racing to
Andy Tourell,
skipper, Hugo Boss IIL:
“This was a
different race. Interesting days. We tried to sail our own race and
dived south to play the angles. Five days into the race the wind dropped
and there wasn’t anything we could do.”
Bill Durant,
co-skipper, Relentless:
“By the end of the
third day we had no wind so we started going south. This whole race was
a light air trip for us.”
On the Edge of
Destiny owner Dan Doyle:
"You've got these
kids and the Morning Light kids, and when that film hits the theaters
next year you'll have a lot of kids getting excited about sailing."
The
Transpacific Yacht Club has joined with Casio Computer Co., Ltd., in a
sponsorship agreement to make the company's Oceanus watch the official
timekeeper of the 44th biennial race. The Oceanus is a solar-powered
chronograph watch with
a time signal-calibration function developed by making full use of
Casio's advanced electronic technologies.
News and product information:
http://world.casio.com/
Transpac supporters also include the Long Beach Sea Festival 2007,
Archived press releases:
http://www.underthesunphotos.com/Press%20Releases/PR-index.htm
More
information:
www.transpacificyc.org
Transpac 2007 standings
In
order of corrected handicap time (place in total fleet in parentheses).
All
times by days:hours:minutes:seconds.
ORR
rating allowances in parentheses; subtract time allowance from actual
final elapsed time to determine corrected handicap time.
(positions at 6 a.m. PDT Thursday)
Division 1 (Started July 15)
1. Magnitude 80
(Andrews 80), Doug Baker,
2. Pyewacket (Reichel/Pugh
90), Roy E. Disney,
3. Rosebud (STP 65),
Roger Sturgeon,
4. Peligroso (Kernan
70), Mike
5. Medicine Man
(Andrews 63),
Division 2 (Started
July 15)
1. Samba Pa Ti
(Transpac 52), John Kilroy Jr.,
2. Holua (
3. Morning Light
(Transpac 52), Jeremy Wilmot,
4. Skylark (
5. Hugo Boss (Volvo
60), Andy Tourell,
6.
7. DH-Pegasus 101
(Open 50),
8. Lucky (Transpac
52), Bryon Ehrhart, Chicago (2:05:26:28), 192.
9. Trader (Transpac
52), Fred Detwiler,
Division 3 (Started
July 15)
1. Denali (Nelson/Marek
70), William McKinley,
2. It's OK (Andrews
50), Tres Gordo Sailing,
3. Pendragon IV
(Davidson 52), John MacLaurin,
4. Ragtime (Spencer
65), Chris Welsh,
6. Locomotion
(Andrews 45), Ed Feo,
7. Bengal 7 (Ohashi
46), Yoshihiko Murase,
8. Yumehyotan
(Nelson/Marek 68), Yasuo Sano,
Division 4
(Started July 12)
1. Reinrag2 (J/125),
Tom Garnier,
2. Cipango (Andrews
56), Bob & Rob Barton,
3. Verizon Wireless
(ex-Stealth Chicken; Perry 56), Timothy Beatty, Rancho
4. Ruahatú (Concordia
47), Ricardo Brockmann,
5. Raincloud (J/48),
Lorenzo Berho
6. Bolt (Nelson/Marek
55), Craig Reynolds,
RETIRED ---Lucky Dog
(J/125), Colin Shanner,
RETIRED---Delicate
Balance (Andrews 56), DBB Transpac LLC,
Division 50/52
(Started July 12)
1. Kokopelli 2 (
2. Horizon (
3. Tachyon III (
4. Passion (
5.
6. Hula Girl (
7. Stags' Leap
Winery (ex-Chasch Mer;
8. Adrenalin (
9. Relentless (
Division 5 (Started
July 12)
1. Rancho Deluxe
(Swan 45), Mike Diepenbrock,
2. Tower (Lidgard
45), Doug Grant,
3. On the Edge of
Destiny (1D35), Sean Doyle,
4. Paddy Wagon (Ross
40), Richard Mainland,
5. Recidivist
(Schumacher 39), Ken Olcott,
6.
7. DH-Tango (J/133),
Michael Abraham/Phillip Rowe,
8. DH-Narrow Escape
(Fast 40), Allen Lehman Sr. and Jr.,
9. Uncontrollable
Urge (
Division 6 (Started
July 9)
1. Psyche (
2. Far Far (
3. Peregrine (Hobie
33), Simon Garland,
4. DH-Brilliant
(J/100), Tim Fuller/Erik Shampain,
5. Inspired
Environments (Beneteau First 40.7), Timothy Ballard,
6. Brown Sugar
(Express 37), Steve Brown,
7. DH-X Dream
(X-119), Steen Moller/Bob MacDonald,
8.
9. Shanti (Olson
911S), Jon Eberly,
Aloha A
(Started July 9)
1. Between the Sheets
(Jeanneau 52), Ross Pearlman, Marina del Rey (5:12:56:15), ET
14:16:00:06; CT 9:01:03:51 (36).
2. Ariadne (Ladd 73),
Frank Easterbrook,
3. French Kiss (Beneteau
50), Bryan Daniels,
4. Windswept (Sean
57), Maxwell Phelps,
5. Ho'okolohe (Farr
58), Alyson and Cecil Rossi,
6. Alsumar (S&S 70),
Bill and Ted Davis,
7. Enchilado (Jeanneau
54), Cesar de Saracho,
8. Anna Katarina
(First 47.7), John Otterson,
Aloha B (Started July
9)
1. Cirrus (Standfast
40), William D. Myers,
2. Lady Liberty
(Catalina 36), John Wallner,
3. Traveler (North
Wind 47), Michael Lawler,
4. Mysteré (Swan 42),
Jorge Morales, Dana Point,
RETIRED---Ginny
(Calkins 50), Chris Calkins/Norm Reynolds,
RETIRED--Gaviota (Cal
2-46), Jim Partridge,
.
DH-Doublehanded.
Multihull
LoeReal (Jeanneau 60
trimaran), H.L. Enloe,
The Minnow (Catana 52
catamaran), Bob and Mike Webster,
Complete position
reports:
www.transpacificyc.org
COMMODORE
(310) 600-0158
ENTRIES CHAIRMAN
(831) 476-9639
PRESS OFFICER
(310) 835-2526
Cell (310) 766-6547 |
Holua
skipper Brack Duker (2nd r.); navigator Mark Rudiger in black
Hawaiian
sunrise chases
Morning
Light to the finish
Morning
Light crew; skipper
Jeremy
Wilmot at left
Click to
visit websites
Official
timekeeper of Transpac 2007
Shoreline YC lead mainland
host
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