TransPac Starts Today!

Jeff Asbury

Principal Partner
First 34 of 75 Boats Start a Special Transpac Monday

First 34 of 75 Boats Start a Special Transpac Monday

LONG BEACH, Calif.---The 43rd biennial Transpacific Yacht Race to Hawaii unfolds in the first of three colorful phases when 34 of the 75 entries set sail Monday.

It's the Centennial Transpac with an entry list exceeded only by 80 in 1979, celebrating their bold predecessors who first contested the 2,225 nautical miles in 1906, at one point farther from land than any other place on earth.


Transpac veteran Stan Honey offers navigational wisdom to skippers.
There are eight boats from five foreign countries, most of whom joined in the traditional Aloha skippers meeting and sendoff dinner attended by 650 competitors, family and friends in Huntington Beach Saturday night.
The first starters will be Division 5, Aloha A and B and 14 Cal 40s. They'll be followed Friday by 20 boats in Divisions III and IV and on Sunday by the 20 top-rated boats, including a few that are the fastest ever to sail the race.

In slightly revised ratings, a pair of canting-keel maxZ86s---Roy Disney's Pyewacket and Hasso Plattner's Morning Glory---are now the scratch boats, each giving only 23 seconds for the race to Randall Pittman's slightly depowered 90-foot Genuine Risk as they attack Disney's elapsed time record for monohulls of 7 days 11 hours 41 minutes 27 seconds.
 
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