Transpac Race: Record Roasting Ride

(July 11, 2017) – The 49th Transpac Race will be remembered as the year of the records as both the outright multihull and monohull times for the 2225 nm course from Los Angles to Honolulu have been officially eclipsed.

The first to fall came yesterday when HL Enloe and the crew of the ORMA 60 trimaran Mighty Merloe crossed the finish line at 17:03:30 (HST), beating all entrants with an elapsed time of 04:07:03:30, improving on the 20 year old multihull record of Bruno Peyron’s Commodore Explorer by more than a day, previously set at 05:09:18:26.

Enloe sailed this year’s Transpac with his team of Steve Calder (Main Trimmer), Jay Davis (Bowman), Artie Means (Navigator), Loïck Peyron (Helm), Franck Proffit (Helm), Will Suto (Grinder), and Jacques Vincent (Co-Skipper).

Also finishing yesterday amid the lead multihull pack was Lloyd Thornburg’s MOD70 Phaedo3 at 20:00:36 followed by Giovanni Soldini MOD70 Maserati at 23:18:55.

The next record to fall came today when Ken Read skippered the 100-foot Comanche through the Diamond Head finish line at 11:55:26 HST, setting a new outright monohull course record of 05:01:55:26, over half a day faster than the previous record set in 2009 by Alfa Romeo II of 05:14:36:20.

“We did a lot of work to mode this boat to the lowest safety limits of stability and to minimize the weight wherever possible,” explains Read, carrying ‘only’ 15 crew and limiting sails to a main, masthead Code 0, three jibs two staysails, and – amazingly – only one A3 spinnaker. For an offshore greyhound of this size, its several crew and sails less than normal.

“This was another proof of concept for this boat,” he continued. “We can adapt it to be competitive in any race around the world. We are all just stunned at what this boat can do.”

For navigator Stan Honey this was his 7th first-to-finish achievement in Transpac, and the 4th time he has helped win the Elapsed Time Record Trophy (aka The Clock Trophy) as navigator. The hands on the clock on this trophy will now be set to the new record time.

In addition to Read and Honey, racing on Comanche was Nicholas Burridge, Richard Clarke, Justin Clougher, Julien Cressant, Shannon Falcone, Warwick Fleury, Ryan Godfrey, Kelvin Harrap, Anthony Mutter, Louis Sinclair, Casey Smith, Peter van Niekerk, and John Von Schwarz.

While the early finishers enjoy their aloha greeting, Tim Fuller’s J/125 Resolute has a few more days of sailing but is in the fight for overall honors. Navigator Brian Perrin submits this report today from 742.1 miles to the finish:

“This morning was a great change of pace for all of us. After 5 days and 10 hours on Starboard and slowly turning right, I figured Hawaii was somewhere to the left of us. So we made the call to gybe in hopes of finding the island. If it looks like we are going the wrong way on the tracker please let us know. (-;

“Daily standings also came out and we moved up to 2nd overall! Unfortunately, the breeze has died slightly which gives a significant advantage to the bigger boats. Needless to say we are all giving maximum effort and doing what we can to sail as fast as possible. That includes continuing to stack our pipe berths on top of each other to the windward side.

“If you haven’t seen the pipe berth setup on Resolute, imagine a coffin 6′ long, 4′ high, and 2′ wide. Very claustrophobic and a total bitch to get in and out of. To make things worse, A) we haven’t showered in 6 days and smell fantastic; B) we move the leeward pipe berth into the same coffin…. Yes, we are literally sleeping on top of each other give or take 6″.”

Event details – Entry list – Tracker – July 11 position report – Finish order – Facebook

Background: First organized by the Transpacific Yacht Club in 1906, the Transpacific Yacht Race or Transpac is an offshore sailing race from Point Fermin in Los Angeles to Diamond Head, just east of Honolulu, a distance of 2225 miles. The 2017 edition attracted 55 entrants that will have staggered starts on July 3, 5, and 6.

Start Schedule
July 3 – Division 5, 6, and 7 (17 boats)
July 5 – Division 3 and 4 (16 boats)
July 6 – Division 0, 1, 2 (22 boats)

Source: Race media, Scuttlebutt