Transpac Race: Hamachi closes the deal

The Transpac Race is brilliant. From Los Angeles to Hawaii, well over the stated 2225 nm, the course begins with the worst conditions, and finishes with the best. Memories of early days of cold, wet, headsail reaching are long forgotten when finishing in tropical tradewinds.

After passing Catalina Island soon after the start, it is open ocean where teams pick their lane and push their boat on a WSW course toward the Diamond Head finish buoy. For the team on the J/125 Hamachi, all that effort was tested in the final day to become the overall winner of the 50th edition. Co-owner Jason Andrews reports:

We did it. But the last 24 hours were really intense.

We were struggling to cover both the Rogers 46 Bretwalda 3, which was focused on sailing as fast as possible to Oahu, and the J/125 Velvet Hammer, who was playing a tactical game.

The Hammer was heading for the right corner to establish leverage on us, while we sailed more of a rhumb line to keep our VMG high. Squalls were rolling across the race course creating challenging wind angles and large wind holes.

We struggled very early Saturday morning (July 20) and watched the separation increase with Bretwalda, and our advantage decrease with Velvet Hammer. Hamachi had been atop the ORR overall standings since Wednesday morning (July 17), but all of us felt that lead slipping away.

Around 3am a series of squalls came through that increased pressure and improved wind angles which allowed us to start making gains on the competition. Then just after sunrise, we gybed right on a favorable shift to cover Velvet Hammer and rode that for many hours.

Sailing was slow in 12-15 knots of wind, even though they were forecast to be 20 knots. Around this time we came into contact with Bad Pak (Pac 52) and Peligroso (Kernan 70), top sleds that started the day after us. Seeing these boats less than 200 nm from the finish made us start to comprehend the magnitude of our accomplishments.

Unfortunately, as we entered the 200 nm “Live Zone” our YB tracker battery died. We contacted Race Committee, but they were already aware of the situation and in the process of contacting us. Apparently our tracker went crazy and started pinging the Iridium network constantly, which burned its battery out.

They instructed us to give manual updates every four hours, which made for a very stressful day for all you tracker junkies. It was equally stressful for us on board! In actuality, at no time during the last day did we surrender the lead; it just looked that way on Yellow Brick.

Around noon the wind was forecast to go right, which would allow us to get headed up to Molokai on the opposite board. Instead, the wind continued to clock left and remained light (12-15 knots). While this improved our tactical advantage over Velvet Hammer, it made our odds of catching Bretwalda 3 worse, and all we could do was watch them sail to the finish on July 20 around 2pm in the afternoon (HST).

Based on the differences in our ratings, Bretwalda 3 owed us approximately 13.5 hours on corrected time. So once they crossed the line a clock started and we had to finish within that time allowance.

Unfortunately, we spent most of that afternoon rolling slowly downwind through swells in light breeze, 150 nm from the finish. We felt good about our ability to finish in front of Velvet Hammer, who was 45 nm north and directly upwind of us, but were not so optimistic about Bretwalda 3.

The team kept pushing and around 4pm the wind increased to 15 knots, and then by 6 pm it was 17 knots. The wind angle was still terrible but we gybed back on to port and headed to Molokai. The boat kicked up on a plane (Hamachi’s boat speed is about 2 knots less than the wind speed) and we started trucking south.

The wind continued to increase to 20 knots and clock slowly right and the whole team was focused on burning down the miles to the finish. We approached Molokai on a tear at 17-19 knots and gybed right towards the infamous Molokai Channel. Luckily it was fairly tame that evening and the team threw down six perfect gybes to get around Molokai, across the channel and lined up for Diamond Head.

We power reached across the finish line at 16 knots at 2:21 am Sunday morning (July 21) to complete the 50th Transpac in 8 days 16 hours and 21 minutes, which gives us a corrected time of 08:00:52:37… the winning time for us to claim first place overall.

It’s been a hell of an adventure and one that will not be repeated anytime soon. We were fortunate to start on the “right day” (July 12) and the high pressure materialized in a manner that allowed us to power reach the whole way to Hawaii in winds that averaged between 15-20 knots. We never saw winds above 22 knots except for a few minutes, and always between midnight at 2 am to make it more exciting.

We couldn’t have asked for a better crew and having one additional crew member – six total – became a clear advantage in the heavier wind versus the three other J/125s. It’s going to take some time to process the magnitude of this adventure and accomplishment, and are immensely appreciative for all the support from our friends, family, and Pacific Northwest sailing community.

Hamachi – Seattle, WA
Jason Andrews – Co-Owner – Group 1
Shawn Dougherty – Co-Owner – Group 1
Frederic Laffitte – Strategist- Group 1
Lucas Laffitte – Bow- Group 1
Matt Pistay – Cooler Jockey – Group 3
David Rogers – Navigator- Group 1

Event Details – Entry list – Tracker – Results – Facebook

Note: There is a 4-hour delay on the tracker but goes live within the final 200 miles.

Attrition list:
• Mayhem, Hobie 33, Steven Eder (rudder)
• Aloha, Hobie 33, Kyle Vanderspek (rudder)
• Nalu V, Cal 40, Mark Ashmore (unknown water ingress)
• Trouble, Santa Cruz 50, Tom Camp (rudder)
• Live Wire, Olson 40, Tim Jones (mast damage)
• OEX, Santa Cruz 70, John Sangmeister (rudder – sunk)
• Pyewacket, Andrews 70, Roy Disney (rescued OEX)
• Macondo, Beneteau First 47.7, Mike Sudo (rudder)
• Onde Amo, Beneteau First 40.7, Stephen Ashley (rudder)

Background: First organized by the Transpacific Yacht Club in 1906, the biennial 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 nm. The 2019 edition has 12 divisions with staggered starts on July 10, 12, and 13.

Boats racing in Divisions 6, 7, 8, 9, the Cal 40s, and the Multihulls in Class 0A will start on July 10. The second start on July 12 will be for the boats in Divisions 3, 5 and the Santa Cruz 50/52s, with the final start on July 13 for the remaining monohull entries in Divisions 1 and 2, along with the Multihull class 0 entries.

The current race records were set in 2017 when Comanche set the new Merlin trophy elapsed time record at 5 days 01:55:26. Comanche also set a 24 hour distance Transpac record at 484.1 nm, a 20.2 knot average speed. The ORMA 60 trimaran Mighty Merloe set the multihull elapsed time record at 4 days 06:32:30.