Protest at 2022 Pacific Cup

The biennial Pacific Cup welcomed its first finisher when Roy Pat Disney’s turbo Volvo 70 Pyewacket 70 came ripping across the finish line just off Kaneohe Bay at approximately 11:05 am HST on July 14, and since then the front of the 58-boat fleet has posted their elapsed times for the 2070 nm course from San Francisco, California to Hawaii.

While Pyewacket 70 provisionally looks to have swept the fleet with elapsed, division, and overall winds, the standings also showed a protest was pending on July 16 between the J/125 teams that sat first and second in their division.

The protesting party was Hamachi, co-owned by Jason Andrews and Shawn Dougherty, a notable team that was the overall winner of the 2019 Transpac Race from Los Angeles to Honolulu. The protested yacht was Ruffless, owned by Rufus Sjoberg, which provisionally beat Hamachi and was second ovrerall.

The protest was in regard to the ORR rating of Ruffless, which has a distinctly different rating than the other J/125s in the race. The protesting yacht was questioning if the sails match the certificate and sought clarification for other measurements used to establish the rating.

While Hamachi finished nearly two hours ahead of Ruffless, they lost by almost four hours on corrected time. However, while race organizers have not responded to Scuttlebutt’s inquiry on this issue, and the noticeboard at time of publication had not posted information from a hearing, the results were updated on July 17 to show Rufless has retired from the 2022 Pacific Cup.

Event details – Tracker – Standings

With drop-outs before and after the staggered start dates (July 4, 5, 7, 8), 58 teams took on the 2070 nm course from San Francisco, California to Kaneohe, Hawaii.