Behind the Scenes, November 2022

Sharon Green

The walls of Scuttlebutt HQ include the Ultimate Sailing calendar, and in this report Sharon Green shares the behind-the-scenes story regarding the November 2022 images.

Hoist the broom up the rig for Samba Pa Ti, featured in the November pages of the 2022 Ultimate Sailing Calendar! This cutting edge TP52 is one of only five boats to win a ‘clean sweep’ in 100-plus years of Transpac Races from Los Angeles to Honolulu. That’s first to finish, first in class, and first overall (hence the broom).

Carving frothy white sideburns through the Pacific, this stunning perspective of Samba in the 2009 Transpac is one of my favorite images. Even though this super high performance boat is sailing on the edge through the Molokai Channel, the crew looks focused but relaxed: a hallmark of John Kilroy and his fine-tuned team.

The TP52s were fully up to speed by this time, having been launched in 2001.

Ultimate Sailing was there for the genesis of this new breed of yachts designed specifically for the 2,225 nautical mile offwind ride to Hawaii, when the Transpac Yacht Club spearheaded the development of a box rule for a boat that was simpler to sail and required less crew than the ULDB 70s, yet could still compete in shorter course and buoy races.

There’s an excellent article on the evolution of the TP52s, and spin-off Pac52s like Invisible Hand, exploding through the Santa Barbara Channel also featured on the November 2022 Ultimate Sailing Calendar.