Coutts to do Transpac

Biennial race to Hawaii to feature a maxZ86 match race

With the starts still four months away, the official entry list for the Centennial Transpacific Yacht Race has soared to 68 boats - the most in a quarter century - and brought prospects of a blistering Barn Door battle between sailing superstars for the record.

Hasso Plattner's Morning Glory with three-time America's Cup winning skipper Russell Coutts on board, is among the latest to sign in. The German industrial software magnate will line up against Roy Disney's Pyewacket in a duel of Reichel/Pugh maxZ86s. They'll try to beat the fastest elapsed time by a monohull set by Disney's previous Pyewacket in 1999 - 7 days 11 hours 41 minutes 27 seconds - or at least claim the 3.5 X 4ft slab of carved koa wood known as the Barn Door that goes to the fastest monohull.

Philippe Kahn's Pegasus boats won it in 2001 and 2003, Disney's previous Pyewackets in the previous two races.

Besides Coutts, Morning Glory's crew will include World 505 champion Morgan Larson as a watch captain and all-round world-class competitor Peter Isler as navigator. Larson sailed on the two Pegasus winners.

Pyewacket regulars include Olympic gold medalist Robbie Haines and record-setting navigator Stan Honey.

There also are 14 Cal 40s - the 40-year revival seems boundless - and, in all, boats from six countries and four continents.

Australians Jamie and Jenny O'Neill have re-entered The Cone of Silence, their radical Super 30 that broke down early two years ago and returned to Long Beach. They noted that they had completed their required 160-mile offshore passage: "500 miles out and back in Transpac 2003."

Yoshihiko Murase's Ohashi 52 Bengal 2 from Japan is back after a seventh-place Division 2 finish in 2003 when it gracefully accepted the 'northernmost' award for defying conventional Transpac navigational wisdom.

Also, Transpac historians believe this race will have the first doublehanded women's entry: Patricia Garfield and Diane Murray sailing a Catalina 470, Charmed Life.

Both of the Aloha class winners are returning: Ross Pearlman's Jeanneau 52 Between the Sheets in Class A, and David Kory in Class B, although his current Barking Spider 3 is a MacGregor 65, a step up from the 38ft sloop he sailed last time.

Entries close on June 3. Measurement is also required by that date.