76 boats for Transpac centenary

Rich Roberts looks at the line-up

76 boats - the second largest entry list ever - are now signed up to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Transpacific Yacht Race in next month's 2,225-nautical mile contest from Los Angeles to Honolulu.

That number is topped only by the 80 boats that competed in 1979, followed by 74 in 1981.

Even with high-profile competitors like Genuine Risk, Morning Glory, Pyewacket, Windquest and Magnitude 80 with professional crews at the top end, the 2005 fleet is heavily weighted toward smaller boats of weekend sailors who comprise more than half the fleet. Those include 14 Cal 40s marking the 40th anniversary of their breakthrough debut in the race with competitors ranging from circumnavigator Mark Schrader and Sally Lindsay Honey's talented all-woman crew to Lloyd Sellinger's team of veterans all over age 65.

The entries represent nine countries, matching the record set in 2003, and a dozen states.

All want to be part of the historic Centennial Transpac, which as centerpiece of Long Beach's Sea Festival will have a rousing send-off from its new pre-race Transpac Village home in downtown Rainbow Harbor, as well as the traditional individual aloha welcomes for all the boats in Waikiki.

The smaller boats will start July 11 off the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Next on July 15 will come the middle classes and then the big boats on Sunday, July 17, sending the fastest in pursuit of the 'Barn Door' trophy for the fastest elapsed time and, if conditions are favorable, the monohull record of 7 days 11 hours 41 minutes 27 seconds set by Roy E. Disney's former Pyewacket in 1999.

That record has never seemed so much in jeopardy. The race will mark the Transpac debut of the fastest boats ever to sail the race - the maxZ86s Pyewacket, Hasso Plattner's Morning Glory and Dick and Doug DeVos's Windquest, plus Randall Pittman's Dubois 90 Genuine Risk and Doug Baker's Andrews 80, Magnitude 80. Although Windquest, with its slightly older technology, and the smaller Magnitude 80 will rate slightly slower, all are considered to be as much as a day faster than the record with similar conditions.

Genuine Risk is slightly longer and thereby faster than all but will power down to meet the special Transpac rating established earlier at the maxZ86 level. As configurations stand now, for purposes of corrected handicap time contention, Morning Glory is the scratch boat and will owe Genuine Risk one one-hundredth of a second per mile - only 23 seconds for the race. Pyewacket gets 92 seconds, and if it comes down to that it will be the wildest finish in race history.

The race also marks a change of pace for Philippe Kahn. His Pegasus maxi sleds were first to finish in the last two races, but this time he cares little about Barn Doors. With a new boat, Kahn will be the newest member of the Transpac 52 group, joining Charles Burnett's Braveheart, Roger Sturgeon's Rosebud and Fred Detwiler's Trader as representatives of the fast-growing international class.

"Our team wanted to do something new and exciting," Kahn said. "The Transpac 52 class is pretty much level racing, so we will have four equally matched and identical boats racing to Honolulu. Then we’ll race the Waikiki offshore series and the San Francisco Big Boat Series.

"My prediction is that the Transpac 52 is the class for the next decade. When it comes to rating and performance these new smaller boats are similar to the classic Santa Cruz 70s. This is exciting because all these boats can basically compete boat for boat. However, you must remember that we have a brand new boat, so it will take us a bit to be competitive. I think that there are many other Transpac entries with a much greater chance at the Overall trophy, which is really the most prestigious trophy of all."

All 76 boats are eligible for the Governor of Hawaii and King Kalakaua trophies for first overall on corrected handicap time. Although ratings and class breaks are not yet announced, the smaller boats have gained leverage with the rating distance raised to 2,300 miles for this race, giving them a longer track to collect precious seconds owed them by bigger boats.

The former include the Cal 40s whose class predecessors won overall in 1965, '67 and '69, and seven J/Boats. Psyche, Don Salisbury's winning Cal 40 in '65, is returning for the first time under its new owner, Steve Calhoun of Palos Verdes Estates, California. Two J/35s will compete among seven doublehanded entries. One will be Transpac's first women's doublehander: Charmed Life, a Catalina 470 sailed by Patricia Garfield and Diane Murray of San Francisco.

Then there's the Aloha class for boats with heavier displacement or less race-rated technology. One is the 76th and final entry, Cesar de Saracho's new Jeanneau 54, Enchilado, from Mazatlan, one of three Mexican entries. De Saracho, 67, a retired tomato grower, will sail with Maria Teresa, his wife of 42 years, and their three grown children Cesar Jr., Ricardo and Anna Lucia. "I've been thinking of doing it for years," said de Saracho, a veteran racer in Mexico. "The whole family wanted to do it."

They almost waited too long. De Saracho had just taken delivery of the boat late last month when he phoned Robbie Haines, the Transpac representative for San Diego, and said, "I want to do the race . . . how do I do it?"

"Do you know the deadline is a week away?" Haines replied.

With Haines' help, de Saracho got his paperwork in order just in time.

Entires:

Artemis (Andrews 53), Louis Bianco, Seattle.
Atalanta (Tripp 73 ketch), Richard Hedreen), Seattle.
Azure (Cal 40), Rodney Pimentel, Alameda, Calif.
Azure (Swan 441), Samuel Beckey, San Diego.
Barking Spider 3 (MacGregor 65), David Kory, Concord, Calif.
Beecom (Reichel/Pugh 72), Isao Mita, Yokohama, Japan
Bengal 2 (Ohashi 52), Yoshihiko Murase, Nagoya, Japan
Between the Sheets (Jeanneau 52), Ross Pearlman, Marina del Rey, Calif.
Blue (J/160), Ken and /Cheryl Sears, Nashville, Tenn.
Bolt (Nelson/Marek 55), Craig Reynolds, Newport Beach, Calif.
B'Quest (Tripp 40), Challenged America, San Diego.
Braveheart (Transpac 52), Charles Burnet, Seattle.
Brown Sugar (Express 37), Steve Brown, Santa Ana, Calif.
Bubala (Cal 40), Lloyd Sellinger, Newport Beach.
California Girl (Cal 40), Don and Betty Lessley, Richmond, Calif.
Callisto (Cal 40), Jim Eddy, Glendale, Calif.
DH-Camille (Stewart 42), James Read, San Francisco.
DH-Charmed Life (Catalina 470), Patricia Garfield, San Francisco.
Cipango (Andrews 56), Bob & Rob Barton, San Francisco.
Chasch Mer (S/C 50), Gib Black, Honolulu.
Coruba (N/M 68), Rob and Suzanne Fleming, Seattle.
Dancing Bear (Cal 40), Mark Schrader, Sitka, Alaska.
Dasher (S/C 50), Roger Groh, Sausalito, Calif.
DH-Diablo (J/35), Reed Barnard, Anacortes, Wash.
Enchilado (Jeanneau 54), Cesar de Saracho, Mazatlan, Mexico.
Far Far (Cal 40), Don Grind, Naples, Fla.
Genuine Risk (Dubois 90), Randall Pittman, La Jolla, Calif.
Iataia (Beneteau First 40.7), Marcos Rodriguez, Acapulco, Mexico.
Illusion (Cal 40), Sally Honey, Palo Alto, Calif.
Incredible (Swan 53), Rick Gorman, Los Alamitos, Calif.
Innocent Merriment (J/160), Myron Lyon, San Diego.
DH-Jacaré (J/35), Jeff Young/Rich Blackman, San Diego.
Jeito (J/145), Francisco Guzman, Acapulco, Mexico.
Kahoots (Andrews 43), Kerry Deaver/Bob Williamson, Newport Beach.
Madrina (Cabo Rico 56), Dick Simon, Dana Point, Calif.
Magnitude 80 (Andrews 80), Doug Baker, Long Beach.
Medicine Man (Andrews 61), Bob Lane, Long Beach.
Merlin (Lee 68), Patricia Steele, Maui, H.I.
Mongoose (Santa Cruz 70), Bradley Thorson, Bellevue, Wash.
Morning Glory (R/P maxZ86), Hasso Plattner, Kiel, Germany.
Odyssey (58' yawl), Audrey Steele Burnand, Long Beach.
Pegasus 52 (Transpac 52), Philippe Kahn, Honolulu.
Pendragon IV (Davidson 52), John MacLaurin, Encino, Calif.
Pipe Dream (CF 37), John Davis, Long Beach.
Plan B (Peterson 48), David Johnson, Long Beach.
Psyche (Cal 40), Steve Calhoun, Palos Verdes Estates, Calif.
Pursuit (Custom 48), Norman and Rosemary Dawley, Solomons, Md.
Pyewacket (R/P maxZ86), Roy E. Disney, Los Angeles.
Radiant (Cal 40), Fin Beven, Pasadena, Calif.
Ragtime (Spencer 66), Peterson/Richards/Welsh/Zimmer, Honolulu.
Ralphie (Cal 40), Davis Pillsbury, Woody Creek, Colo.
Reinrag2 (J/125), Tom Garnier, Portland, Ore.
Renegade (Andrews 70), Dan Sinclair, Vancouver, B.C.
Rosebud (Transpac 52), Roger Sturgeon, San Francisco.
Scout Spirit (R/P 77), Bill Turpin, Newport Beach, Calif.
Seafire (Cal 40), John Harrison, Honolulu.
Sensation (1D35), Gary Fanger, San Francisco.
DH-Serena (T1150), David Kuettel, Bel Marin, Calif.
Shaman (Cal 40), Steve Waterloo, Alameda, Calif.
Shanakee II (Pedrick 74), James Warmington, Costa Mesa, Calif.
Showdown (IMX 38), Pete Meade/Mike Luna/ Paul McDonald, Irvine, Calif.
Skylark (S/C 70), Doug Ayres, Newport Beach.
So Far (Swan 48), Larry Hillman, Chicago.
DH-Soap Opera (Hobie 33), Scott Self/Nigel Brown, Rockwall, Tex.
Spectre (Cal 40), Lee Rogge, Seattle.
Stealth Chicken (Perry 56), Timothy Beatty, Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.
Super Gnat (Beneteau First 40.7), Cliff Thompson, San Diego
Tabasco (1D35), Alamitos Bay Syndicate, Long Beach.
The Cone of Silence (Super 30), Jamie and Jenny Neill, Sydney, Australia.
Trader (Transpac 52), Fred Detwiler, Pompano Beach, Fla.
DH-Two Guys On the Edge (1D35), Dan Doyle, Kailua, H.I.
Uproarious (Olson 40), Robert Bussard, San Diego.
Wild Impulse (J/120), Larry Barels, Santa Barbara, Calif.
Willow Wind (Cal 40), Wendy Siegal, Sunset Beach, Calif.
Wind Dancer (Catalina 42), Paul Edwards, Ventura, Calif.
Windquest (R/P maxZ86), Dick & Doug DeVos, Holland, Mich.

DH---Doublehanded.