Lending Club chooses record over race

Maxi tri to set sail on Transpac attempt today

Renaud Laplanche and Ryan Breymaier co-skippers of the 105ft maxi trimaran Lending club 2 have made the decision to withdraw from the 2015 Transpac Race and instead leave Long Beach today, 15 July to make their attempt the outright Transpac record, set by Olivier de Kersauson and the crew of Geronimo in November 2005.

Lending club 2 had entered the 2015 Transpac race with the intention of beating the race record that stands at 5 days 9 hours and 20 minutes. Laplanche and Breymaier attempted this feat in the 2013 Transpac but were hindered by debris in the water such as tree trunks and telephone poles washed there by the Japanese tsunami, caused them to arrive in Hawaii just two hours outside the record.

For the past week Laplanche and Breymaier, along with navigator Boris Herrmann have been carefully watching the weather and concluded the weather window for the race start will not offer the right conditions for a fast passage. At the same time they noted a low pressure system offering ideal conditions for an extremely fast crossing if the boat were to leave immediately.

The entire Lending club 2 program has been focused on record breaking with a new Cowes to Dinard record just weeks after the boat was handed over in March, fast followed by a very fast Newport to Bermuda record in April, all ratified by the World Sailing Speed Record Council.

Thus the decision was made today to bow out of the Transpac race and focus on the outright Transpacific record.