43rd
TRANSPACIFIC YACHT RACE
Transpacific Yacht Club
Starts July 11, 15 and 17, 2005
www.transpacificyc.org
Feb. 8, 2004 For Immediate Release
CENTENNIAL
TRANSPAC PROMISES MORE AND FASTER BOATS IN 2005
NEWPORT
BEACH, Calif.---The Transpacific Yacht Race will
soon be a centenarian among the world's great
sailing traditions where bigger and faster speed
machines share the experience with family type
boats.
 |
Plazi
Miller (left) and Kirk Elliott sailed on
Mir's about-face finish. Photo by Rich Roberts
|
In
its day Windward Passage was both. Now it was
guest of honor for the weekend's biennial dinner
meeting of the Transpacific Yacht Club membership
at Newport Harbor Yacht Club, where outgoing Commodore
Brad Avery turned over leadership to Jerry Montgomery
on a high note.
The
Centennial Transpac will be the 43rd race in the
biennial series since the first in 1906. It was
interrupted twice by World Wars. The 57 boats
representing a record nine countries in last year's
race were an 18-year high that Montgomery saw
as the beginning of a resurgence for the event.
"We
hope to increase the number of boats," Montgomery
told an audience of about 300. "In this last
race we went back to our roots with boats that
we see sailing regularly. Now we're working with
a number of classes to do what the Cal 40s did."
Montgomery
hopes to see even more than the 10 Cal 40s that,
through the efforts of new board member Wendy
Siegal, resurrected their glory of the 60s by
establishing their own class.
Windward
Passage and the former Mir---now Miramar---have
been beautifully restored but are not expected
to race. They were the dockside centerpieces for
the affair. Windward Passage is legend for owner/skipper
Robert Johnson losing the 1969 race on a time
penalty imposed for a starting incident, then
claiming first to finish, corrected time and record
time honors two years later with Mark Johnson
sailing in his late father's place.
Mir
is best known, also from '69, as the only boat
ever to finish the race sailing backwards---a
sail flying from its mizzen mast after losing
its main mast in a knockdown near the finish line.
In
2005, as always, while any boat will be eligible
to win the Governor of Hawaii Trophy for best
corrected handicap time overall, only a few will
chase the Barn Door, the unique slab of koa wood
that goes to the monohull with the fastest elapsed
time. Philippe Kahn's Pegasus maxi sleds have
won the last two, but next year the new maxZ86
boats will be the ones to beat. Three are scheduled
to go: The DeVos family's Zephryus V and two others
recently launched: Roy Disney's fourth Pyewacket
and Hasso Plattner's Morning Glory, the latter
two with state of the art canting bulb twin foil
(CBTF) technology.
 |
Brad
Avery (right) turns Commodore's Trophy over
to Jerry Montgomery. Photo by Rich Roberts
|
For
ratings purposes, Montgomery said, "The maxZ86s
will be at the top end of the fleet. Any other
boat rating equal or less than them will be eligible
to race."
And
how fast do the maxZ86s rate? Bill Lee, the entries
chairman who led the "sled" revolution
with Merlin and his line of Santa Cruz 70s, brought
gasps from the crowd.
"These
are potentially six-day boats," Lee said.
The
record for the 2,225-nautical mile race from Los
Angeles to Honolulu is 7 days 11 hours 41 minutes
27 seconds set by Pyewacket in 1999. Bruno Peyron's
86-foot catamaran Explorer clocked 5:19:18:26
in '97.
Lee,
who spent a few days sailing on the new Pyewacket
in New Zealand, also cautioned, "One thing
about these boats is that they're complicated,
like race cars. Don't buy one unless you know
how to drive it."
The
2005 race will start later than it has in many
years, waiting beyond the usual Fourth of July
getaway until later when, Montgomery said, "the
moon will be in a much more favorable phase."
Division
5 for the smallest boats and the Aloha class will
start on July 11, followed by Divisions 3 and
4 on July 15 and Divisions 1 and 2 on July 17.
The
Aloha class, conceived for the '97 race, is a
legacy of the late Hugh Lamson, a TPYC board member
who championed the development of "cruising"
classes in Southern California racing in the early
90s. They soon outperformed their original designation
as "cruisers" with some extraordinary
feats of seamanship and are now better described
as throwbacks to the Transpac's classic days before
fiberglass and ultralights when crews sat down
for dinner and slept in real bunks every night.
When it became evident that weight was a detriment
to speed in what is essentially a downwind race,
many competitors tossed such refinements overboard.
That's
why, Lee said, in the Aloha and the smaller classes
"there is lots of potential in Transpac for
what I call an owner-operated boat."
Related
photos and other information: www.transpacificyc.org
COMMODORE
Jerry Montgomery
(562) 427-3116
mmmont@aol.com
ENTRIES
CHAIRMAN
Bill Lee
(831) 464-4782
wizard@fastisfun.com
PRESS
OFFICER
Rich Roberts
(310) 835-2526
richsail@earthlink.net
