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15 Editions In 95 Years!

The Transpacific Yacht Club staged its first race to Tahiti in 1925. Four boats started from San Francisco Bay, led by the redoubtable L.A. Norris, whose 107-foot schooner, Mariner , made Papeete in 20 days .

…1953 / 1956 / 1961…

Ticonderoga sets a new record in 17 days .

Participation of Pen Duick 3 , who finished sixth in 1970 and first in 1972.

…1974 / 1976 / 1978…

Kathmandu breaks the record  in 14 days, 21 h .

Doug Baker set up the new record on Magnitude80 in 11 days, 10h 13m .

Rage and Beau Geste did a match race to Tahiti

The revival of the Tahiti Race: Transpac Tahiti 2022

Tahiti race record would seem ripe for the plucking.

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77 Years Later, Yacht Repeats Win in Trans-Pacific Race

By Chris Museler

• July 25, 2013

It took a thousand or so miles of sailing with the long, powerful waves of the Pacific Ocean for Hannah Jenner, a rising star in ocean racing, to get comfortable in this year’s Transpacific Yacht Race. Jenner, a 31-year-old from Britain, is used to racing ultralight 40-footers across oceans. But in the Transpac this month, Jenner was sailing Dorade, a 52-foot wooden sailboat from 1930 that is trimmed in varnished mahogany and adorned with polished bronze hardware.

“When I first was asked, I said: ‘Really? How old is this boat? Isn’t it going to break?’ ” Jenner said. “I’m used to boats that become more stable the faster they go. This boat rolls like crazy. It’s like learning all over again.”

Dorade , considered the forebear of modern ocean racing yachts, won the 2,225-nautical-mile Transpac race from Los Angeles to Honolulu in 1936. And 77 years later, the slender white hull with tall spruce masts rolled to victory again, beating the most modern carbon-fiber ocean racers to win its division and the overall King Kalakaua Trophy.

Racing classic wooden yachts is not unusual, but the sailing is often restricted to coastal day racing around buoys. Dorade’s owner, Matt Brooks, has a more ambitious goal of racing his yacht in all the great ocean races the boat won in the 1930s and ’40s. He said he was told that the Dorade was a “piece of antique furniture” and that “it couldn’t be done,” but Brooks and his crew received the overall winner’s trophy for the Transpac on Thursday, which should silence skeptics.

“What we found was that the boat loves the ocean,” said Brooks, who bought the boat in 2010 for $880,000. “You can tell she’s doing what she loves to do.”

Dorade was designed in 1929 by Olin Stephens, one of sailing’s most successful designers. The yawl was design No. 7 for the fledgling firm Sparkman and Stephens in Manhattan. Stephens, then 21, and his brother Rod were at the helm when the mahogany-planked, engineless boat made its first mark in the history books, winning the 1931 Transatlantic Race. Small and powerful, Dorade beat the traditional schooners of the time. The designer and his crew received a ticker-tape parade upon their return to New York, and the win set the stage for Stephens’s long career .

Dorade’s finishing time in the Transpac race this year was 12 days 5 hours 23 minutes 18 seconds, knocking more than a day off the boat’s 1936 run. The greatest distance covered in a day, or best 24-hour run, was 224 miles in 1936, but 203 miles this year.

Handicap rules used for offshore racing allow boats of different sizes and types to compete in the same race with time allowances and staggered starts. Figuring in those allowances, Dorade’s adjusted time of 5 days 12 hours 20 minutes 55 seconds beat Roy P. Disney’s modern 70-footer Pyewacket, which had an adjusted time of 5 days 14 hours 51 minutes 21 seconds. Dorade started a week earlier than Pyewacket, which finished the course in 8 days 15 hours 41 minutes 3 seconds.

“The whole idea of a boat like Dorade pulling this off has great benefits,” Disney said, referring to the publicity the win has attracted.

He added that he hoped more classic boats would race in the next Transpac. Disney said he had considered racing the wooden maxi yacht Windward Passage, which broke the course record in 1971, a result often called the Transpac’s greatest performance.

Brooks’s schedule for Dorade is primarily an attempt to recreate history. The list of races includes the Newport Bermuda Race, the Transatlantic Race and the Fastnet Race. Dorade raced in the 2012 Newport Bermuda Race, finishing sixth in its class. Brooks has his sights set on another Newport Bermuda Race in 2014, followed by the 2015 Transatlantic and Fastnet Races.

For this year’s Transpac race, Brooks and his crew spent last winter in San Francisco and Los Angeles testing different sails, navigation equipment and sailing techniques while racking up more than a thousand miles of ocean sailing. Dorade is the oldest boat to race and win the Transpac, but Brooks treated the yacht like any other top racing program in the fleet.

Brooks had new masts designed and built, in spruce, to handle the additional stresses of new laminated, aramid fiber sails. The hull, which was slightly asymmetrical as a result of its age, was faired and re-scanned. Some of the best sailors in the world were brought in to round out the seven-person crew, including an America’s Cup navigator and an around-the-world race skipper.

“The boat was extremely well sailed,” said Robbie Haines, an Olympic gold medalist who was a helmsman aboard Pyewacket. “Though it’s disappointing to us, part of me kind of likes seeing Dorade win.”

What Jenner and the rest of Dorade’s crew learned on their two-week sojourn was that the genius of the boat’s design and how the sailors in the 1930s skillfully sailed her never go out of style.

“It was definitely a new style of steering,” Jenner said. “Everything all of us know we had to forget and go to the old school type of sailing.”

The crew watched old films of Olin Stephens steering a rocking and rolling Dorade in the 1931 Transatlantic and holding the tiller steady in the center of the boat. By the end of this Transpac, Jenner said, they were all steering the same way as Stephens.

Brooks and the navigator Matt Wachowicz added to the historical realism by practicing celestial navigation all the way to Hawaii.

“We wanted to complete the historic circle,” said Brooks, who is a member of the St. Francis Yacht Club in San Francisco, the same club that had James Flood, the boat’s 1936 owner, as a member. “We were within a mile or so of the GPS course.”

Despite the unruly motion of the narrow hull, Jenner said Dorade offered benefits over boats like Pyewacket.

“On this boat there are actually bunks with cushions as opposed to sleeping on sails,” she said. “It’s also bizarrely silent down below a wooden boat, but you can hear creaking and cracking noises, which was a little unsettling.”

Few boats have as grand a history as Dorade’s, but Brooks hopes to prove a point with the boat.

“I hope this win will make people sit up and take notice that these boats can still do what they were designed to do,” he said. “They shouldn’t be restricted to dockside museum pieces.”

A picture caption last Friday with an article about Dorade’s victory in the Transpacific Yacht Race 77 years after winning it the first time carried an erroneous credit. The photograph, provided by Ultimate Sailing, was taken by Sharon Green, not by Betsy Crowfoot.

How we handle corrections

The Transpac History Project

We are a group of veteran Transpac Race sailors who have the desire to chronicle and save the colorful history of Transpac.  Founded in 2009 our mission is to reach out to all those who have been touched by the Race and help preserve their memories in a lasting digital format.

We are looking for stories, film, photos, newspaper clippings and other Transpac Race memorabilia.  For more information on how to share you piece of Transpac click here

Roy E. Disney

Leslie DeMeuse-Disney

Preserving Transpac History for the Ages

Contributers:

Geri Conser

Rich Roberts

Newport Harbor Yacht Club

Sharon Green

John Fuller

Los Angeles Yacht Club

Newport Harbor Nautical Museum

The Ayres Family

Transpac Yacht Race

Next broadcast Aug 26, 2024 - 12:31 30 min

The Transpacific Yacht Race, known for short as "Transpac", is together with the Bermuda Race one of the two most enduring long distance sailing competitions in the world. The Transpac open ocean racecourse has sailors travelling across 2,225 nautical miles, overshadowing the 635-mile-long Bermuda Race.

Since its first edition in 1906, the Transpac has been raced biennially creating its own impressive history. Sailors rush on their boats from LA to Honolulu, and after approximately 12 days they make their way across the Pacific Ocean and towards the heavenly islands of Hawaii.

Get ready for the best sailing action of the U.S East Coast in this tough endurance race. Now available on Nautical Channel.

Season 2021

Next Broadcast: Aug 26, 10:31 30 min.

Honolulu, Hawaii, is ready for the 51st edition of the Transpac. 40 teams starting in San Pedro will embark in a lifetime journey across the Pacific to get to Hawaiian waters. This year we have seen some of the fastest times in this race, broken masts at the start of the race and some other serious damage incidents across the trip.

Enjoy the best moments of the 2021 edition of the Transpac Yacht Race.

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Historic offshore yacht marks 40th entry in the 2023 Transpac

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Multihull Transpacific Yacht Race

In 1964, the Outrigger Canoe Club began co-hosting the first Multihull Transpacific Yacht Race with the Ocean Racing Catamaran Association.  The race began on July 4 of even numbered years, in contrast to the Transpacific Monohull Yacht Race which was held in odd numbered years.  The race began in San Pedro, California and finished at the Diamond Head Buoy, about a mile from the Outrigger Canoe Club.

A history of the race by Cline Mann follows:

In 1947 there appeared on the beach at Waikiki a twin-hulled beauty which was destined to become the forerunner of all modern catamarans.  Designed and built by Woody Brown and Alfred Kumalae, Manu Kai was an essential part of the beach scene in Waikiki for a decade and captured the imagination of local folks and visitors alike.

To race a catamaran from California to Honolulu was Woody’s goal, and towards that end he and Rudy Choy produced Waikiki Surf .  In June of 1955 this boat made the Honolulu-California passage in a very respectable 18 days.  Unsuccessful in efforts to receive favorable consideration as a participant in the monohull TransPac, Waikiki Surf , skippered by Rich Muirhead, started unofficially after the 55 official starters on what was to become the wildest of TransPac races.

It was in this race that the splendid winds from start to finish propelled Morning Star to an elapsed time record of nine days, 15 hours, 5 minutes and 10 seconds, a record that would stand for ten years until the photo finish of 1965 when Ticonderoga established the record of 9:13:51.2 with Stormvogel a scant one-half mile and four minutes behind.

After passing through almost the entire fleet during the first few days and nights, Waikiki Surf continued into the lead at speeds up to 25 knots until, when approximately 400 miles from Oahu, in the dead of night, a fracture occurred and water poured into the lee hull.  An entire day was lost assessing damage and making repairs, and during this time the lead was lost.  Resuming at reduced speed, Waikiki Surf finally entered the Molokai Channel, and with the smell of land in their nostrils, the crew threw caution to the wind, and passing through the searchlight beam at Diamond Head came home to Waikiki.  She was the fifth boat to finish, ahead of 49 others, in the elapsed time of ten days and 15 hours.

Almost at once another ocean-racing catamaran was on the drawing boards, this one destined to compile an ocean racing/cruising record unparalled to this day.  Aikane , owned and skippered by Kenny Murphy, sailed in the 1957 and 1959 TransPacs, again unofficially.  First to finish in both races, Aikane set a still-unbroken multihull TransPacific course record of nine days, 22 hours, 33 minutes in the 1959 race.

Race Inauguration 1964

In 1964, having decided to abandon efforts to be included as official entries in the 60-year-old TransPac race for conventional ocean racers, the West Coast ocean-racing catamaran owners under the leadership of Jack Swart and Vic Stern decided instead to inaugurate a separate TransPacific rate for multihulls.  At the invitation of this group, which one year later became the Ocean Racing Catamaran Association (ORCA), the Outrigger Canoe Club became an appropriate co-sponsor of the race, the modern catamaran being the descendent of the ancient Polynesian doubles canoes and outriggers.  Moreover the new OCC location was expected to be a spectacular and romantic site for the finishing boats to be received in colorful Hawaiian fashion in the lagoon.

A three-boat start on July 4, 1964 signified inauguration of the biennial Multihull TransPacific Race.  Unhappily, two boats were quickly forced to withdraw as the result of under-strength members cracking in an intense off-shore storm, leaving only Vic Stern’s sturdy Imi Loa to make the crossing.  The winds were good during the first half of the race, but gentled during the second half.  The finish, completed under full sail, was immediately followed by a joyful reception at the Outrigger Canoe Club with a fabulously beautiful sunset as a backdrop. Among the happy crew of Imi Loa were Woody Brown and Alfred Kumalae, finally achieving their ambitions.

Adding great prestige to the event was the presence in the crew of poular Chuck Ullman, in prior years, owner-skipper of Legend , which, under his command, was once overall and twice class winner in the monohull TransPac race.   Imi Loa set the official race record of 10:9:53:15 which stood until Seasmoke’s 1968 crossing narrowly eclipsed it.   Imi Loa’s corrected time of 9.5963 days has yet to be bettered (1970).

With Seal Beach Yacht Club and Waikiki Yacht Club added as co-sponsors, the 1966 race started on July 2 with five boats.  After a promising first three days, the winds died to a near calm for the following three days, but towards the finish were blowing strongly.  Triumphing in a see-saw battle, Patty Cat II finished first followed by Glass Slipper II a few hours later, and both were treated to an Outrigger Canoe Club reception, as was Imi Loa , one night later.

Near the end of the awards banquet at Waikiki Yacht Club, at which Jay Johnson’s Glass Slipper II was given her race winner’s laurels, in came Tri Star which earned a second place trophy by a scant few minutes, necessitating a shuffling of trophies already awarded.  Bringing up the rear was World Cat which since then has completed her historic round-the-world trip.  Light-winded 1966 did not produce any new records.

Having gained the stature of a permanent fixture, the 1968 sailing of the race was made noteworthy by the entry of two new boats whose existence in many ways is owed to the challenge presented by this race:  James Arness’ Seasmoke and Buddy Ebsen’s Polynesian Concept .  In all, there were eight entries including veterans Imi Loa and Glass Slipper II , and newcomers Manu Iwa, Lani Kai, Auriga and Illusion .

Uniformly medium winds produced no challenge to Big Ti’s record, but allowed superfast Seasmoke to lower the race record set by Imi Loa in 1964 from 10:9:53:15 to 10:9:0:23.   Polynesian Concept , dubbed Poly Con by all, though the smallest boat permitted by the race rules to enter, was second in after Seasmoke and, on corrected time, beat the entire classy field of seven finishers.   Illusion broke her new stick in the gusty air at Catalina Island’s West End and was forced to retire.

The 4th Sailing of the Biennial Multihull TransPacific Yacht Race was scheduled to begin on July 4, 1970 at noon at San Pedro, CA.  The race was cancelled and not held again.

• Outrigger Canoe Club Perpetual for Race Winner (First Place Corrected)
• ORCA’s Rich Muirhead Memorial Perpetual and Waikiki Yacht Club Multihull Perpetual (First to Finish Elapsed)
• Seal Beach Yacht Club Perpetual for Race Record
• Elapsed Time (Race) Record: 10 days -9 hours — Seasmoke 1968
• Elapsed Time (Course) Record: 8 days – 18 hours — Pen Duick IV 1969
• Corrected Time Record: 9 days – 14.3 hours — Imi Loa 1964

Full Results

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• Decades of Sailing - The 1940’s
• The Story of the 1965 Transpacific Yacht Race
• The Story of the 1967 Transpacific Yacht Race
• The Story of the 1969 Transpacific Yacht Race
• The Story of the 1971 Transpacific Yacht Race
• The Story of the 1973 Transpacific Yacht Race
• The Story of the 1975 Transpacific Yacht Race
• The Story of the 1976 Tahiti Race
• The Story of the 1977 Transpacific Yacht Race
• The Story of the 1978 Tahiti Race
• The Story of the 1979 Transpacific Yacht Race
• The Story of the 1981 Transpacific Yacht Race
• The Story of the 1983 Transpacific Yacht Race
• The Story of the 1985 Transpacific Yacht Race
• The Story of the 1987 Transpacific Yacht Race
• The Story of the 1989 Transpacific Yacht Race
• The Story of the 1991 Transpacific Yacht Race
• The Story of the 1993 Transpacific Yacht Race
• The Story of the 1994 Tahiti Yacht Race
• The Story of the 1995 Transpacific Yacht Race

The Story of the 1997 Transpacific Yacht Race

• The Story of the 1999 Transpacific Yacht Race
• The Story of the 2001 Transpacific Yacht Race
• The Story of the 2003 Transpacific Yacht Race
• The Story of the 2005 Centennial Transpacific Yacht Race
• The Story of the 2007 Transpacific Yacht Race
• The Story of the 2008 Tahiti Yacht Race
• The Story of the 2009 Transpacific Yacht Race
• The Story of the 2011 Transpacific Yacht Race
• 2011 Bill Lee Interview
• The Story of the 2012 Tahiti Race
• The Story of the 2013 Transpacific Yacht Race: A Race for Both the Old and the New
• The Story of the 2015 Transpacific Yacht Race: An Unusual Race in an El Nino Year
• The 2017 Transpac: “Normal” weather returns and with this records fall
• Race Records
• Transpac’s Historic Highlights
• The Essence of the Transpac Race from Those Who Have Conquered It
• The Origins of the Transpac Race
• The Story of the 2019 Transpacific Yacht Race: Huge Turnout for Anniversary Race
• Transpac 51 – An interesting but successful and fast year

The 39th Transpacific Yacht race will forever be known as one of the Outstanding races in Transpac history. The race was again sponsored by the Kenwood Corporation, and attracted new, exciting entries, mirroring the latest develpments of yachting technology including: ZEPHYRUS, a Reichel/Pugh 75'; MAGNITUDE, an Andrews 70' Turbo, and VICKI, an Andrews 70' Turbo. As it turned out the race would ultimately be won, however, by repeating Transpac veterans, outstanding sailing, and excellent wind conditions.

Veteran record holder, MERLIN (sporting a canting keel), and refurbished RAGTIME were also part of the 38 entries for this race. Other noteworthy entries included: all woman crews on BAY WOLF and PEGASUS XIV; and SURVIVOR, an all-HIV positive crew, willing to challenge the sea. The race was started over a 9 day, 4 start, span to accommodate the vast differences in vessel speeds. The monohull starts were: June 28th Cruising Class from 35' to 52'; July 2nd, smaller racing entries from 30' to 60'; July 5th, larger racing entries from 60' to 75'. On July 7th, the multihull racers started and EXPLORER, having sailed directly from France without an engine, barely made it on time.

Early contestants started in light wind at Point Fermin, but the wind quickly built to a strong, steady 20 knots. This would be a good year – if it held. The early leader in the Cruising Class was Fred Frye’s SALSIPUEDES, a Tayana 52. By the second start, all the entries were praying for the winds to hold and the Pacific high to stay north. Immediately, Bob Lane’s MEDICINE MAN, a highly modified Andrews 56, started setting a record pace. SEA DANCER, SEAZ ThE MOMENT, and 2 GUYS ON ThE EDGE were forced to retire with varying problems. The third start, although slow, almost immediately followed with excellent winds. Unfortunately, three new Division I yachts, ZEPHYRUS, MAGNITUDE, and VICKI, all retired with mast failures within 48 hours. With a 3 day head start on the bigger monohulls, MEDICINE MAN, on record pace, would give the big boys a true greyhound to chase, turning in a 305 mile day.

Early leaders in the larger Division I class were the Turbos, Hal Ward’s CHEVAL (1995 Barn Door Defender), VICTORIA, and PYEWACKET, and MIRAGE, TAXI DANCER, plus venerable KATHMANDU in the S/C 70, Division II. By the time the multihulls started two days later, it was apparent this would be a record breaker due in part to a tropical storm off Mexico. The multihulls led by Bruno Peyrone’s EXPLORER, a huge 86' catamaran and Steve Fossett’s LAKOTA, a Jeaneau 60', the defending Champion, began an epic battle to catch the fleet, while DOUBLE BULLET retired shortly when she lost the top portion of her mast.

In fact, SALSIPUEDES, the cruiser, and MEDICINE MAN, with their respective head starts, were also racing for “first place at the dock.” On July 10th, MEDICINE MAN passed SALSIPUEDES less than 10 miles from the finish at Diamond Head and began the string of record-breaking finishes by bettering Merlin’s 20-year old record of 8 days, 11 hours, 01 minutes, 46 seconds, by 4 1/2 hours. SALSIPUEDES would finish under 28 minutes later, winning the new Overton Perpetual Trophy for best Cruising Class Corrected Time Yacht.

However, everyone was still watching the record pace of the Turbos, led by VICTORIA’s 337 mile record 24 hour run, LUNA BARBA at 319, MERLIN at 327, CHEVAL at 331, and PYEWACKET at 336. ExPLORER and LAKOTA each sailed the first half of the 2,225 mile distance in less than 3 days.

Indeed, the big cat, EXPLORER, would overhaul and pass the record-setting monohulls to finish in 5 days, 9 hours, 18 minutes and 26 seconds, in record time winning the new Rudy Choy Trophy for best multihull elapsed time by averaging 17.2 knots, followed closely by LAKOTA.

No one waited more impatiently than Roy E. Disney, veteran of 11 consecutive Transpac races, confined to a dock-side seat due to an auto collision injury, as his PYEWACKET, skippered by his son, Roy Pat, and navigated by Stan Honey, slid into the lead of the Turbo class. Ultimately, the new two day old monohull elapsed time record would be shattered by five more boats: MERLIN 8 days, 3 hours; LUNA BARBA 8 days, 1 hour; VICTORIA 7 days, 21 hours; CHEVAL 7 days, 20 hours; and best of all, averaging 12 knots, by Barn Door Trophy Winner PYEWACKET with a new Transpac record of 7 days, 15 hours, 24 minutes, 40 seconds.

KATHMANDU, chartered by Jaconi, Hitchcock & Thompson, both arrived and corrected out 17 minutes ahead of MIRAGE in Division II. With all the records being set, another veteran, Jerry Montgomery, would have the final laugh. He chartered the ancient S/C 50, RALPHIE, and along with owner John Latiolait, won the King Kalakua Trophy, presented by the Governor of Hawaii with a 9 day, 5 hour run, correcting out (7 days, 00 hours, 15 minutes, 51 seconds) on the entire fleet as well as over MEDICINE MAN and STEALTH CHICKEN in Division III. PEGASUS XIV recorded the first placing in the final standings by an all-woman crew, taking second to ACEY DEUCY, in Division IV. Veteran RAGTIME, a Barn Door Trophy winner in 1973 finished her 11th Transpac with her best time ever. It should be noted in addition to Disney (in almost every way a participant) Avery, Durgin, Haines, Honey, Jourdane, Sinclair and Tretter, seven Directors of the Transpacific Yacht Club, were on board various racers and the three flag officers, Jones, Edgcomb and Martin were at all the starts and finishes.

In all, it was a magnificent race that set high new standards for the future.

- H. Gilbert Jones, Commodore

Throughout its 20-year history, the Singlehanded TransPac Race from San Francisco to Hanalei Bay, Kauai, has earned many epithets - courageous, heroic, masochistic, insane. . . But after 'toughing it out' for 14 long days at sea in the cramped confines of his Moore 24, Greg Morris characterized this odd contest with his own irreverent spin: "This race is like a bug light for weirdos with boats."

Regardless of whether you think of this year's 11 finishers as bold individualists or "weirdos with boats," each deserves a large measure of respect for solo-sailing the 2,120-mile run - a notable accomplishment for any sailor. In doing so, they join a proud association of men and women - 141 to be exact - who've completed the crossing since this biennial challenge was instituted in 1978.

Collectively, this year's competitors represented a broad spectrum of attitudes toward singlehanded ocean racing. At one extreme was multimillionaire adventurer Steve Fossett aboard his 60-ft trimaran Lakota , who easily met his goal by setting a new elapsed time record: 7 days, 22 hours and 38 minutes. At the opposite extreme were low-key guys like Mike Dranginis aboard his Ericson 30 Compass Rose and Bob Gay aboard his Pretorian 35 Bravo , for whom simply arriving at Hanalei in one piece was its own reward, marking the culmination of a personal rite of passage. Between these extremes were several repeat contestants who hoped to better their previous elapsed times, and a first-timer or two whose principal motivation was to enjoy a "pleasant ride" on the open ocean.

Completing the cast of characters, were two feisty combatants who had a grudge to settle: Despite hand steering for as many as 14 hours a day, Greg Morris failed to beat his arch rival and bosom buddy, Ken 'the General' Roper, who, at age 68 completed his sixth SSS TransPac, further cementing his reputation as the event's most frequent participant. Roper has put 80,000 sea miles on his Finn Flyer 31 Harrier , much of it singlehanded.

The range of boat types in this year's contest was almost as disparate as the skippers themselves. In addition to Lakota , which has broken close to two dozen ocean records around the world, there was John Guzzwell's half-size BOC racer Endangered Species ; Bob Cranmer-Brown's Adler 60 Etosha , which was built for the '86 BOC race, and Morris' tiny Moore 24 with its lavender topsides, bright orange boot stripe and lime green underbelly, appropriately named Color Blind . A variety of more conventional racer/cruisers completed the field, including Giggles , a sweet Baltic 38, which Dale Parshall sailed to first place (on corrected time) among the monohulls.

Despite the uncertainties of racing to Hawaii in an El Ni�o year, conditions this year were milder than during several recent TransPacs, yet windy enough to allow Fossett to shave nearly a day off the previous record, set in the windy '94 race by Peter Hogg aboard the Antrim 40 tri Aotea . Nevertheless, some multihull enthusiasts were surprised that Lakota , being a 60-footer, didn't pare down the old mark by a greater margin - especially since the monohull Pyewacket bettered Lakota 's time by 34 hours on her Pacific Cup crossing to Oahu. (That course is only 50 miles shorter.) But while monohulls were able to sail practically dead downwind close to the rhumbline, Lakota was forced to sail a zigzag course of jibe after jibe which, when plotted, resembled the footprints along the sands of Hanalei after a big night at the Tahiti Nui bar - the singlehanders' favorite watering hole.

As in years past, the starting line was laid off the Corinthian Yacht Club at midday on June 27. For Fossett and some others, just getting out of the Bay single-handed was nerve-wracking. Hundreds of daysailors were on the water and the tide was flooding through the Gate: "I put in countless tacks," recalled Fossett, whose boat was literally pushed sideways at times by the current. "It was definitely the most strenuous part of the race."

Meanwhile, the 60-ft ketch Etosha had been conspicuously absent at the start. Bob Cranmer-Brown woke up on race day to find Etosha 's 12-foot keel stuck three feet into the soft mud beneath the Oakland Yacht Club docks, which had been the pre-race staging area. By the time she was towed out by Vessel Assist several hours later, she was late for the start. Having made three previous attempts at the Singlehanded TransPac on the same chartered boat - all of which were plagued by problems - Cranmer-Brown's greatest hope before the race had been to sail an "uneventful race." But it wasn't to be, as a litany of troubles were yet to come. Etosha started nearly an hour and a half later than the others after motoring from Oakland to the line, an act the English-born skipper would later pay for with a five-hour penalty.

The wind went light that first night, leaving many skippers anxiously limping through the shipping lanes. "On the first night out I damn near ran into the side of a ship," confided boatbuilder John Guzzwell of Endangered Species . "I came up on deck and saw port lights on both sides of me. It had actually just slipped past me."

"Once you get into the trade winds, you forget about the discomfort of working your way off the coast," quipped Bruce Nesbit, who surfed his Olson 34 much of the way to Hanalei. But those first days of pounding out to sea proved to be the undoing of first-timers Jay Capell of Leilani Too and Dave Smith of Magic Carpet Ride . Capell dropped out on the second day when his boat began taking on water through her bow and Smith was forced to retire when his gooseneck fitting broke and he shredded a sail or two.

Early in the race the East Pacific High went south, so Lakota and Etosha dove down to lower latitudes to follow it, while the rest of the fleet stayed closer to the rhumbline. Although he had pulled far ahead of the other monohulls, the move put Cranmer-Brown in the path of peril on the third night. "At 2 a.m. I found myself in the direct path of a container ship," he recalls. After making radio contact, he learned that the vessel was four miles away, doing 16 knots on a collision course. Both skippers agreed to alter course, but with his spinnaker up, Cranmer-Brown was unable to veer far from the ship's path before she came down on top of Etosha . "The freighter passed so close, it took all wind out of my sails and I did a full 360 under spinnaker. I'm so lucky to be here - 10 or 20 seconds earlier and it would have T-boned me."

Once away from the coast, steady trade winds drove the fleet from almost dead astern - a rare condition relative to years past. As a result, a decades-old cruising concept proved to be the sail plan du jour.

"At first I was embarrassed to tell people I wasn't flying a spinnaker aboard Giggles ," admits Dale Parshall, who gave up on his kite after flying it "on the verge of catastrophe" throughout the first day. Instead, he poled out two twin 125 genoas, flown off a twin-track headstay. "Here I was trying to do this big sailing thing and I'm flying these wimpy double headsails."

Parshall expected the sail change would allow his longtime friend and sailing rival, Bruce Nesbit, to pull away from Giggles in his lightweight Olson 34 Razzberries . But Parshall's system gave him consistent speed 24 hours a day with a minimum expenditure of energy. Giggles slowly passed Razzberries and continued to broaden the gap between them while Nesbit - and others - occasionally lost time while battling with their chutes. "I came up one night at midnight when the spinnaker was wrapped and it took me until 4:45 a.m. to clear it," laments the Mill Valley retiree.

"I brought three old spinnakers that came with the boat," says Steve Faustina of the Barnett 42 Solitaire . "I tore up one, wrapped another on the forestay and had to destroy it, then blew up the third. After that, I spent two days sewing one of them; it ran for another 12 hours and it blew up again - but not where I sewed it! I guess I'm a pretty good seamstress," laughed the ex-Oakland cop.

By the end of the race, Bob Gay of the Pretorian 35 Bravo had the most extreme viewpoint, however: "I hate spinnakers with a passion! They should make them illegal."

Meanwhile, with a sage-like wisdom accumulated over five previous SSS TransPacs, the General (Ken Roper) had his own solution to dead-downwind running. He'd had a special sail made for Harrier , constructed from two three-ounce genoas attached to a single luff tape. "I can sandwich the two halves together as a single jib with the sheet tied through both clews, or I can separate them and use them as a double headsail poled out." Roper's innovation - and his tenacity - won him first in class for the first time.

Most other skippers eventually bagged their chutes for good and used the double-headsail arrangement - which is not allowed in most other races - for the remainder of the trip.

By the time Lakota was halfway through her record run, the rest of the fleet was still acclimating to their solitary life at sea. During the crossing, they would experience day after day of glorious trade wind sailing regularly punctuated by squalls and wind shifts, but no horrendous weather hit and no one was ever completely becalmed. The strongest wind reported was a gust of 42 knots, while 15 to 25 was the norm.

The two dropouts notwithstanding, there was no major damage to any of the remaining 11 boats or bodies throughout the race, although there were plenty of blown sails and at least three racers got severely whacked on the head by their booms.

You wouldn't expect experienced offshore sailors to have head-butting contests with their booms, but the severe sleep deprivation inherent in the SSS TransPac is bound to cause slow reactions and errors in judgement. As Steve Faustina found out, a slap in the head is a particularly effective wake-up call. "I left the blood on the deck for days to remind me: 'that's your blood down there, and you don't want to lose any more.' "

The low-slung boom on Greg Morris' Moore 24 smacked him on the left side of his head, sending him reeling. Before he could completely catch his balance, it came back again and popped him above his right eye. Luckily, Greg is as tough as a pit bull, so he recovered quickly. But that wasn't the worst of his problems.

After two previous attempts, no one was more determined to race hell-for-leather from start to finish than Morris - including Fossett, who sails "very conservatively" when singlehanding. Morris hand-steered as much as he was physically capable and never gave in to fatigue if a sail change was called for. But despite his best efforts a faulty installation slowed him down.

When his autopilot stopped functioning properly, Morris realized he needed to drill a hole and sink a bolt through the unit's control arm, where it attaches to the rudder stock. He had a cordless drill and one sharp drill bit the proper size, but with the boat lying under bare poles and Morris' body shoehorned as far aft as possible, so much water spilled in through a small access hole in the transom that he had to bucket it out every 30 minutes for fear Color Blind would sink. While being tossed by the swells, trying to complete the job was slow, torturous work. When he eventually finished the hole, it was an eighth of an inch off and he had to begin again. Finally, after five long hours he raised sail again, but the setback would cause him to lose a position in the ranks. Unfortunately, getting Color Blind squared away before the race was a frantic effort; he'd only sailed her offshore twice.

Mike Dranginis also had a potentially grave problem, but he too made do. "About the fourth day out I worked the foot pump and there was no water." The jarring motion of the boat had cracked his system's plastic piping, allowing both his fresh water tanks to drain into the bilge. Luckily he'd stashed bottled water all over the boat. "I think you really have to have redundancy built into everything, because you never know what's going to break."

Most TransPac'ers had plenty of high times, however, to balance out the difficulties. This was the inaugural ocean cruise for John Guzzwell's custom-built, 'Guzzwell 30' Endangered Species . He only had an asymmetrical spinnaker, and wasn't set up to run double headsails, but ". . . with the genny poled out and two reefs in the main, you could drive that boat in 40 knots. It just screams along," he confides with a proud smile. "I would just sit in the hatch laughing my head off watching that wake going by - it was like being on a destroyer."

Etosha reached a top speed of 21 knots on her way to taking first-over-the-line honors among the monohulls. The accomplishment was particularly notable since she'd sat idle for six years before her new owner, Steve Gale, and charterer Cranmer-Brown put her through a frantic six-week renovation process just prior to the race. One night at sea the skipper made a particularly poignant log entry: "I lie in my bunk and watch the wind instruments at the masthead while the boat tears madly through the night under spinnaker, like a wild horse shaking its head with sheer exuberance over its speed. Every once in a while the keel would give out a loud moaning cry to the whales below as we hit 18 knots and I pray for nothing to break."

As Bruce Nesbit put it, "The scenery out there is dark blue water, light blue sky and puffy white clouds. That's it." Nevertheless there were occasional signs of life. Racing along at speeds as high as 12.5 knots, Endangered Species attracted a huge school of dolphins one day. "There must have been a hundred of them and they were surfing with me down the waves. One of them kept leaping up and doing somersaults. It was a really unique experience - so beautiful."

Other boats had less attractive visitors. One night when Nesbit came up to deal with a squall, a huge white sea bird was sitting on his stern pulpit. Bruce was enjoying his company as they sat side by side until the bird suddenly pooped all over the cockpit - and Bruce's leg.

Oddly enough, the General had a similar-looking visitor about the same time during the trip. And sure enough the uninvited guest left an unwelcome deposit in the cockpit of Harrier also. To add insult to injury though, before he flew off he also regurgitated a half-digested flying fish onto the cockpit floor.

One of the strangest sightings, however was made by Bob Gay. �I'd been hammered by squalls for 36 hours when I looked up and saw the moon through a gap in the clouds. Then behind me I thought I saw a waterspout that was arched at the top." Befuddled, he radioed the General about it, who explained that it was, in fact, a 'moonbow' - similar to a rainbow, but with different shades of gray instead of the full spectrum of colors.

Among other notable log entries, Cranmer-Brown once found himself smack dab in the middle of a full naval exercise 1,200 miles offshore. After sailing in isolation for days, Nesbit was suddenly blasted by intense search lights one night. The source was a Coast Guard patrol plane that was looking for two Pacific Cup boats which were thought to have been in distress. Delayne Brink, a school teacher from Seattle, was sitting in the cockpit of At Last one day, lamenting the recent shredding of his spinnaker and thinking to himself, "Too bad my sailmaker's not around," when he noticed a passing freighter. After raising the ship on VHF to chat, another voice came over the airwaves: "Is that you, Brink?" Ironically enough, it was Brink's Seattle sailmaker who was sailing nearby. "Sorry," he said. "No time to repair your sail now. I'm racing in the Pacific Cup!"

Getting enough sleep to function sensibly is obviously one of the greatest challenges of a solo ocean race like this. But each sailor dealt with the problem in his own way. Fossett set a one-hour alarm clock in addition to a radar alarm to alert him if traffic was nearby, and a speed alarm which would sound if Lakota topped 27 knots - her top speed is 31! Others set egg timers which allowed them only 15 minutes sleep at a stretch. Then there was Mike Dranginis, who swore he got more sleep than he does at home.

Although the object of this race is to go it alone, each time it's run we're told there's a heartfelt camaraderie that grows throughout the event as these like-minded souls get to know one another through daily radio call-ins via SSB and VHF.

"The part I liked most was the company," noted Bob Gay, who figures himself to be the least experienced sailor in the group. "Everybody was talking about different rigging styles, how to set your sails, where the high was sitting and what they were planning to do. Several guys were very serious about winning, but at no one else's expense. No one would ever withhold knowledge of a weather situation in order to win."

Because position reports were given twice daily, each sailor was able to plot his competitors' paths, compute their handicaps and know exactly where he stood currently in the standings on corrected time - while friends and family back home followed the action on the SSS Web page ( www.sfbaysss.org ).

As a result, those who were in danger of dropping back in the ranks - and gave a damn - pushed as hard as possible during the final two days. Internally, their bodies underwent a struggle between the adrenaline produced by arrival anxiety and the debilitating effects of sleep deprivation. Fossett, on the other hand, had experienced the elation of finishing days earlier. He celebrated his record run with a "huge Mai Tai" and flew off to the Great Lakes, where he would break yet another record in the Chicago-to-Mackinac race.

"With about 15 hours to go," said Cranmer-Brown, "I decided to put up the biggest spinnaker I had and go for it, but I kept falling asleep at the wheel. I ended up hand steering wing and wing 'til the finish."

Morris too, eventually ran out of steam. "About three days out I knew I was getting ready for the sprint to the finish, and I knew how things were shaping up, but I just crashed for eight hours. Before that I'd never let myself sleep for more than 15 minutes at a stretch."

A day and a half out, Color Blind was an hour behind Razzberries (on corrected time) and At Last was an hour ahead. They all pushed as hard as possible, getting little or no sleep the last 24 hours. But in the end, each boat held its position. Nevertheless each had an emotionally-charged finish.

"That was a fantastic day," recalled Nesbit. "The seas were fairly calm, the wind was strong and the boat was going eight or nine knots all the time. I'd get up on a wave and surf it forever."

Meanwhile, 48 miles from the finish "all hell broke loose" aboard At Last . Her mylar headsail blew its tack and got wrapped around the headstay, then the sheet got wrapped twice around the end of the main boom, keeping Brink from quickly getting things under control. "I had visions of the stick coming down - it was whipping and wiggling like a noodle!" Eventually, though, he got it together and was the first in his class to cross the line.

As finishers sailed into the sweeping crescent bay beneath the green slopes of Bali Hai, broad smiles replaced frowns of fatigue. "What a great psychological payoff," beamed Dale Parshall of Giggles , who corrected out an hour ahead of the General to finish first in fleet. "There's so much emotion involved in the accomplishment - it's deep-rooted stuff."

Although there are always more talkers than doers when it comes to the Singlehanded TransPac, the next event, in the year 2000, has already generated a lot of chatter. At least half of this year's fleet have shown interest in making another run, as have many other members of the Singlehanded Sailing Society. Veterans of past races are often lured back again when they are reminded that few other endeavors bring the same sense of camaraderie and personal fulfillment.

Solo ocean racers are indeed a breed unto themselves. As Bob Gay put it, "The Singlehanded Sailing Society is an organization of people who don't usually join anything - the ultimate un-yacht club."

- latitude/ aet

� 1998 Latitude38

Published on February 11th, 2019 | by Editor

Transpac turns 50 with old friend

Published on February 11th, 2019 by Editor -->

In a record year of interest, it’s perhaps fitting that the 100th entry to the 50th edition of the Transpacific Yacht Club’s biennial 2225-mile Transpac race from LA to Honolulu is at 55 years old one of the oldest in the race yet also one of the most innovative in the last half-century of yacht design.

Chris Welsh’s Spencer 65 Ragtime will be making her 17th race to Hawaii in July 2019, more than any other yacht in the history of this race. Welsh has been an owner of Ragtime since 2004, and since then has raced three Transpacs (2005, ’07, ’09), one race to Tahiti (2008) and the Sydney-Hobart Race (2008).

“It’s been ten years since we last sailed to Hawaii,” said Welsh, “so we’re looking forward to having some fun again.”

From its very beginning, this long, narrow, low-freeboard and lightweight black beauty with the reverse shearline and hard chines has been a recognizable Pacific Ocean racing classic. Designed and built by John Spencer in New Zealand in 1963 as Infidel for first owner and race car driver Tom Clark, she was meant to be simply the fastest boat of the era.

With Ragtime in the hands of her second owners from California, she proved her worth by beating the legendary Windward Passage across the finish by only 4 minutes and 31 seconds to set a new course record in the 1973 Transpac. And to show this was no fluke, she won the Barn Door Trophy again in 1975.

Ragtime’s long narrow light weight design helped inspire the next generation of ULDB (Ultra Light Displacement Boat) designs that were to dominate this and so many other Pacific Ocean races for the next 25 years.

Several owners have held Ragtime, with each making tweaks to this double-ply plywood yacht: upgrades of new rigs, sails, keels, rudders, bulbs, deck hardware, etc. have all been in her history. And with the new innovations came new structures to accommodate the higher and higher loads that came with pushing her faster and faster.

Welsh reckons there are few if any other monohulls in the world who are performing 25% higher than when they were first built.

Right now Ragtime is getting a new engine that will not only be more reliable but a few hundred pounds lighter, and some new winches that will decrease the total number on board but also increase crew work efficiency in the small cockpit space available in the design. Welsh plans to race not only offshore but occasionally around the cans too, and after Transpac has his sights set on an East Coast tour in 2020.

For this tour there will be another upgrade: a new carbon mast that will be higher and lighter than the current one, which he would have used in Transpac this year except there is no time to oversee the additional structural work needed to secure this rig properly to the hull and deck.

Nonetheless, Welsh expects to be fast and have a shot at the King Kalakaua Trophy awarded to the race’s overall winner in corrected time.

“It’s fantastic that Transpac 50 has inspired so many boats of so many ages, sizes and types to come out to race,” said TPYC Commodore Tom Hogan. “And with the classics like Kialoa II, Ragtime, the Cal 40’s and others still competing into their fifth decade, this shows the great passion everyone has for ocean racing here in the Pacific. Transpac 50 is shaping up to be an epic race.”

Event Details – Entry list – Facebook

Background : First organized by the Transpacific Yacht Club in 1906, the biennial Transpacific Yacht Race or Transpac is an offshore sailing race from Point Fermin in Los Angeles to Diamond Head, just east of Honolulu, a distance of 2225 nm.

Source: Dobbs Davis

Tags: Ragtime , Transpac

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THE BEGINNING BY TOM POLLACK

The TP52 Class Association was started in 2001 by owners who wanted to race a Grand Prix sailboat that is fun, safe and reliable. TP52’s are flat out racing platforms, fully crewed, high performance monohulls capable of racing in both buoy regattas and offshore races. The 2800 pound weight limit provides for approximately 14 crew members with the flexibility to bring along a guest or a sponsor in the back of the boat and out of harms way. TP52’s race in true time, the first boat across the finish line wins. TP52’s are designed to be raced by both amateur and professional sailors alike. TP52’s elected not to use water ballast, canting keels, running back stays; preferring to keep it simple, safe & reliable. There is no time credit to build a slow TP52. They can easily exceed 25 knots off the wind with the record being 32 knots in a race set by 4 TP52’s racing down the California coast in 2003. Upwind, they are very stiff and fast as approximately 60% of the weight of the boat is in the metal fin & lead bulb. TP52’s have won most every bluewater regatta they have entered including; overall wins in the 2004 Bermuda Race, 2004 Chicago to Mackinac and the 2003 Transpac race to Hawaii. In buoy racing, they have won the 2005 Key West Race week, 2003 Miami SORC and the 2002-04 St. Francis Big Boat Series against the best boats in the world.

Growing The TP52 Class has grown steadily over the last 4 years. In 2004, World Class sailor Ken Read was instrumental in guiding new East Coast based owners into the class. The “Esmeralda” program Ken was associated with swept all the regattas she entered making her owner, Makoto Uematsu of Japan, a very happy man. In the summer of 2004, H.M. Juan Carlos, the King of Spain and his friend Jose Cusi, decided to join the TP52 class propelling many new owners and sponsors into the class for 2005. As a direct result of the King of Spain’s involvement, 27 of these carbon fiber machines will be racing all over the globe by the end of 2005. At last count, there will be 27 TP52’s on four continents in 13 countries; (China (1), Japan(1), USA(12), Chile(1), Greece(1), Ireland(1), Great Britain(1), Spain(4), Netherlands(1), Monaco(1), Italy(1), Austria(1) & Norway(1). No doubt, more are on the way for 2006. King Harald of Norway will be joining the TP52 class in 2006 with his top notch “Fram” team.

Exposure The TP52 Class permits sponsors to take advantage of advertising their names & products on what has become perhaps the greatest grand prix media sailing platform in the 50’ size range the world has ever seen. The media in the Mediterranean is eagerly anticipating a new type of Grand Prix racing and the TP52 Class represents a breath of fresh air. Sponsors and the general public will have instant results when a TP52 crosses the finish line. No more complicated handicap formulas to explain. In one wave of a scepter, the face of Grand Prix racing in the Mediterranean has been changed forever. For the first time in history, everybody is on the same page when it comes to level racing in the 50’ size range. While rule making authorities held endless meetings on who was going to control the next big thing, the TP52 Class took root and has spread like wildfire.

Construction and planning TP52’s are tough carbon fiber machines custom designed & built to the TP52 Rule & ABS requirements. Owners hire their own builders and designers. The competition among the designers & builders is fierce, but also very healthy for the class, and sailing, as a whole. In addition, owners may select their sail maker, spar builder, winch maker and electronics packages. Owners are also free to hire professional crews or invite their friends aboard. The TP52 Class regulates the person at the helm in class events outside the Mediterranean. Owners and Category 1 sailors have traditionally been at the helm of TP52’s for the past three years. In September 2004, the TP52 MedFleet asked for, and received unanimous permission by the TP52 Class to allow professional Category 3 sailors on the helm in the Mediterranean. In the Mediterranean, the TP52 fleet will offer trophies for both amateurs as well as professionals. The owners in the TP52 Class are a fantastic group of people who thrive on competition in formats more challenging than just 2 mile windward leeward races. The TP52 Class does not limit the number of professionals aboard, cockpit layout, equipment, the flexibility of having a support boat. If so required for specific events or on request of Regional Fleets the TP52 Class allows restrictions on professionals, sails and other issues.

All TP52’s worldwide must comply with the box rule in terms of length overall, beam, displacement, draft, construction, sail area, make of engine & saildrive, etc. The TP52 Class Association was formed by owners who wanted to control their own destiny. Every member of the TP52 Class has a vote and the box rule will only change if 2/3ds of the owners agree. Stability of the TP52 Box Rule has been a key ingredient to the class’s growth worldwide. No rule making body has the authority to change the TP52 Box Rule, except the owners themselves. However, the box rule is not inflexible should the need arise.

In order to promote close racing, the TP52 displacement range is 500 pounds (16,500-17,000lbs.) and the class has a Vertical Center of Gravity (VCG) limit of -2.70 feet above measured waterline. The VCG limit (on both hull & mast) is intended to encourage a longer Grand Prix shelf life by not turning the class into a hull construction competition. The owners are free to modify their boats within the limits of the box rule. All boats must have a class issued TP52 official measurement certificate in order to race. A rigorous measurement process controlled by TP52 Class Chief Measurer Andrew Williams and class approved fleet measurers insure that all the boats are “in the box.” Mr. Williams is an ISAF & ORC certified measurer and most recently was in charge of measurement of the sailboat classes at the 2004 Olympic Games in Greece.

By setting a fairly tight “Box”, TP52’s have very similar performance characteristics, yet the owner has some room to customize for local conditions. TP52’s are built with carbon hulls and honeycomb cores. The carbon fiber masts are built very strong to carry the masthead roller furling jib loads. TP52’s are beautiful examples of modern boat design and construction techniques coalescing to produce an excellent, all around, grand prix racing yacht. Unlike the America’s Cup or Volvo Around the World race boats which only race once every 4 or 5 years, the TP52’s schedule is year round on a global scale providing the owners, sailors and sponsors a lot of value for their time & money. Approximately 70% of the races on the TP52 schedule are allocated for traditional buoy racing with the remaining races being coastal, point to point and/or offshore.

Every sailor who has been on the helm of a TP52 agrees these are fantastic boats to drive upwind and downwind. They feel like a giant dinghy. Due to their light weight, the steering on the twin carbon wheels or tiller is finger tip control. TP52’s are as fast as good 60’ footer upwind and a fast 70’ footer off the wind. Around the buoys they are great fun to sail as they have no runners or overlapping jibs and use the forestay’s hydraulic cylinder to maintain consistent mainsail shape. Whether it’s blowing 5 knots or 30 knots, the mainsails of the TP52’s always look perfect! Off the wind, the passing lane is huge as the TP52’s sail hot angles which creates a lot of leverage. Closing speeds on opposite gybes downwind can approach 40 knots giving the crews and spectators a real thrill.

Being only 52’ long, “first to finish” is not a priority. TP52’s do not race against the clock like some of the larger Maxi’s (boring), they race against each other. No one can simply build a larger TP52 and win in this class. Owners know they are buying into a controlled development class and understand how to play the grand prix game. The TP52 Class is for owners & sponsors who want to play a top end game. The owners in this class have all been around the block before and want to be part of an organized class with strong management that has their long term interest at heart. The TP52 Class is not for the faint of heart, but you don’t have to be a billionaire to win either.

The philosophy of the class is to provide a platform the market supports and not to legislate down to the nitty gritty detail that drives everybody nuts. It is a warm open class that allows both professionals and amateurs to compete on the same venue. The TP52 Class welcomes the participation of sailors from all walks of life to compete in class events according to class rules and the universal TP52 box rule.

Tom Pollack Tom Pollack has been the Executive Director of the TP52 Class for 6 years. In october 2007 Tom retired from this function and was awarded by the TP52 Members the Honarary Membership title. Tom was a member of the US Sailing Team in Flying Dutchman Class (1984-88) and has sailed since he was 5 qualifying him as a “Sailing Aficionado”. Tom is known as a “no nonsense, result oriented manager” who the owners have depended on to successfully steer the class.

RECENT HISTORY BY ROB WEILAND

2007 certainly was the “intermediate year”. With the epic centre of TP52 racing moved solidly to the Med and the racing and all that comes with that reaching new levels of quality a new requirements and standards were felt to be needed by the Class Members. In 2006 it was decided that the TP52 Bylaws and Class Rule were in need of updating and so it came that the Members voted in favour of a revamped TP52 Bylaws and TP52 Rule at the October 2007 Annual Meeting.

From then on the official names are TP52 Class, the TP52 Bylaws, the TP52 Rule, the TP52 Annual Class Meeting as the supreme governing body of the class made up by the Regular Members, who from their midst choose the Class President and the TP52 Executive Committee.

2007 certainly not was an “intermediate year” when it comes to the activities on the water. A highly succesful MedCup with as many as twenty one TP52’s racing was followed by the best TP52 Globals sofar. In Porto Cervo sixteen TP’s competed under challenging circumstances to see Artemis take the well deserved title.

As it was it is the last TP52 Global Championship. The Class received the ISAF recognized status late 2007 and from now on their main event will carry the title World Championship.

For 2008 we expect a six event MedCup and the Worlds in Lanzarote, Canary Islands. With more than fifty TP52’s build worldwide, all of them still racing, the Class sees two devellopments, TP52’s level racing under the TP52 Rule in the Med and TP52’s being optimised for and mainly handicap racing under IRC elsewhere. It is felt that the needs of those two options can be catered for by the TP52 Class, or at least that the TP52 Class is available for all owners of a TP52 to help them cater for their needs. Research is done and ongoing on how the interests of both options can be best served and how the TP52 can be made most suitable for both options without compromising the original concept of the TP52 Class. Also the debate is ongoing on what  structure is the best to support regional racing.

The end of ABS as the scantling rule for offshore racing is foreseen and whilst the TP52 Class is certainly not the first to recognise this, it is amongst the first to look into what comes after ABS and come with proposals to that effect to its members.

In 2009 the members decided to definitely go for a complete overhaul of the TP52 Rule for 2011. The 2011 TP52 will be a faster, lighter, modern racing yacht. It will have less crew and the option to carry besides the crew a guest. In 2009 and 2010 the TP52 Class had twelve members. We hope that with the recession slowly coming to an end the TP52 Class will grow again. In 2009 and 2010 we had five events Audi MedCup and the TP52 Worlds organised by the MedCup organiser, WSM.

Especially in 2010, when many of the high profile AC teams choose to join the class racing, the level of racing was very high and intense. With the AC likely going the multihull route we foresee these teams to rearrange their priorities and the TP52 Class return to the mix of owner/driver and pro driver teams that we had in 2008. In a way that should help to get more teams competing. It is lonely at the top as they say. Nevertheless to become the best in a TP52 fleet will never be easy. You really are with the top of our sport if you lead in this class.

In 2011 six TP52’s were build to the 2011 TP52 Rule. Proving the decisions that we made were right. The recession is still with us however and wherever you look in yacht racing it is slow progress, if not survival of the fittest. With the best show in town, the Audi MedCup, and the best vehicle to race in, the TP52, we expected to be allright.

But at the end of 2011 MedCup split from their sponsor and stopped the event. With very little time to organize ourselves for 2012 three members, Doug DeVos, Alberto Roemmers and Niklas Zennström, decided to set up a management entity to take control of our marketing and events that will be in action from mid 2012, so effectively from 2013.

For 2012 we chose to do a mix of existing events and events that we organize ourselves with the help of the leading yacht clubs in the Med. With Trofeo Conde de Godo, Sardinia Cup, Copa del Rey and the Valencia Worlds included in a series of four events, to be raced with a mix of TP52s and IRC52s on real time, this will be another entertaining as well as highly competitive season.

During the 2012 PalmaVela the three members via the recently appointed marketing manager (Jacaranda Marketing) announced the introduction of the 52 Super Series. This concept will be worked out and marketed in the months to come. For the TP52 sailing it meant that the mix of racing with IRC52s will be continued into 2013. The 2013 program was announced and as novelty included two events in the US: Key West Race Week and the Gaastra TP52 Worlds in Miami. Then 52 Super Series continued in the Med with Conde de Godo in Barcelona, the Marina Ibiza Royal Cup, Copa del Rey and the Week of the Straits in Porto Cervo. During the year it was announced that 52 Super Series appointed Agustin Zulueta as CEO and guaranteed the series to continue up till 2017.

On that basis and with the introduction of the 2015 TP52 Rule, guaranteed to be kept stable for three years, a solid basis was put in place for 2014 – 2016 as well as to order new boats to race with from 2015. The 2014 Super Series saw the first of these new boats, the Brazilian flagged Phoenix, tuned down to the level of the 2014 TP52 Rule, but another stimulance to build new for 2015.

Again racing started in the US, now called the US 52 Super Series, with Key West Race Week and the US Championship in Miami. Then the Barclays 52 Super Series, a four event series, started with the Rolex Capri Sailing Week with nine boats on the line. Followed by the TP52 Worlds in Porto Cervo, Copa del Rey and the Zenith Royal Cup Marina Ibiza as great closing location.

For 2015 a five event Super Series is planned, venues are: Valencia, Porto Cervo, Portals Nous, Palma and Cascais. Eight to ten new boats are expected to race in 2015, together with three to five existing boats. The Class is back on track, now the mission is to keep it that way.

In the end it was nine new boats! And twelve boats competing in the 2015 Super Series. Great not to be worried about enough boats turning up to race and concentrate on how to manage a fleet this size. Azzurra became the 2015 top boat and World Champion. Best owner driver boat was Sled, very good for a team new to the Super Series.

In 2016 we saw a five event series: Scarlino, Porto Cervo, Portals Nous, Menorca (TP52 Worlds) and Cascais. From Cascais the teams shipped to Palm Beach to prepare for a start of the 2017 Super Series with two events in Florida (Key West and Miami. After Miami the fleet shipped back to Europe for four more events (TP52 Worlds in Scarlino, Porto Cervo, Portals Nous and Mahon). Both in 2016 and 2017 we saw on average 10-11 boats racing and the boats and teams over time getting closer and closer in performance.

Now at the end of 2017 like in 2015 nine new boats are being built for competing in the 2018 Super Series. While our class president Niklas Zennström and team Rán is taking a break from TP52 racing we see quite a few former members returning and new members joining, which will make 2018 a much less known quantity and really exciting to see how all the new boats and new teams will pan out.

Eleven teams raced in the 2018 series. Luna Rossa, finishing 4th overall, got better over the season and won the final event in Valencia but the overall podium was for Quantum (1st), Platoon (2nd) and Azzurra in 3rd. The Plattner family joined with a new Phoenix and Souza Ramos (Onda) rejoined but just for one year.

In 2019 it was again 11 boats in the series and 8 of them racing the full series. The Plattner family at times racing two boats, Tina helming one and Hasso the other. Bronenosec joined with a new boat. This time it was Azzurra winning the overall title, Platoon 2nd and Quantum Racing 3rd. We were all very much looking forward to 2020 with the first two events planned to take place in Cape-Town, South Africa.

Once in Cape-Town, early 2020, with 10 boats racing exceeded our expectations in so many ways, Covid struck and event 2 aasnd indeed all racing for 2020, a 6 event series, had to be cancelled. Azzurra won that event, Hasso Plattner’s Phoenix was 2nd and Quantum Racing 3rd. It was to be Azzurra’s last event, with Alberto Roemmers (94) no longer fit enough to enjoy his team it was a good decision but in many ways also sad to no longer have the team in the series her owner helped to create. As things go, Azzurra became Interlodge and is still with us helmed by her new owner, Austin Fragomen.

Covid continued to move the goalposts but finally from summer 2021 we were racing again and we managed a 3 event series based on all 3 events being held in Spain to be least vulnerable on logistics. This was to be the best year for Sled sofar, realizing the “Double”, winning both the Rolex TP52 Worlds as well as the 52 Super Series. Again we had eleven boats racing, of which 9 scoring for the series. It was very uplifting to see the support and enthusiasm after all the covid hassle. In Puerto Portals we celebrated the 20th Anniversary of the TP52 Class with an Invitational event which attracted 7 TP/IRC52s. Great to see 16 TP52s on the starting line once more. From the 7 it was the Whitcraft family’s Vayu that decided to do one more event of the series that year and from there to join the 2022 series in full. Great addition, with 5 and sometimes 6 family members on board and certainly often very well in the result’s mix.

Now, the 2022 Super Series is just behind us. We finished off the 10th Anniversary year of the series in Barcelona with 10 boats racing and a great party. The Members at their Annual Meeting decided to “freeze” the class rule for another 3 years to offer certainty and stability to those interested to join and/or to build new. This was a Doug DeVos year, never before he had the time to helm Quantum Racing this much, 4 out of 5 events, and winning the “Double” with his team certainly was an emotional moment, even for this battle hardened team. Phoenix did not make it easy for Quantum Racing till the very last day and finished 2nd overall with in 3rd Platoon. In Barcelona we saw Provezza finish on the podium in 3rd. No bigger smiles will ever be seen than from Ergin Imre and his team when doing well. The party was one not to forget, and lasted till the next morning, for some…… 2023, HERE WE COME!!

Rob Weiland Rob is the TP52 Class Manager, a function that was created by the TP52 Executive Committee on request of the Members in 2006. The now (2022) 71 year old Dutchman has worked for over twenty five years as project manager for the construction of racing and cruising yachts before joining the TP52 class in 2006. Running the daily affairs of TP52 Class is certainly different from project managing new builds, but the experience of the past still comes in handy at times.