July 9, 2023 — Honolulu, Hawaii — With the finish of 19 out of 52 boats in the fleet this afternoon and no potential rivals on the eastern horizon, the fastest monohulls in elapsed and corrected time have been provisionally determined in the 2023 Transpac.
With an elapsed time of 7 days 13 hours 16 minutes and 38 seconds, the provisional winner of the Barn Door Trophy is Sebastian Moshayedi’s Bakewell-White 100 RIO100 in Cal Maritime Division 1. The Barn Door is Transpac’s perpetual award that honors the boat with the fastest elapsed time in the race. First presented in 1947, this iconic 4-foot long slab of carved Hawaiian Koa wood has been awarded to many famous ocean racing yachts that are legends in the sport: examples include CHUBASCO, MORNING STAR, TICONDEROGA, RAGTIME, WINDWARD PASSAGE, MERLIN and many more.
This will be the third time RIO100 has won the Barn Door, with the first two being in 2015 and 2017. Being also the fastest monohull with manual-powered systems on board, RIO100 will qualify to win the Merlin Trophy as well.
Having led for most of this race in Cabrillo Boat Shop Division 5, Dave Moore’s Santa Cruz 52 WESTERLY 52 has also been announced today as the provisional overall winner of the race in corrected time. The King Kalakaua Trophy honors the team that has sailed the best relative to their rating against all other boats on the course, regardless of their starting date. This historic trophy is named for the late 19th century Hawaiian monarch King David Kalakaua, who is credited for having conceived of a yacht race between the mainland and Hawaii to encourage cooperation and trade…In 1906 this race was run for the first time and is now known as the Transpac.
Among the finishers last night was Stephen Lewis’ Newland 368 PEGASUS, who showed off the spinnaker pole jury rig she used to sail at an impressive 6-7 knots of boatspeed after having broken her spar in the last 100 miles of the race.
“We used our jib top and this rig we fashioned to get to the finish, and it worked surprisingly well,” said Lewis. This was a remarkable display of ingenuity and seamanship. Lewis said the return trip to California will be somewhat easier: the boat will go on its trailer and get shipped back to Oakland.
With this jury rig and at that speed Lewis and his team still managed to earn 6th place among 8 entries in Boatswains Locker Division 7.
The daylight arrivals today enjoyed spectacular conditions at the finish at Diamond Head. These included Rich Festa’s Rogers 46 GROUNDHOG DAY, who did not correct well among the 6 teams in OCEAN NAVIGATOR Division 4 but said at their Aloha party they “had a great time on this race.” Also in this class were all four J/125’s entered in the race: Standish Fleming’s NEREID was the fastest of the four, followed by Andrew Picel’s ARSENAL, James Nichols’ VELVET HAMMER and Thomas Garnier’s REINRAG 2.
Meanwhile there are still 33 teams on the course making their way to the finish line at Diamond Head, with some providing first-hand accounts for the fleet of their adventures.
“Fun times are finally back!,” says the team on John Raymont’s Ker 52 FAST EXIT II. “The new bow is working – Top hourly runs in the fleet for several hours. We are expecting high ‘shore crew’ credit card usage to our delayed finish times.”
“We were visited by a large pod of dolphins in the evening,” said Dean Treadway’s Farr 36 SWEET OKOLE, “who stuck around for quite some time to play in our wake. They brought us some good luck, as the wind picked up just afterwards!”
“Great day and rather eventful evening,” said John Brynjolfsson’s TP 52 SAGA. “The tack line blew a couple minutes after we hooked some kind of fishing net. Went into backdown and off we went! Always fun in the dark and breeze!”
“For the second time this Transpac,” said Dan Merino’s Express 37 JUNO, “we sighted a green flare. This was in the vicinity of 23 28 N, 134 38 W. No AIS targets or comms on VHF 16.”
“The main ripped 15 feet below the head at the leech,” reported T/S CAL MARITIME. “Hove to and wallowing while repairing. Thank you to PELIGROSO for hailing us on VHF 16 to check on us when they noticed we were no longer playing cat and mouse with them. We appreciate their concern and are hustling to get the big blue school bus rolling again and resume play. Looks like we’re back to being the cat chasing the mouse. We’ll be back online in hour (we hope).”
Daily analyses of the race, interviews, blogs and more are found on the TPYC YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/c/TranspacRace.
All entries in Transpac can be tracked on the YB system, sponsored by Pasha Hawaii. The positions, speeds and headings of each entry can be found on this system on either the browser of app versions. There is a built-in 4 hour delay for each entry, except when within 200 miles of the finish when the tracker goes live. Use this link to follow the fleet: https://cf.yb.tl/transpac2023#.
Photos from the 2023 Transpac and earlier editions can be found at www.flickr.com/photos/transpac/albums.
Videos can be found at https://transpacyc.com/media/video/2023-videos.
Official results can be found on Yacht Scoring at: https://yachtscoring.com/event_results_detail.cfm?Race_Number=1&eID=15121
For more information on the 2023 Transpac, visit www.transpacyc.com.
