LONG BEACH, Calif.---The puzzle that plagues navigators racing to Hawaii is seldom to find the shortest course but the fastest, and this 44th biennial Transpacific Yacht Race to Hawaii has evolved into a classic example.

Pyewacket's Stan Honey said Sunday before the big boats started that he would make the call---north, south or in between---at "about 6 o'clock tonight," not far past Santa Catalina Island 22 miles off the Southern California coast--- and every other eye in the race was on Honey to see which way he'd go. Wouldn't you like to know what the last Volvo Ocean Race winner was thinking?

According to Flagship tracking charts Monday, Honey may have gone conservative. Pyewacket was headed generally southwest straight toward the islands, making 13 knots, with Division 1 rivals Doug Baker's Magnitude 80 and Mike Campbell and Dale Williams' Peligroso falling in behind, well ahead of Bob Lane's Medicine Man, which tried the north for awhile before dipping back down on a parallel course.

A notable exception was Roger Sturgeon's Rosebud, a new STP 65 that flashed impressive speed in two inshore regattas leading up to Transpac. Rosebud was headed almost due south at 13 knots without losing significant distance to its division rivals, except Pyewacket, and building leverage for when it turns west into the trade winds.

Not far back was Morning Light, a Transpac 52 sailing at 10.8 knots but not as far south as two other Division 2 boats, the Santa Cruz 70s Westerly and Skylark, streaking side by side at 11.3 knots.

Back among the last starters in Division 2, Philippe Kahn reported from Pegasus 101, an Open 50 doublehanded entry, "At Catalina we had a decision to make. I spent an hour crunching weather information [and] Richard [Clarke] and I debated. We saw most of the fleet go north. We decided to go south. It will take a few days to figure out who got it right."

It seems the south is paying off. David Clark, sailing the Santa Cruz 50 Adrenalin that started Thursday and led 50/52 division for awhile, wrote: "Things appear to have changed some. Breeze has been lightening and continually keeping us north of our desired waypoints. Boats north of us are taking the worst of this and those to the south are benefiting but must sail much farther."

The south scenario was advanced among earlier starters with much shuffling of the running orders in the various divisions. Those that lost miles by going south are now cashing in their strategic, if risky, investments. New leaders Monday included Steve Calhoun's Cal 40 Psyche in Division 6, Ross Pearlman's Between the Sheets in Aloha A and Bill Myers' Cirrus from Honolulu in Aloha B.

Myers is sailing with a four-woman crew led by Lindsey Austin, 22, who was a finalist for the Morning Light team.

In a battle of Cal 40s, Calhoun had jumped to first place in Division 6 but said, "[I'm] worrying about whether to sail even farther south to cover Far Far, wondering if the rest of the fleet would just pass us by. We knew there was a bit more wind to the south. Today the weather maps showed that there was substantially more wind to the south. More specifically, there is a disturbance? Is it a depression?"

It may not even be a factor. Alaska Eagle, a long-ago Whitbread Round the World Race winner that serves as the communications vessel and is sailing out in front of everyone, reported that tropical storm Cosme was feeding them some wind and helping them to pick up speed, but that "it probably will not bother the fleet on its current course."

Earlier, Ed Feo's Locomotion from Long Beach checked in with "we rounded the west end [of Catalina] a bit after 1700 [5 p.m. PDT]. We were the sixth boat, which is not too shabby for the smallest and slowest boat that started [Sunday]. We have competitors all around us, and as it got dark about the only boat we could not account for was Pyewacket, presumably off into the sunset."

Bill McKinley on Denali, from Grosse Point, Mich. described "a slow start as the winds were light and the spectator boats many. We thought we were in a DMZ zone with all the helicopters [that were] mostly focused on Morning Light and her mega sister ship, Pyewacket. It was slow going for a couple of hours until the west breeze filled it at around 10 knots.

"As we passed the west end [of Catalina] we were in some good company with Skylark, Medicine Man and the media darlings of the race, Morning Light. I am sure that all the navigators and skippers have been scratching their heads on which way to go, like the brain trust of Denali."

On the Edge of Destiny's five young sailors on a 1D35 also went south and have improved their position to third place in Division 5. Skipper Sean Doyle, 19, reported: "The wind has clocked around to pretty far behind us and we put up the big yellow symmetrical kite today. We have been surfing fairly well when the wind is up at 18- 20, and luckily we haven't seen below 10 knots of wind speed yet. These are our conditions because we are so light we just have to push hard to surf when no one else can."

A day earlier their steering went out.

"We had switched back to the big white kite and the boat suddenly spins out," Doyle said. "A shackle in the steering chain had bent open and the wheel was just spinning in the wind. Luckily, it happened during the day with everyone on deck and we had the boat back on course with the emergency tiller and the kite back up within a minute or two."

Doyle also said that Roscoe Fowler had repaired the broken radio that prevented them from reporting their daily positions.

The Transpacific Yacht Club has joined with Casio Computer Co., Ltd., in a sponsorship agreement to make the company's Oceanus watch the official timekeeper of the 44th biennial race. The Oceanus is a solar-powered chronograph watch with a time signal- calibration function developed by making full use of Casio's advanced electronic technologies. News and product information: http://world.casio.com

Transpac supporters also include the Long Beach Sea Festival 2007, Gladstone's Restaurant, Ayres Hotels and L. Gaylord Sportswear.

Archived press releases: http://www.underthesunphotos.com/Press%20Releases/PR- index.htm

More information: www.transpacificyc.org


Transpac 2007 division assignments
 (Ratings in seconds-per-mile for handicap distance of 2,300 n.m.)

Division 1 (Starts July 15)

Pyewacket (Reichel/Pugh 90), Roy E. Disney, Burbank, Calif. (-- 33.110)

Minnow (Catana 52 catamaran), Bob Webster, Pryor, Okla. (July 12)


COMMODORE

    Al Garnier
    (310) 600-0158
    reinrag@aol.com

ENTRIES CHAIRMAN

    Bill Lee
    (831) 476-9639
    wizard@fastisfun.com


PRESS OFFICER

    Rich Roberts
    (310) 835-2526
    Cell (310) 766-6547
    richsail@earthlink.net

   

Adrenalin got off to a good
start (above) but longs
for the south




South paying off for On the
Edge of Destiny's (l-r)
Cameron Biehl, Sean Doyle
and Roscoe Fowler




On the Edge of Destiny
at the start

    

 2007 photo gallery

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Official timekeeper of
Transpac 2007