Racing Briefs
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Morning Light Plans Holiday Sail
LONG BEACH - Sailing a Polynesian
canoe from Maui to Honolulu via Molokai is not what Morning
Light's sailors signed up for; however, all 15 finalists on Roy
Disney's Transpac 2007 team will be
doing just that in November.
The 13 young men and two young women who won positions on the team last month to
sail a
Transpac 52 in next July's Transpacific Yacht Race will get their feet wet on Hokule'a, a 62- foot
double-hulled voyaging canoe. The two-day expedition will be held over Thanksgiving weekend Nov.
24-25.
The Morning Light team's voyage on Hokule'a will take place in daylight and in sight of land, and
the young sailors will be taught both old and new methods of navigation.
Like the Morning Light team selection
process, the training phase scheduled for early next year
and then the historic Transpac Race, the team's experience on Hokule'a will be filmed as part of a
documentary planned for release in 2008.
Hokule'a will first sail from Honolua Bay on Maui's northwestern shore and head
north around
Molokai's eastern tip to Kalaupapa, midway along the island's windward (north) shore, a distance of
36 nautical miles. The next day, the team will sail 54 miles from Kalaupapa to Oahu and past
Diamond Head, the landmark volcano that marks the Transpac finish line.
Hokule'a is the Hawaiian name for the brilliant star, Arcturus, which passes directly over the island
of Hawaii. The canoe has made six trips to Polynesia, the most recent in 1999-2000. In 1995, with
her sister ship, Hawai'iloa, Hokule'a was shipped to the mainland to cruise the West Coast from
Seattle to San Diego.
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TRANSPAC RACE STATUS
