Hey, ‘Presto!’ This Pacific Cup Entrant Intends To Race to Hawaii Quickly

Presto! Translated into English, this Italian word is generally taken to mean “quickly.” We’re therefore guessing that is how Sue and Joe Dazey of the 48-ft Chris White-designed catamaran Presto like to sail. And according to crewmember Nicole Miller from San Francisco, Presto is one of only two multihulls in this year’s Pacific Cup, the other being the Simonis 53 custom catamaran Could Be Worse.

“It’s a great boat with superb skippers and dedicated crew,” Nicole tells us.

Presto’s skippers Sue and Joe Davey hail from Washington state and have owned their catamaran since 2015. Between them they have over 15,000 miles of coastal and ocean sailing, racing, and cruising under their keels. They’ve sailed the Salty Dawg Rally a couple of times, and sailed from Chesapeake Bay to Florida and the Caribbean, to Costa Rica, the Panama Canal, Mexico and back up to Seattle. They are active members of the Pacific Northwest Multihull Society and regularly sail and race in the Seattle area. They’re also planning to join the YRA’s Half Moon Bay Regatta at the end of June before the Pac Cup in July.

Nicole, 54, tells us Sue and Joe, who are on the other side of 75, have been sailing together for more than 40 years after meeting through sailing mulithulls. In 1981, they sailed up to Alaska, fell in love with it, and started commercial trolling for salmon out of Sitka, AK.

Other crew for Presto’s race to Hawaii are Ben Carver, a multihull champion from the East Coast whom Joe and Sue met in the Chesapeake and who now lives in Seattle, and Galen Loving, an avid sailor who lives in Berkeley with his family.

We’ll share Nicole’s sailing story in ‘Lectronic next week. But for now, we’ll say that between Nicole and her husband she is the sailor and races regularly out of South Beach. “I sometimes joke that I don’t have to ask the wife if I can go sailing — I am the wife.” Stay tuned!

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