Transpac Live Follows Slow-Speed Exit

With Saturday’s start, all the Transpac boats are now on course and headed for Hawaii. The big, fast, high-tech boats started on Saturday with slow, slatting sails as they attempted to get offshore and into the breeze being enjoyed by the Tuesday and Thursday starters.

At Latitude, we also went high-tech with another Transpac Live broadcast from aboard the Santa Cruz 52 Westerly (due to broadcast constraints aboard Westerly we launched early today). This included Westerly connecting via Starlink in mid-Pacific, Latitude‘s Nicki Bennett connecting via Stalink live from the shores of her weekend sailing adventures with Cruisers Academy on Lake Tahoe, and John Arndt live from his boat connecting from marina Wi-Fi. Apparently, the worst connection was the marina Wi-Fi! Andy Schwenk and Westerly owner David Moore did manage to give us some insights from the course, including some mysterious ships they’re curious about, traveling at just two knots!

Out on the course, the Tuesday starters are happily sailing along under spinnaker with good breezes, and the Thursday starters, including Westerly, have mostly switched from headsails to spinnakers, while the fast boats astern all appear to have escaped the light-air coast and are getting up to speed. Still, the MOD 70s and Manouch Moshayedi’s Rio 100 are making a somewhat pedestrian 13 knots. Jason Carroll’s MOD 70 Argo has dropped out and headed home with engine issues.

Tuesday’s lead boats will be converging on the Singlehanded Transpac boats, which left the Bay Area on Sunday the 25th, making the mid-Pacific as busy as the Bay as we head into July. Other boats currently wearing crowns on the tracker include the Dehler 46 Favonius, the Santa Cruz 52 Westerly, Rio 100, which like Sweet Okole is south of the rhumb line, the Santa Cruz 70 Grand Illusion sailing closely alongside Merlin, and Cecil and Alyson Rossi’s Ho’okolohe from the Waikiki Yacht Club. Many of these boats have made this trip to Hawaii many times before. For the Farr 57 Ho’okolohe, she’s heading home.

With the fast boats now in the breeze, the compression will start as fleets hit the halfway mark and start to converge on the islands. Not many boats have ventured far from the rhumb line, and it looks as if there will be some light spots as the navigators look for favorable angles and crews trim their way southwest. By this time life on board will have settled into a rhythm and most will start enjoying the champagne (sparkling wine/Prosecco) sailing they’ve all been looking forward to.

We’re enjoying following the Transpac on the tracker and working our way through the technical challenges of mid-ocean remote broadcasts. Our next Transpac Live, if all goes well, is scheduled for Wednesday at 11 a.m. PDT. We hope to keep improving the tech so we can learn more from the race course. You can stay in touch with the Transpac Race here.