ORR Overall??

Hamachi continues to charge toward the finish line in the Transpac, and continues to lead the ORR fleet (and the three other J/125s) on corrected time.

They’ve sailed a tremendous race, and there’s only 188 miles to go. Here’s the latest from Hamachi. Tune into the tracker (4 hour delay)

Been a wild 36 hours. Things got tactical starting Wednesday and we
went south to cover Velvet Hammer and Snoopy, who were heading south for
more wind. We split the difference between them and Bretwalda and spent
most of the day sailing in 20-22 kts. That evening the full moon was
blocked by low clouds and we rocketed through the night at ludicrous
speed in pitch black. The boat was barely in control launching off the
tops of big waves and accelerating down troughs and up the other side.
The speedo was often out of the water so boat speed was indeterminate
but we saw at least 23 kts of SOG the next day. This subsided after a
few hours and it was a relatively “calm” night with winds 17-20 kts.

Winds were down Thursday morning and Fred towed his Mahi Mahi lure
behind the boat for an hour. Didn’t catch anything – too fast. Thursday
was lighter in the morning (12-15 kts) with big seas. Then the squalls
started and the wind picked back up, along with even bigger seas. The
boat was back to rocketing along at 18-20 kts in 20-24 kts of wind.

We set our A2.5 spinnaker back on Sunday morning around 5am and it has
been up ever since. It carried us 1500 miles across the Pacific through
some wild conditions but at 10pm PDT last night it suffered one too many
indignities at the hands of its crew and blew apart. We quickly pulled
it out of the water and launched the A4, which we’d packed knowing we
were pushing its limits.

It’s been inshore match racing for the past 500 miles, and will continue
to the finish. We gybe on the shifts and have seen some crazy wind
angles. Right now the GFS says the wind should be at 58mag but we are
sailing 95mag directly at the finish. Aloha! We had the A4, then
switched to the backup (older) A2.5. Navigating more squals and just
trying to keep the boat and gear together while we sail fast! Winds have
been lightening some so expected finish is around midnight Sat (PDT).

Kurt Hoehne

Kurt grew up racing and cruising in the Midwest, and has raced Lasers since the late 1970s. Currently he is a broker at Swiftsure Yachts. He has been Assistant Editor at Sailing Magazine and a short stint as Editor of Northwest Yachting. Through Meadow Point Publishing he handles various marketing duties for smaller local companies. He currently is partners on a C&C 36 which he cruises throughout the Northwest. He’s married to the amazing Abby and is father to Ian and Gabe.