PNW sailors around the world

We in the PNW get to give a big cheer for Team Hamachi. They sailed a great Transpac race and appears to have won the ORR division overall. Thanks to Jason Andrews who has supplied videos and reports to sailish.com leading up to and during the race. Mahalo indeed.

We did it.  But the last 24 hours were really intense. 

We were struggling to cover both Bretwalda 3, which was focused on sailing as fast as possible to Oahu, and Velvet Hammer, who was playing a tactical game. The Hammer was heading for the right corner to establish leverage on us, while we sailed more of a rhumb line to keep our VMG high. Squalls were rolling across the race course creating challenging wind angles and large wind holes. We struggled very early Saturday morning and watched the separation increase with Bretwalda, and our advantage decrease with Velvet Hammer.  Hamachi had been atop the ORR overall standings since Wednesday morning, but all of us felt that lead slipping away.

Around 3am a series of squalls came through that increased pressure and improved wind angles which allowed us to start making gains on the competition.  Then just after sunrise we gybed right on a favorable shift to cover Velvet Hammer and rode that for many hours. Sailing was slow in 12-15 kts of wind, even though they were forecast to be 20kts.  Around this time we came into contact with Bad Pak (Pac 52) and Peligroso (Kernan 70), top sleds that started the day after us. Seeing these boats less than 200 miles from the finish made us start to comprehend the magnitude of our accomplishments.

Unfortunately, as we entered the 200nm “Live Zone” our YB tracker battery died.  We contacted Race Committee, but they were already aware of the situation and in the process of contacting us.  Apparently our tracker went crazy and started pinging the Iridium network constantly, which burned its battery out. They instructed us to give manual updates every four hours, which made for a very stressful day for all you tracker junkies.  It was equally stressful for us on board! In actuality, at no time during the last day did we surrender the lead, it just looked that way on Yellow Brick.

Around noon the wind was forecast to go right, which would allow us to get headed up to Molokai on the opposite board.  Instead, the wind continued to clock left and remained light (12-15 kts). While this improved our tactical advantage over Velvet Hammer, it made our odds of catching Bretwalda worse, and all we could do was watch them sail to the finish around 2pm in the afternoon (local Hawaii time).  

Based on the differences in our ratings, Bretwalda owed us approximately 13.5 hours on corrected time.  So once they crossed the line a clock started and we had to finish within that time allowance. Unfortunately, we spent most of the afternoon rolling slowly downwind through swells in light breeze, 150 nm from the finish.  We felt good about our ability to finish in front of Velvet Hammer, who was 45nm north and directly upwind of us, but were not so optimistic about Bretwalda 3. The team kept pushing and around 4pm the wind increased to 15 kts, and then by 6 pm it was 17 kts. The wind angle was still terrible but we gybed back on to port and headed to Molokai.  The boat kicked up on a plane (Hamachi’s boat speed is about 2 kts less than the wind speed) and we started trucking south. The wind continued to increase to 20kts and clock slowly right and the whole team was focused on burning down the miles to the finish. We approached Molokai on a tear at 17-19kts and gybed right towards the infamous Molokai channel. Luckily it was fairly tame that evening and the team threw down six perfect gybes to get around Molokai, across the channel and lined up for Diamond Head. We power reached across the line at 16 kts at 2:21 am Sunday morning to complete the 50th Transpac in 8 days 16 hours and 21 minutes, which gives us a corrected time of 8 day 0 hours and 52 minutes. This time has been, so far, sufficient to put us in first place overall. 

It’s been a hell of an adventure and one that will not be repeated anytime soon.  We were fortunate to start on the “right day” and the high pressure materialized in a manner that allowed us to power reach the whole way to Hawaii in winds that averaged between 15-20 kts.  We never saw winds above 22 kts except for a few minutes, and always between midnight at 2 am to make it more exciting. We couldn’t have asked for a better crew and having one additional crew member became a clear advantage in the heavier wind versus the other J/125s. It’s going to take several days to catch up on sleep and begin to process the magnitude of this adventure and accomplishment. We have really appreciated all the support from our friends, family and Pacific Northwest sailing community.

Mahalo!

Team Hamachi

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.

Just in from Hawaii – Hamachi did it! There were some tracker questions in the final miles that confounded watchers, but on the water apparently it was all clear. We’ll wait for Jason’s report to hear the details. Janet Lafitte, who has been the point person on putting out the Hamachi reports, says the following:

Aloha!

Team Hamachi slayed the field of J125’s, Division 3, and finished the First Boat Corrected Overall. WIN. WIN. WIN. The boys came into the dock around 03:00AM and the Mai Tais flowed. Hence, you will have to wait for Jason’s onboard report. 

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.

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.

The full story has yet to be told, but the bottom line early in this year’s Transpac Race is that the crew of the SC 70 OEX was rescued by Roy Disney and company aboard Pyewacket. All are safely back on shore, and OEX is apparently still afloat. Rudder post damage was the culprit.

It seems a breezy race so far, judging from the updates from the PNW’s own Hamachi crew. Here’s the latest “Half Way” report:

Well, we don’t know if its EXACTLY half way but we have 1250nm to go and it seemed like a good excuse for a party (not that Team Hamachi ever
needs an excuse to party). We gathered on the back patio to contemplate
the race so far and pass our flask, which quickly devolved into a YMCA
dance party with the drone circling the boat, all while doing 15-16 kts.
 Our objectives going into the race were: 1) be safe, 2) have fun, and
3) win.  So far we are doing well in all three categories. Taking stock
half way, here are some thoughts:

– Best Moment(s): Sailing away from our closest competition

– Crew Lowlight(s): Too many body fluids and damp socks in a small
cramped cabin

Things We Have Plenty Of:
– Food: The weight Nazis will cringe knowing we went to sea with four
days of frozen food and enough snacks for 12 days. There was a calculus
of carrying more weight on the reach to keep the crew happy and sailing
fast versus taking every last ounce our of the boat. Despite this extra
weight we’ve had amazing boat speed.
– Dude Wipes: Great marketing on someone’s part. We can sail fast
confident that our “dude parts” will stay clean to the finish.
– Boat Speed: Of the four J/125’s, we are the only one with six crew.
Despite this extra weight, and all of our frozen food, we seem to have
great boat speed. In the last 24 hours Hamachi has covered 294nm.

Things We Need More Of:
– Purell: clearly we should have thought this one through.  We left
with a small half empty container.  Definitely need more of that.
– Hot Cocoa: The key to a fast boat is a well-fueled crew.  We have
plenty of Starbucks Via but need more cocoa for our mochas.
– Ventilation: use your imagination
– Boat Speed: While we’ve got a lot, you can always have more…

Speed Records:
Starboard Watch: 18.8kts (Matt Pistay)
Port Watch: 18.6kts (Jason Andrews)

– Kudos:
1) David Rogers has been crushing it as our Lieutenant Ohura. It was
rough going (literally and figuratively) in the first 24 hours as he was
making up for a sick crew member and doing all of the boat data
collection and navigating.  Over the past few days he’s stepped up the
game and built tools to track the fleet, our performance and answer
everyone’s questions.
2) The Cooks: We are four days in and still eating frozen gourmet food.
Thank you Janet, Marian (and Jason) for doing all the cooking!

Are We There Yet?
The days are blowing by and we are a little shocked its already half
way.  Normally its a 10-11 day race for a J/125 but this year we are on
track to finish in around 8 days.

Up Next:
Sleep. Eat. Sail Fast. Repeat.

Hamachi is currently leading Division 3 and they covered 313 miles in the last 24 hours. Oh my.

We’re also keeping track of Peter Salusbury’s Longboard. They are not, repeat NOT humming along. Oh, they’re going fast enough, covering 281 miles in the last 24 hours, just not “humming.” Here’s the story. Designer Paul Bieker helped deliver the boat to California and was extremely bothered by a hum/howl noise that emanated from the keel when Longboard was going fast. Bieker reports “I couldn’t stand the idea of them doing Transpac with that so I rented two tanks when we hit the dock and spent ~2 ½ hours rasping/sanding the keel trailing edge.  It was a pretty funny scene that no one could see – a lot of it was spent straddling the bulb as I worked – like Slim Pickens in Dr Strangelove.  My shoulders were sore for a week after the effort.  I didn’t give it a big chance of working 100% but I thought it was likely to help some.

And here’s skipper Peter Salusbury’s note to Paul from the Pacific as Longboard hit her stride:

Hey Paul – it’s amazing!  NO KEEL HUM AT ALL!!!!!!!

We are proposing to the Prime Minister to make you an Honorary Canadian and be awarded the Order of Canada. 

We are going real fast today – the boat is lit up and we are confident we will reel in some boats by the end of the week.  Slow start as our small waterline length was a real issue against all the huge waterlines in our division.  But it’s Longboard time now so we are making the best of it!

Thanks for all your hard work fixing the keel – can’t believe we didn’t do that sooner.

We’ll keep watching. If you want to, check out the tracker yourself.

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.

The Hamachi team is on the way to Hawaii. And they’re allowing us an occasional peek when possible. We already showed some drone video of their passage down the coast and shared some start footage on Facebook. Below, they’re off the west end of Catalina with lots of company (for now).

Our friends on Longboard had an interesting delivery and we here at Sailish are big fans of the Peter Salsbury owned & skippered, and Bieker designed 35-footer. They’ve made several changes to the already scary-fast boat, so we’re anticipating great things.

I was hoping to also be writing about Atalanta and her 120,000 lbs. charging toward Hawaii, but alas they decided to pull the plug and not race. We’ll be keeping an eye on the TP The Shadow II from Vancouver, which is in a very competitive class.

Stay tuned, because we’ll be hearing more from Hamachi, and Bruce Hedrick won’t be able to stay away from the tracker for the next few days. The big boys, including odds-on lines favorite Comanche and the other 100-footer Rio, have yet to start.

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.