Transpac 2019 - Part 4: Winning Transpac

Part 1 - The Journey to Transpac

Part 2 - Preparing the Boat and Crew

Part 3 - The Race

Part 4 - Winning Transpac

Saturday – July 20^th

Around midnight we were caught in a windshift and wrapped the spinnaker into an hourglass during a poorly executed jibe. It took the full crew to douse and unwrap the spinnaker. We sailed with main only for a while before relaunching our A2.5 and continuing. Spirits ebbed…but the boat eventually settled back in.

During the next squall we caught a tremendous wind shift coupled with great pressure that fundamentally improved our course and VMG. For several hours Hamachi charged at high speed directly at Hawaii. Matt and Lucas piloted her, rocking out to music in the middle of the night, while the rest of the crew slept below.

By sunrise we were still in the lead, and David confirmed this at the morning position report, but there was a sense of despair on-deck: despite our successes, we could feel the rest of the fleet overtaking us. Bretwalda was over 100 miles in front of us and closing in on Molokai and Velvet Hammer was set up in a great strategic position to the northwest of us. We were south and east of where we wanted to be and kept waiting…hoping…for the wind shift that would allow us to cross to the west. We scoured the gribs and saw that our situation was forecast to get worse, so around 9am we jibed west. The winds were light (10-15kts) and Hamachi wallowed along in a medium sea state.

By now we were within 200 nm of Honolulu and in the Yellowbrick tracker “Live Zone”. We watched on AIS as BadPak (Pac52) and Peligrosso (Kernan 70) sailed past us on the opposite board. Seeing these boats abeam of us within 200 miles of the finish made us start to appreciate the magnitude of our accomplishment. It was easy sailing in the lighter conditions so we spent an equal amount of time below tracking our progress against the fleet and our direct competition. Around mid-morning we started getting weird Yellowbrick results and did some on-board trouble shooting as well as contacted the Transpac Race Committee via email. They responded that our race tracker had been going crazy, constantly pinging the Iridium satellite network, and had burned out its battery. We pulled the unit apart and tried to find an old micro-USB adapter that could charge it, but we did not have one aboard. They told us to send manual position reports every four hours, which we did. While this was frustrating to us, we knew it was more infuriating to our direct competitors as well as all of the tracker junkies watching at home!

Not long after jibing the wind, which was forecast to go right, started shifting left. By 10am the wind had come left 5 degrees. By 11am it had come left 10 degrees. This continued into the afternoon by which time the wind had clocked an additional 30 degrees. It had two positive impacts: first, it improved our VMG towards Honolulu; second, it negated all of the leverage that Velvet Hammer had established by going to the right corner of the course. We were now sailing on the favored board to the right corner of the course, effectively cutting off Velvet Hammer.

Around 2:00 that afternoon we watch Bretwalda sail across the finish line, which started a virtual timer. Given our ratings, they owed us 14.5 hours of time. This meant that as long as we finished by 4:30am on Sunday, we could beat them.  However, it was now 4:30 pm on Saturday and we were still 150 nm from the finish, wallowing along at 12 kts of boat speed. The giant left wind shift made it too painful to jibe south towards Molokai, so all we could do was soldier on and “hope” that the wind improved.

It eventually did. 

By 6pm the wind started building to 15kts. Then 17kts…and then slowly shifted back right. As darkness fell we jibed back on to port heading south towards Molokai. Velvet Hammer was safely 35 miles off our stern and we set our sights on catching Bretwalda, whose crew by now was thoroughly drunk. The wind continued right and built to 20 kts. Hamachi was flying south on a mission: the crew confident and highly focused on burning down the miles.

Sunday – July 21^th

Around midnight Hamachi came rocketing in towards Kalaupapa, Molokai at 17-19 kts of boat speed under a brilliant tropical night. The Milky Way stood bright behind puffy tropical clouds, providing a backdrop to make out the island of Molokai and the first few lights of civilization. The plan was to have all hands on deck for the final jibes west and across Molokai channel. Everyone took up their positions with Matt and Fred driving. We expected the wind to build to 30 plus knots in the infamous Molokai channel, but it never materialized. Instead we jibed around the west end of Molokai, then across to the Oahu, and down around to the finish. Everyone took turns driving during the final hours and Hamachi ripped across the finish line at 2:21 am to win the 50^th Transpac.

Here's what you look like when you haven't slept in days or showered in over a week!

It would be a few hours before we confirmed that Velvet Hammer would not correct ahead of us, and a few more days to make sure that none of the Cal 40s could eclipse our time.

Despite finishing in the middle of the night, the Transpac organizers did a great job organizing a welcoming committee. We were met in front of Waikiki and escorted across the bar and into the harbor where we were met by our Transpac hosts and family members. Our broken tracker made it a stressful 24 hours for them, and difficult to gauge our arrival. Even though most of the crew hadn’t slept in 36 hours, on top of seven days of ocean racing, we were all ready for some real food and the open bar. However, before this could happen we had to undergo the mandatory safety inspection, and then were greeted by the local media. We had no idea what we had just done. We left to sail across the Pacific and engage in a friendly J/125 fleet race. Instead we had just won one of the most prestigious yacht races in the world. The media was eager to hear our story.

Our amazing host committee plus surprise family greeted us and partied into the next day.

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We have posted an extended cut (25 minutes!) capturing our magical ride across the Pacific Ocean and taking first overall in the 50th edition of Transpac. We captured this video to compete in a new Transpac award class for best race video produced on the water. After Hamachi sailed into first place half way through the race, all thoughts of producing a video disappeared. Enjoy this cut of extended clips, b-roll and out takes that attempt to capture the sights and sounds of being on a 41ft (12.5 meter) racing boat ripping across an ocean.