Thanks ever so much to Latitude 38 for allowing us to reprint this article from the July issue. Be sure to catch the full wrap-up in the August Latitude 38.

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. . . and just about anything else you can imagine is entered in the tenth bienniel West Marine Pacific Cup, which is underway as you read this. Those lucky devils!

The 2,070-mile 'Fun Race to Hawaii' has attracted an eclectic, record-breaking fleet of 73 boats, topping the previous high of 65 (set in '96) and - we suspect to the glee of the race organizers - blowing the doors off the TransPac, numbers-wise at least. That 'serious race to Hawaii', held since the turn of the century in odd-numbered years, fielded only 38 boats last time, and has been in a tailspin since 1979.

Not so the Pacific Cup, which burst onto the scene in 1980 and has been growing steadily ever since. And not only has the quantity of racers steadily increased, but so has the quality. The five turbosleds in Division F and the 11 boats in Division E are all TransPac level efforts, and the average size of the rest of the fleet has crept up. The skill level of the sailors has undeniably increased, too. We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto - if you get our drift.

With due respect to the Pacific Cup's rhetoric about this being 'everyman's race', the complexion of the event has changed drastically with the arrival of three new state-of-the-art turbosleds -Pyewacket, Magnitude and Zephyrus IV - all of which are shamelessly gunning for Rage's course record of 7:22:01. With race veterans Rage and the hopped-up Merlin also in the hunt, this is undoubtedly where the limelight will be focused. "It's an all-out arms race with no upper limit on rating or spending," observed Pac Cup veteran Jim Quanci. "First to finish is all these guys care about."

The real battle, in our opinion, will be between the veteran turbo Pyewacket and the longer, heavier and more powerful Zephyrus, which are different approaches to solving the same problem. "It's not that they're apples and oranges," said designer Carl Schumacher. "It's more like oranges and tangerines. Zephyrus reaches better and will get ahead during the first few days of the race, but Pyewacket will have the edge on the lower part of the course. As usual, a lot of it will come down to the weather."

Phone calls to various navigators revealed a consensus of opinion that this probably won't be a particularly windy year. After a wacky winter, things are just now getting back to 'normal' in the Pacific, with long range forecasts calling for 15-20 knots of wind - just enough so that our pick to win overall, the lilliputian Moore 24 Low Profile, will be able to surf when no one else can.

But as opposed to years past, when we predicted the overall winners (Moonshine, Illusion) and first-to-finish (Rage) with ease and certainty, we're not as confident of our picks this time around. There are just too many different types of well-sailed boats now, which means ultimately the winner will be determined by the weather - i.e., which of the four starts gets away from the mainland in the best shape, and if it is a 'surfing' race (windy) or a 'waterline' race (light).

Of course, these daunting variables haven't stopped us from making our traditional Quick Picks, which you'll discover when you flip the page. With our unusual caveat not to believe everything you read, here's a quick bit of background on this year's line-up:

Most comfortable - Probably Millennium Falcon, whose eight-man crew will spread out among multiple staterooms and heads. "No hot-berthing for us!" claims navigator Paul Kamen, who is looking forward to constructing a shuffle board court mid-deck when the reaching part of the race is over. Aldebaran, a C&C 48 Landfall, gets an honorable mention in this category.

Seattle boats - Eight boats are entered from the Evergreen State, all choosing 'The Fun Race' over their area's concurrent Vic-Maui Race. The two Riptides, Ripple and Terremoto, have the best shot at trophy- ing, while the other six boats (Cinderella, Gravity Storm, One Flew Blue, Vanadis, Kurrewa, Mystic) are lesser-known quantities.

Oregon boats - There are five boats from the Beaver State, led by Steve Rander's familiar Wylie 70 Rage - which will face stiff first-to-finish competition for the first time. The other Oregonians are much 'cruisier': Camelot, Bona Roba, Noah's Raven and Mariposa.

Hawaiian boats - Kaimiloa is the most serious of the Aloha-land efforts, with a good crew that includes Dave Nottage, Skip Winterbottom and Mike Johnson. Perestroika is making a heroic effort just to get to the race: the delivery crew dropped the rig 440 miles out of Hawaii, so the boat was shipped over and a new rig ordered. Hopefully, it will all come together in time. The doublehanded Olson 30 Oa Oa was second in class last time, and is returning with the same crew.

SoCal boats - Just three boats are entered from Southern California: two formidable turbosleds, Pyewacket and Magnitude, and the veteran SC 50 Bay Wolf. It's hard to say where Zephyrus considers home - one of her partners lives in San Diego, while the other lives here.

Fast women - No members of the fair sex are sailing in the turbo division, nor are there any all-women efforts this time. However, there are plenty of women sailing in the very competitive Division E: Susan Chamberlin and Melinda Erkelens (Surprise), Sue Corenman and Liz Baylis (City Lights), Tina Baylis (Ripple), and Patti Cranor (Oaxaca).

Best wining and dining - Alicante's Randy Paulling, a multiple race vet and gourmet cook who lives up in the wine country, and is rumored to bring the best wines and chow. Hopefully his double-handed trip will be uneventful enough that he can actually enjoy his repasts.

Oldest - Bounty, built in 1947. Long and lean, this sleek Master Mariner could be a sleeper. Second oldest may be the venerable Merlin, which is now legally an adult at 21 years old.

Newest - Blue Chip, Surprise and Terremoto.

Knock on wood - Bounty, Rage , Confetti and Kurrewa.

Heavy metal - Roxanne, Scorpio, Grey Ghost and the communications boat, Bernard Quante's Trisbal 35 Ta Mana, are all made of aluminum. Millennium Falcon is made of steel, which costs half as much as aluminum, but weighs three times more.

Smallest/least comfortable/most athletic/lowest budget - The Moore 24 Low Profile 'wins' in all categories. Veteran doublehanders Doug Frolich and John Donovan will eat freeze-dried food, hand steer the whole time, and generally push the hell out of their tiny craft. Barring a breakdown, they will be a David in a fleet of Goliaths.

Slowest - Bob Nance's Newport 30 Mk. II Water-Pik is the slowest boat in the fleet, rating 203. That doesn't seem to faze Nance, who's done the race twice already in this relatively tiny chariot.

Fastest/most modified - Merlin is rated the fastest at -132, giving Water-Pik almost eight days of time allowance. A work in progress, Merlin has been turboed off the graph: it now sports a scoop, the biggest rig (a new fractional spar from Bal-lenger), most sail area, most water ballast (and a canting keel) and lightest displacement in the fleet. A group of five guys (owner Donn Campion, Paul Simonsen, Skip Stevely, Jon Andron and Lou Pam-bianco) are paying for this 'mad science' project, which Pete Heck is overseeing. Skeptics are calling the new "anything you can do, we can do better" configuration insane, figuring that Merlin's structure will be overloaded, or that the low-freeboard boat will just sail itself under. If it doesn't tip over or explode, Merlin might just blow the doors off the big-bucks sleds.

Big poles - A 'normal' turbosled, like Cheval, has a 26.2-foot spinnaker pole - ha, what a dinky little unit! In this 'anything goes' race, the pole sizes have gone through the roof: Rage (28 ft), Magnitude (34 ft), Pyewacket (35 ft), Zephyrus (36.1 ft) and Merlin, if we are to believe her PHRF application, is now sporting a 42-foot pole. No Viagra jokes, please.

Stiff, too - Three of the turbos are sporting water ballast systems for the race: Pyewacket (3,000 lbs), Zephyrus (3,500 lbs, plus they moved 3,000 pounds of internal ballast to the bulb), and Merlin (4,000 lbs, plus a 25° canting keel). Rage and Magnitude are going without ballast, probably figuring the increased stiffness would put too much stress on their rigs. "It will be a fine line between pushing hard to win, and knowing when to ease off the pedal to save the rig," noted Pyewacket navigator Stan Honey. . . The featherweight (4,800 lbs) Riptides also carry 1,200 pounds of water ballast.

Most Pac Cups (boat) - 14 of the boats and 22 of the skippers are 'repeat customers'. Merlin and ProMotion are back for their sixth race; Oaxaca is making her fourth appearance; Bodacious and Rage are back for a third time.

Most Pac Cups (people) - Jim Corenman (City Lights) has the lead with eight; John Clauser (Bodacious) has seven; and at least four folks have done six: Bobbi Tosse (Bodacious), Steve Rander (Rage), Jim Quanci (Acey Deucy), and Paul Kamen (Millennium Falcon). As for most Pacific crossings, the clear-cut winner isn't Skip Allan, Stan Honey, Pete Heck or any other TransPac specialist - it's Al Thoma, skipper of Oa Oa. Al's a captain for Matson Lines, and has logged over 300 passages between the mainland and the islands!

Most represented yacht club - Santa Cruz YC has seven boats entered (Scorpio, Surge III, Rosebud, Rollercoaster, ProMotion, Merlin and Vitesse), while Berkeley YC has five (Bodacious, Siren, Trial Run, Millennium Falcon and Mintaka). Berkeley YC is also sending the 'most brass', including current commodore Jeannie Mariscal and three staff commodores (Jack Bieda, Diana Freeland and Bobbi Tosse).

Most West Marine employees - All six of the crew on ProMotion work for the race sponsor. Each had to submit a racing resume in order to be considered, and names were picked by lottery out of about 50 finalists. Tony Gasparich, who toils in the head office in Watsonville, will skipper this two-week 'blind date'.

Rockstars - Hired guns in this year's race include Skip Allan (Roxanne), Pete Heck (Merlin), Carlos Badell (Blue Chip), Jack Halterman (Rollercoaster), and Whitbread vet Steve Cotton (Magnitude). While we're dropping names, some other 'brand name' players are 49er stars Jonathan McKee and Morgan Larson (both on Ripple), Stan Honey (Pyewacket), John Jourdane (Magnitude) and Steve Taft (Merlin).

Sailmakers - Robbie Haines (Pyewacket), Cliff Stagg (Medicine Man), Kame Richards (City Lights), Sally Richards (Trial Run), Robin Sodaro (Oaxaca), Dave Hodges (Rosebud) and Will Paxton (Surprise). At least three yacht designers are sailing, too: Jim Antrim (City Lights), Carl Schumacher (Surprise) and Paul Bieker (Terremoto).

Most romantic - As usual, there are lots of married couples racing together -in fact, there are too many to mention. Three particularly brave couples will even risk their marriages by sailing double-handed: Richard and Daphne Green (Noah's Raven), Gene and Louise Brown (Mystic), and Peter and Susan Wolcott (Confetti). There are at least two married couples sailing over on different boats -Kame and Sally Richards (as noted above) and newlyweds Liz Baylis (City Lights) and Todd Hedin (Puff). As someone once observed, "The difference between the TransPac and the Pacific Cup is that the wives fly over for the TransPac, but they sail over for the Pacific Cup!"

Most family-oriented - Siblings Alex and Nikki Glass will doublehand their recently purchased Killer. Randy Paulling is doublehanding Alicante with his daughter Ruth, continuing a family tradition which started with sons John in '86 and Tom in '92. The fastest father/son combo is obviously the Disneys (Pyewacket), but there appears to be at least a dozen or so other male-bonding rituals going on. 'Family values' are being exhibited on Solution, Scotch Mist, Camelot, Osprey, Jennifer Anne, Kurrewa, One Flew Blue, Pursuit, Transaction and no doubt others.

Best crews - Ripple, Surprise, Blue Chip, Rollercoaster, Rosebud, Magnitude and Pyewacket.

Sisterships - Three SC 52s (Rosebud, City Lights, Vitesse, correcting out in that order), three SC 50s (Rollercoaster, Bay Wolf, Oaxaca in that order), two J/44s (Acey Duecy over Kaimiloa), two J/120s (Puff over Gingerbread Man), three SC 40s (the modified Solution, Osprey, ProMotion, in that order), two X-119s (X-Dream over Perestroika, like last time), two Cal 39s (Scotch Mist over Siren), and two Riptide 35s (Ripple over Terremoto).

Long distance award - Four boats 'hail' (wink, wink) from Delaware: Cirrus, Aldebaran, Puff and Acey Deucy. Puff actually sails out of Mamaroneck, NY, and is the real winner of this award. Pursuit is also from the Right Coast, sailing out of Virginia.

Oldest sailor - No one will 'fess up to this one, but we're pretty certain the following sailors are old enough to collect social security: Roy E. Disney, Commodore Tompkins, Randy Paulling, and Bill Siegel. Certainly there are others.

Youngest sailor - Probably August Teague, age 17. He and his dad Harry will sail on Solution, along with another youngish father/son team, Skip (20 years old) and Hal McCormack.

Least sail changes - The double-handed WylieCat 39 Sabra.

Most masts - The relatively new Millennium Falcon is the first three-master ever to enter the Pacific Cup. She may be the only one with twin bilge-keels, too.

Ulterior motives - Blue Chip is using the Pacific Cup as a feeder to August's Kenwood Cup. The Gingerbread Man crew is delivering the boat to her new home in Hawaii. In years past, several boats used the Pac Cup as the first leg of an extended cruise - like it or not, those days are over.

Okay, okay, enough background -it's time to find out how the race is unfolding. By far the best way to follow the fleet will be to surf the internet to www. pacificcup.org, where daily updates, photos and emails >from the crews will be posted. You can even email back to the boats this year, or at least the ones with computers and fairly modern single sideband radios.

If you, or your friends, don't have access to the web, you can always wander into the nearest West Marine store and inquire how the race is progressing. And be sure to tune in here again next month, to read all the gory and pleasurable little details.

- latitude/rkm