Advantage Shifts to the North Course

Another 24 hours have gone by in this 2022 Pacific Cup, and we’ve seen significant movement both on the leaderboard and on the race course. The first boat expected to finish this year’s race, Roy Pat Disney’s turbo Volvo 70 Pyewacket, is now just over a day out from Oahu. Elsewhere in the fleet, we have seen multiple battles gain clarity as some boats made big gains overnight. The Media Team and Race Committee are in Oahu and preparing to welcome Pyewacket 70 some time on Thursday before the floodgates open over the weekend.

After taking a couple of quick hitches to port, it appears that Pyewacket 70 Navigator Peter Isler has pulled the trigger and attempted to gybe onto a layline into Kaneohe. Anticipating the wind to shift a bit further east closer to the islands, Pyewacket 70 could see a header that allows them to point the boat right at Kaneohe and accelerate into the finish. As of this writing, Pyewacket was making 18 knots pointed right at the finish, about 500 miles away from Kaneohe. While Pyewacket is almost guaranteed to be first to finish and claim the fastest passage time of the race, they are still in a close corrected time battle with Stu Dahlgren’s Santa Cruz 70 Westerly to claim first place in the Alaska Airlines F Division and likely the overall win as well.

Jason Andrew and Shawn Dougherty’s J/125 Hamachi had an excellent night and have really legged out on their main rival, Rufus Sjoberg’s J/125 Rufless. Maintaining the same course, Hamachi has now extended to a meaningful lead that could see them gybe over and still clear well ahead of Rufless. The J/125 Velvet Hammer remains behind the other two J/125’s, while Cazan, Blue and Hula Girl are all contending with Velvet Hammer for the final podium spot.

In Goslings Rum G Division, Bob Hinden’s Schumacher 46 Surprise is still looking good, though with an entire fleet of boats coming up from behind. In this pack of pursuing boats, Jason Vannice and Kyle Reese’s Sydney 38 Mako is beginning to extend their lead, though the entire division remains close once the handicaps are applied.

The Weems and Plath W Division sees Eric Hopper and Douglas Schenk holding onto a small corrected time on the leaderboard with their J/105 Free Bowl of Soup. Behind them and a bit south, a handful of boats are still in very close contention for victory with Michael Johnson’s Beneteau First 40 Vera Cruz, Nick Schmidt’s Olson 30 Concussion and Jason Lauer’s Express 34 Double Espresso pushing hard to the finish.

The North Sails Division now sees Andy Schwenk’s Express 37 Spindrift V beginning to leave her fellow Express 37 rival Limitless behind. While this writer has backed the southerly boats since the start, it now appears that some of the north boats will indeed prevail in this race. Limitless looks like she has sailed too many extra miles in relation to Spindrift V and won’t get enough of a pressure increase to justify the extra distance sailed. Once Limitless consolidates with Spindrift V and Chad Stenwick’s J/35 the Boss, we expect her to slot in behind her rivals. From that point forward though, the hunters will become the hunted as there is still a lot of race track left.

Mahina DH2 division still sees Christina and Justin Wolfe on the J/111 Raku looking good in the south and continuing to consolidate with her rivals and the rhumb line. Erwan Menard’s Pogo 30 eskoriñ has impressed in the middle stages of this race, and is locked into a close battle with Andy Hamilton’s Donovan 30 Wolfpack and Buzz Blackett’s Antrim  27C ‘io for second place.

Kolea DH1 remains one of the most entertaining races on course due to the big north/ south split that has existed since day one. Bill and Melinda Erkelens on the Moore 24 Foamy had this writer firmly in their camp and buying into their southerly strategy early but as the wind has softened for many southerly boats, they appear to have faded. Marc Andrea Klimaschewski and David Rogers on the Dogpatch 26 Moonshine continue to move well up north of rhumb line with Amanda and Brian Turner on the Beneteau First 10R CruzSea Baby off their hip and just behind. Once this race draws to a close and the handicaps are applied, it will be close, but it still looks like Moonshine may prevail.

Rodney Pimentel’s Cal 40 Azure is beginning to look like a lock in the Ocean Navigator Division as her sistership Duende and the Islander 36 Galatea don’t look to be in a controlling position in the later stages of the race.

Stay tuned to the website and all of our social media channels as we prepare to welcome the first boats to Oahu beginning tomorrow!

Aloha,

Ronnie Simpson

Pacific Cup Yacht Club

Image copyright Team Hamachi