Cluster of Finishes Resolves On-Water Battles
We have officially reached ‘arrival day’. After a slow and challenging start to this marathon ocean race, boats are coming in around the clock, and Kaneohe Yacht Club is filling up quickly. With the remnants of Hurricane Darby still affecting local weather conditions, weather has been breezy, rainy, and squally for our Sunday and Monday arrivals. As a historically large south swell pounded Hawaii’s south facing shores, competitors are coming in with adrenaline-enhanced stories of surfing down the biggest and steepest seas of their lives. The PCYC race committee, various KYC volunteer committees and the media team are running full throttle to help escort, finish, inspect, photograph, and film the arrivals.
As boats finish, on-the-water battles are being resolved. In the Goslings Rum G Division, Bob Hinden’s custom Schumacher 46 Surprise romped into Kaneohe late last night to claim an impressive divisional win. Met by a large and enthusiastic group of family members, supporters, and spectators, Surprise’s dockside arrival was nothing short of epic. Somewhat unsurprisingly, second place is still up for grabs as half of that fleet is closely clustered on corrected time.
In Kolea DH1, Marc-Andrea Klimaschewski’s Dogpatch 26 Moonshine arrived on a rainy Monday morning to an equally enthusiastic greeting courtesy of the huge Pacific Northwest contingent that has been a focal point of this year’s race. Navigator David Rogers could finally breathe a deep sigh of relief as his “Northern Strategy” paid off and their legendary hard-chined plywood boat officially added another Pacific Cup victory to its already storied. Bill and Melinda Erkelens on the Moore 24 Foamy are still nearly a day away from the finish. Also coming in early this morning to claim a resounding divisional win is Rodney Pimentel’s beautiful blue Cal 40 Azure.
We were astonished at the last-day performance of Andy Hamilton’s Donovan 30 Wolfpack. They made huge gains overnight and appear to have nipped Christina and Justin Wolfe’s J/111 Raku at the finish to claim the Mahina DH2 division by about an hour. In the stronger winds and big seas of Hurricane Darby, Wolfpack must have had a fast and wild ride to the finish, and we can’t wait to hear the story. Again, all results posted in these articles are provisional until confirmed by the PRO. Erwan Menard’s Pogo 30 eskoriñ rounded out the DH2 podium with Buzz Blackett and designer Jim Antrim finishing 4th on ‘io.
Andy Schwenk’s Spindrift V appears to have come out on top of Chad Stenwick’s J/35 “the Boss” after a race long battle that saw both boats separated by just minutes for most of the race. the Boss is finishing as this article goes to press, so these results are again not confirmed as so many of these battles are coming down to the wire in this year’s fascinating navigator’s duel punctuated by dead air at the start and white-knuckle surfing at the finish.
Eric Hopper and Douglas Schenk’s Portland based J/105 Free Bowl of Soup is steaming into the finish right now with what appears to be a secure lead over Nick Schmidt’s Olson 30 Concussion. Media Team is about to dip out on a power boat to try to film Free Bowl of Soup with the drone.
Stay tuned as today’s big day of finishers is set to continue into Tuesday as the bulk of the fleet sails into Kaneohe.