Weather Firms up for Sunday Racers

Although it may be Sunday, it’s no day of rest for the intrepid crews in the 21st edition of the Pacific Cup. While conditions have ‘normalized’ a bit since the early days, the five dozen boats racing to Hawaii still have their hands full in more ways than one.

Very much now in a downwind race to Hawaii, the fleet should be sailing with spinnakers up and due to the rather unique conditions of this year’s race, multiple boats have already begun to gybe over to a port pole earlier than is typical in a Hawaii race. Whether these end up being short-lived hitches to the south or long-term moves remains to be seen. While the breeze may have filled and the sailing has become more pleasant, the race will become no easier from a tactical and navigational standpoint as navigators begin contemplating when to gybe over and gybe back, to eke out small gains on competitors.

Roy Pat Disney’s turbo Volvo 70 Pyewacket 70 is working their way through the fleet at a rapid clip; aided by not just superior boat speed but a diminished ‘head start’ among the early starters that should see the big Volvo 70 take the lead of this race at an earlier stage than it normally would have. As of this writing the team is in a localized light spot that has slowed their progress from 16-17 knots to 10-11 knots, though they should be back up to speed soon. Unlike in many offshore races, Pyewacket is not only primed to be the fastest boat in the fleet and finish first, but they also have a very good chance to correct out over their divisional rivals. If Pyewacket 70 does manage to correct out and win the Alaska Airlines F Division, she likely could also claim the overall race win due to the Friday starters enjoying the quickest starting conditions in the race.

Pyewacket should get some sort of “Miss Congeniality” award for last night’s run, as they appear to have chatted with at least half a dozen competitors as they left them in the foamy dust. See the comments on our chat log here: https://pcup.org/publicfeed.php

As of this writing, Alan Lubner’s R/P 55 Zvi was the fastest boat on the race course at 12.9 knots, due to Pyewacket slowing in lighter winds. Stu Dahlgren’s Santa Cruz 70 Westerly trails Zvi by about 33 miles on the water, though once handicaps are applied, Westerly should be slotted into the runner-up position in the Alaska Airlines F Division, and quite possibly in the overall rankings as well. For those keeping score at home, Westerly is the slowest rated boat in the F division, meaning that her most immediate rivals, such as Zvi, would have to finish well ahead to beat her on handicap.

The Thursday starters have a classic race to Hawaii with the three J/125’s providing one of the most intriguing battles on the course. With different sail inventories and configurations, Rufus Sjoberg’s J/125 Rufless rates a bit slower than the other two J/125’s in this race, and as of this writing, she holds a provisional lead in the BMW of San Rafael B division. Sailing lower and slower than her two rival sisterships - and other competitors such as Blue - Rufless could find themselves in a good position to be able to convert that southerly leverage into a boat-for-boat lead in a few days’ time. Blue has gybed over to port as of this writing and is one of a handful of boats to do so.

In the Goslings Rum G division, the fleet of mostly 40-something foot long displacement boats is creating some of the closest racing on the water with nothing in it as the top several boats are sailing in a pack that has them virtually tied on the water and in our own rankings. David Ryan’s Beneteau First 45 Athena looks to have derived a small lead over her divisional rivals while sailing in a condensed pack that includes the Aerodyne 43 Freja, the Andrews 43 Kahoots and the J/111 Lodos. Divisional rivals such as Bob Hinden’s custom Schumacher 46 Surprise and Jason Vannice and Kyle Reese Sydney 38 Mako are also very close to Athena in the rankings, though they have positioned themselves much further south than the northerly pack of boats that includes Athena. With the more southerly boats being slowed temporarily by lighter winds, we could expect Surprise and Mako to make a solid run back at Athena and the rest of the G fleet in a few days.

The Monday and Tuesday starters remain spread out with as of this writing. These fleets should eventually begin to merge as northerly boats have to begin gybing while the southerly boats can stay on a starboard pole for longer and eventually come back up closer to the rhumb line before lining up their port pole approach to the islands. Every division is still very much up for grabs with no clear leaders, though there are some standout boats that should begin to collect on some winnings roughly a week after making their initial wagers.

One standout again appears to be the Orcas Island, WA based J/111 Raku sailed by Justin and Christina Wolfe, who have owned the south harder than any boat in the fleet, and as of this writing have now gybed over to port and appear to be headed south to try to pick up stronger winds that are a result of the now dissipated tropical storm/ hurricane that is now working it’s way west. Will this strategy work? This writer does not know but is firmly planted in front of the tracker to see how this all plays out.

While the southerly boats are not looking as stellar as they were a few days ago, due to a couple of factors including lighter local winds and northerly rivals beginning to accelerate along a shorter and more direct route to Hawaii, we still expect those boats that dove south early to find themselves in a strong position later in the race, including Bill and Melinda Erkelens on the Moore 24 Foamy, who still lead their divisional rivals in the south, boat for boat, even though they are on a smaller, slower rated boat.

Other Monday/ Tuesday starters that didn’t look so hot a couple of days ago but are beginning to come on strong include Marc Andrea Klimaschewski and David Rogers on the Dogpatch 26 Moonshine and also Buzz Blackett and Jim Antrim on the custom carbon Antrim 27 ‘io. Both boats looked less than stellar when going upwind in light air, but these 26 and 27’ rocket ships are clearly beginning to enter their element in steady breeze with spinnakers up.

Another battle that is really shaping up to be a great race all the way to Hawaii is in the North Sails division where the three Express 37’s and the J/35 the Boss are all now locked into a solid race that sees Andy Schwenk’s Richmond based Express 37 Spindrift V and Chad Stenwick’s J/35 the Boss further north with John Wilkerson’s Express 37 Perplexity in the middle and Shawn Ivie’s E37 Limitless further south. Perplexity has gybed and Limitless appears to be getting back up to speed after finding the same localized light airs that many southerly boats found.

Aloha until tomorrow,

Ronnie Simpson

Pacific Cup Yacht Club