Multihulls Plan to Shadow Transpac Race

When 55 boats hit the starting line west of Pt. Fermin for the 34th biennial Transpac race to Honolulu next Thursday, five multihulls will be lurking in the background, studiously ignored.

This has been going on since the 1950s. Officially, the multihulls have been unable to crack the traditional and prestigious event. Unofficially, nobody can stop them from sailing along. It’s anybody’s ocean out there.

“It’s kind of a sad little group,” says Jim Rogers, the Transpac’s race committee chairman. “They just don’t have enough strength to make an event on their own, so they’ve piggybacked us, trying to gain some publicity for themselves.”

Honolulu’s Rudy Choy, an inventor of the modern catamaran, disagrees. In the old days, some of the multihull skippers may have enjoyed thumbing their noses at the monohull establishment, which they could sail circles around, but Choy says, “(That) novelty is a minor part of it now.

“We’re not out to embarrass them or humiliate them. What really drives me is to set a record, and I believe in catamarans.”

Rogers says Transpac traditionalists have come to tolerate the multihulls “like flies around the barn. At first when they started doing it, people were mad about it. Now they don’t care.”

Besides, Rogers adds, catamarans “are no longer the fastest things under sail.”

That changed with development of the ultralight boats, which in some conditions are competitive with multihulls, but Rogers sees no relevance.

“A monohull gets there in X hours, a multihull in Y hours,” Rogers says, “but a plane gets there faster than either. It doesn’t matter. The people in the race know the difference between an apple and an orange.”

The multihulls will be started an hour later by representatives from their own Ocean Racing Catamaran Assn. (ORCA). Choy’s 62-foot Aikane X-5 is the favorite. Lately it has been stealing the wind from Steve Shidler’s 48-foot Wind Warrior from San Francisco.

Aikane X-5 beat Wind Warrior while finishing first overall in the Newport-to-Ensenada race and the Long Beach speedsailing event that Wind Warrior won last year.

Both catamarans also sailed with the ’85 Transpac fleet, but Wind Warrior broke down the first night out, and Aikane X-5 finished only eight hours ahead of Transpac winner Swiftsure III, which Choy called “a disappointment for our crew.”

Choy, with friends Woody Brown and Alfred Kumalae, built the first modern catamaran for the beach tourist trade at Waikiki in 1947 and now heads Aikane Catamaran Cruises with a staff of 120.

In ‘55, he helped design the 50-foot Waikiki Surf, whose owner, Ernie Nowell, asked to compete in the Transpac but was told he would have to prove his craft seaworthy by sailing it from Honolulu to Los Angeles.

Transpac officials might have thought that was the last they’d hear, until Nowell, Choy and the crew landed on a California beach a few weeks later.

“We asked somebody where we were and they said Santa Monica,” Choy said.

But the officials still weren’t convinced. Meanwhile, Nowell had a blowup with Choy and the crew, a symptom, no doubt, of having spent 14 days together under spartan sailing conditions. While Choy and the others flew home, Nowell picked up five Santa Monica surfers and joined the race as its first unofficial multihull entry.

Choy says, “I do not agree with the term ‘unofficial’ because it implies that the Transpacific Yacht Club conducts the only official race.”

The ORCA race will be every bit as official. It is timed to run along with the Transpac, Choy says, because “we’ve tried to go off on our own but always had different wind conditions. This way we sail in the same conditions.”

Rogers says, “I have met Mr. Choy, and he is a very pleasant man, but he has a very serious problem, and I don’t think anyone really cares.”

Choy sees his only problem as trying again to beat the L.A.-to-Diamond Head record of seven days, seven hours set by Double Bullet in ’83.

The official Transpac record is 8 days, 11 hours, 2 minutes by Merlin, a monohull, in ‘77, but who’s comparing? Not Rogers.

“We just shake our heads and think, ‘Well, here they are again,’ ” he says.

But just to show there are no hard feelings, Choy is sponsoring a Transpac entry, Cheetah, which happens to be a monohull.

The arbitrator’s decision to reorganize the America’s Cup Defense Committee with less of a San Diego slant has buoyed the hopes of some other hopeful hosts.

A four-man Hawaiian delegation held a reception for 300 during the 12-meter world championships at Sardinia this week, and a group from the Channel Islands Challenge was on its way to the Mediterranean island to lobby its case.

Later this summer, those and other prospects plan to make their formal pitches to the new Defense Committee.

And to think that before Fremantle, nobody cared. The whole process may become similar to the International Olympic Committee’s method of selecting sites, in which members allow themselves to be wined, dined and wooed by various suitors before settling on the lucky one.

The prospect is there because the new committee, again to be formed by the San Diego Yacht Club from nominees submitted by Sail America, probably will find the club with little more than a simple majority, which is what the agreement with Sail America implied.

“A majority is all they’re entitled to,” said Robert Hopkins of Sail America.

Now, the necessity of switching, say, only one vote instead of four could leave the committee more vulnerable to influence from outside interests, which is fine with Sail America.

Hopkins said that the 1985 agreement was meant to form “a joint committee . . . to look at all possible venues for the Cup.”

“Informal conversation had led us to presume that our international figures would be accepted. That was our mistake. We didn’t realize how determined the club was to have it in San Diego.”

Hopkins said he didn’t know whether the syndicate would include any of the original nominees on its new list. That, he indicated, would be determined when Sail America’s leaders return home in July after the 12-meter worlds.

Meanwhile, Roger Ulveling of the Department of Planning and Economic Development for the state of Hawaii and a member of the governor’s America’s Cup Defense Committee, said a new committee should help the islands’ chances.

“I think it works in our favor,” Ulveling said. “The previous committee was very definitely stacked in favor of San Diego, and I’m sure when Sail America proposes (new) candidates, whether they be members of the yacht club or other candidates, they will take into account their concerns for sailing conditions.”

Ulveling is talking wind, not necessarily hot air, although in the coming weeks it may be hard to tell the difference.

Sailing Notes TRANSPAC--The 55-boat fleet includes three former winners: Doug Simonson’s defending champion Nelson/Marek 68 Swiftsure III from ‘85, Donn Campion’s Lee 67 Merlin from ’77 and ’81 and Pat Farrah’s Spencer 62 Ragtime from ’73 and ’75. Swiftsure III, from Long Beach, has been in top form recently, winning races from Cabrillo Beach to Dana Point and from Santa Barbara to Santa Cruz, around Santa Cruz Island. The start for the 2,225-mile biennial classic is scheduled for 1 p.m. Thursday about a mile west of Pt. Fermin.

NOTEWORTHY--Dick Deaver, a two-time winner of the Congressional Cup, is in Torrance Memorial Hospital with an undetermined illness. Deaver recently returned from an extended cruise in Mexican waters and was back working at North Sails in Huntington Beach when suddenly taken ill. . . . UC Irvine is offering a series of summer sailing classes for students aged 10 through adult at the UCI/Orange Coast College base in Newport Harbor (1801 W. Pacific Coast Highway). Instruction is given at the elementary (beginner), intermediate and advanced levels. The first classes start July 6, and cost varies between $35 and $56. There also is a two-week sail-canoe-kayak day camp July 27-Aug. 7 for children 10-14. Cost is $156. Information: (714) 856-5846.

SPEEDSAILING--The second of two unrelated U.S. Speedsailing Grands Prix changed its name to Great American Speedsailing Grand Prix a few days before last weekend’s event at Long Beach. The Prime Ticket cable network filmed the event from camera boats, competing boats and a helicopter for a two-hour show at 7:30 p.m. Sunday and again Aug. 9. In fact, the 26-boat fleet of mixed monohulls and multihulls was recalled after the first start because the cameras weren’t ready, then all charged across the line on port tack. Rudy Choy’s 62-foot Aikane X-5 catamaran (temporarily sponsored and renamed Longpre Automotive for the event) overtook arch-rival Wind Warrior on the first downwind leg, then held off Alan Driscoll’s 42-foot Beowulf by three seconds in a drifting finish.