Transpac Fleet Sails Today With Merlin Favored to Win 3rd Class A Title

Eleven ultra-light displacement Class A yachts will be among the 55 boats that sail today in the 34th Transpacific race from Los Angeles to Honolulu.

All four classes will start at 1 p.m. from about two miles north of Pt. Fermin.

The Bill Lee-designed 67-foot Merlin, owned and skippered by Donn Campion of Sunnyvale, Calif., is the favorite with a time allowance of slightly more than 9 1/2 hours for the 2,225-mile course.

Second-highest rated is Pat Farrah’s 62-foot Ragtime, out of Long Beach Yacht Club. Both boats are previous two-time winners of the biennial classic.

Merlin holds the race record with a time of 8 days 11 hours.

Three other Lee-designed boats, Santa Cruz-70s, are capable of beating Merlin and Ragtime. They are John Wintersteen’s Hotel California, California Yacht Club; Bob McNulty’s Blondie, Los Angeles Yacht Club, and Citius, sailed by a Los Angeles Yacht Club syndicate.

While the Class A sailboats are battling for first to finish, the rest of the fleet will be racing for handicap, corrected-time honors.

Among these are seven Santa Cruz-50s, also from the design board of Bill Lee, which are known as fast downwind sleds. They are at the top of Class B, with time allowances more than 16 hours behind Merlin.

Back to defend her handicap win of 1985 will be Jim Denning’s Class D modified Cal-40 Montgomery Street out of San Rafael.

The entries:

CLASS A--Merlin (Lee-67), Donn Campion, Sunnyvale; Ragtime (Spencer-62), Pat Farrah, Long Beach; Citius (Santa Cruz-70), LAYC Syndicate; Hotel California (SNC-70), John Wintersteen, CYC; Blondie (SNC-70), Bob McNulty, LAYC; Pyewacket (Nelson-Marek-70), Roy Disney, CYC; Cheetah (Peterson-66), Dick Pennington, LBYC; Drumbeat (NM-68), Don Ayres Jr., NHYC; Pandemonium (NM-66), Bill Packer, Newport Beach; Prima (NM-68), Rod Muir, Australia; Swiftsure III (NM-68), Doug Simonson, Scottsdale, Ariz.

CLASS B--Upbeat (Santa Cruz-50), Bill Boyd, LBYC; Chashmer (SCN-50), Randy Parker, Los Gatos; Allure (SNC -50), Charles Jabobsen, Pebble Beach; Hana Ho (SNC-50), Rolfe Croker, Tiburon; Mongoose (SNC-50), Paul Simonson, Diablo; Elusive (SNC-50), Reuben Vollmer, Hermosa Beach; Racy II (SNC-50), Lucian Taylor, San Jose; Strider (NM-55), Sherwood Tells, Los Angeles; Marishiten (NM-56), Katsuhiko Takeda, Tokyo, Japan; Tigris (Swan-76), Jim Warmington, NHYC; Swiftsure (Frers-5 8), Sy Kleinman, San Jose; The Shadow (Soveral-55), Marda Runstad, Seattle, Wash.; Zamazaan (Farr-52), Jack Ford, Long Beach; Gitana (Carter-60), Dennis Choate-Matt Lerner, Laguna Beach.

CLASS C--Outrageous (Olson-40), Rick Linkmeyer, Soquel; Notorious (Olson-40), Scott Pine, Scott’s Valley; Sangvind (Farr-48), Joe Mello, Richmond; Tomahawk (Frers-51) John Arens, BYC; Black Sheep (Lindsey-50), Alastair Shanks, New Zealand; Blade Runner (Reichel-Pugh 47) Bill Twist, San Francisco; Elusive (Peterson-48), Gerry Bertram; Rocinante (TAK-46), Shinji Oguchi, Japan; Travieso (NM-44), Ron Kuntz, Oceanside; Mystery (C&C-43;), Fred Hibberd, Jackson, WY; High Roler (Holland-43), John Fairbanks, Hawaii; Uin Namara (Farr-42), Dick Page, Honolulu; Jano (Frers-43), Bob Kahn, CYC; Eclipse (NM-43), Les Crouch, San Diego.

CLASS D--Illusion (Peterson-44), Dave Fell, Pasadena; Blade Runner (Express-37), Mick Schlens, KHYC; Morning-star(Express-37), Larry Doane, San Francisco; Frequent Flyer (Express-37), Ted Hall, San Franciso; One-Eyed Jack (Express-37), Joe Svetich, Salinas; Free Enterprise (Andrews-42), Dick Ettinger, NHYC; Primo (Peterson-44), Ron Carlson, La Jolla; Bandit (Swan-44), Larry Carr, San Francisco; Montgomery Street (Cal-40), Jim Dening, San Rafael; Wings (Cal-40), John Miller, Tacoma, Wash.; Brenda (Nordic-40), John Pulskamp, Bakersfield; Jazz (Beneteau 1-ton), Rod Park, Richmond; Sweet Okole (Farr-36), Dean Treadway, Oakland; White Knight (Farr-40), Phil Friedman, DRYC.