Los Angeles-to-Honolulu Race : Winds Push Blondie Toward Halfway Point

Pushed by 16-20 knot northeast trade winds, the lead boats in the 2,225-mile Los Angeles-to-Honolulu Transpacific yacht race were nearing the halfway mark Monday.

Bob McNulty’s Santa Cruz-70 Blondie, out of the Los Angeles Yacht Club, reported a position 1,021 miles from Los Angeles at 8 a.m. Monday, and Roy Disney’s Nelson-Marek 70 Pyewacket, Marina del Rey, was seven miles astern. Third on elapsed time was the Santa Cruz-70 Citius, sailed by a Los Angeles Yacht Club syndicate, reporting 1,011 miles from Los Angeles.

Other Class A contenders were Pandemonium, skippered by Bill Packer of Newport Beach, 996 miles; Hotel California, John Wintersteen, Marina del Rey, 995; Cheetah, Dick Pennington, Long Beach, 987; Prima-68, Mike Gaynor, Newport Beach, 983; Swiftsure III, Doug Simonson, Scottsdale, Ariz, 983.

The 48-foot Elusive, skippered by Gerry Bertram of San Diego, reported a broken steering gear but was remaining in the race by steering with an auxiliary tiller.

Most of the crews were keeping a weather eye out for Hurricane Beatrice, far to the south, which was moving northwest at 18 knots with maximum winds of 35 knots.

The three front yachts have averaged faster than 11 knots since the start of the race. Average speed for the yacht Merlin when she set the elapsed time record of 8 days 11 hours in 1977 was 10.96 knots.

In a separate Transpacific race, two catamarans had reached the halfway point in the Multihull Los Angeles-to-Honolulu race and were well on their way to erasing the multihull elapsed time record of 7 days 7 hours 30 minutes, set by the 65-foot catamaran Double Bullet in 1983.

Rudy Choy’s 62-foot Aikane X-5 out of Honolulu was 1,070 miles from Honolulu at 8 a.m. Monday and was 10 miles ahead of Double Bullet’s position at the same time on her record run.