Over the Hill on a Catamaran : Steve Hansen, Vic Stern Team Up for Racing Adventure

Steve Hansen, 32, admits he’s probably too old to be competing in the Jeep Pacific 1,000 catamaran race, a 12-day, masochistic adventure along the Southern California coast, beginning July 21.

“I’m old relative to the rest of the field,” says Hansen, the senior manager of an accounting firm. “Guys 23 and 24 have nothing better to do than go out and beat themselves up for two weeks.”

So where does that place Vic Stern, his crew?

Stern, who has a Ph.D in astrophysics, is 65. Do 65-year-old retired astrophysicists have any business shooting it out with the young sharks of sailing?

Stern knows it won’t be a party cruise--clinging to a 20-foot sail-powered platform from dawn to dusk on some days, thrashing through surf each morning and night, dragging the craft up the beach to the finish line.

“Eighty-mile legs . . . “ Hansen contemplates.

“Day after day for 12 days,” Stern adds.

But the sea holds few surprises for Stern, a Seal Beach Yacht Club member who has sailed his 43-foot catamaran, Imi Loa, on more than 300 ocean races, including five Transpacific contests to Hawaii.

“My boat just went through its 53,000th mile at sea,” he says.

Stern has done most of his sailing since retiring as a senior scientist and program manager with Hughes Aircraft. He likes to think of the project as a father-son endeavor. Both are Long Beach residents, and Stern has known Hansen even longer than he has sailed.

“And I am twice as old as he is,” Stern said. “Imi Loa was my first boat, and when I got on it I didn’t know the bow from the stern. That was in 1963. I’ve known Steve for 30 years. He was 1 1/2 years old when I first met him.”

They were neighbors.

Hansen: “My folks are divorced and I grew up with my mom, so a lot of the male contacts I had growing up were through sailing on Vic’s boat. He’s always sort of been a father figure.

“When you’re 15 years old and don’t know which way is up, you’re pretty impressionable. I threw myself into sailing.”

Hansen is the helmsman, Stern the crew and navigator-tactician.

“I took Vic sailing about a year ago on my 5.2 (Nacra),” Hansen said. “He was the crew, and it’s just worked out that way.

“Doing the helm requires a certain amount of strength and hand-eye coordination that I seem to have a little more of to steer and work the mainsheet, especially when you’re power-reaching. It’s pretty athletically demanding.

“Other than putting up and taking down the spinnaker, Vic can concentrate on navigation, which is his forte. That’s where his strength is.”

In the Pacific 1,000, they will sleep ashore every night, but never long enough. By contrast, Stern says, long-distance races on Imi Loa aren’t a strain at all.

“On my boat, people get 10 hours sleep a night and gain weight because we eat well. Imi Loa is very comfortable. It has seven nice bunks on it. (On this race), we’re going to have to have little compressed things to eat. It’s like being on a life raft.”

There may be times during long days at sea when they will ask each other, whose idea was this, anyway?

“Last year we were down at the beach watching the guys come in through the surf,” Hansen said. “I looked at Vic and said, ‘What do you think?’ and he said, ‘Sure.’ Frankly, I didn’t expect him to say yes.

“Even at 32, when we have a weekend series and have been on the water 10 hours a day for two days, I’m beat.”

So they started a conditioning schedule of aerobics, weightlifting and sailing whenever time permitted on smaller catamarans.

They will sail the first 6.0 Nacra produced by Catalina Yachts’ new Performance Catamaran subsidiary in Santa Ana.

The boat is 6 meters long, the maximum allowed in the race. They are co-owners of the boat, which cost about $10,000, with a trailer.

If they have a serious disagreement, they joke, each can take a hull and go his own way.

“We snap at each other from time to time,” Hansen said. “I’ve got to learn to be more patient. I get real competitive, and Vic just isn’t as quick as some of these younger guys in putting up the spinnaker or jibing it. He is 65, and we do make mistakes.

“But if you lose a couple of seconds doing a jibe, it’s not nearly as important as sailing in the right direction. We tend to do that consistently and make up for our little mistakes.

“We’re not fast on the triangle courses, but we are fast on a 40-mile leg. The Pacific 1,000 is an ocean race. Whether you’re the quickest guy jibing or rounding a mark doesn’t really matter.”

And if they don’t win, Hansen added, “We’ve got a built-in excuse. We’re both too old.”