SAILING : DeLaura Finds Wind to Lead

John DeLaura’s Silver Bullet slipped away in the night, found better wind to the north and broke out of the pack of ULDB 70s Thursday to a 23-mile lead over the next boat--Roy Disney’s Pyewacket--early in the second half of the 37th biennial Transpacific Yacht Race to Hawaii.

In most years the boats find the stronger trade winds south of the direct course, or “rhumb line,” to Honolulu. But recent weather reports indicated the summer’s high-pressure system of light winds in the eastern Pacific--the “Pacific high”--was farther north than usual, and that the best wind might be north of the rhumb line.

In the 24 hours before Thursday’s position reports, Silver Bullet logged 225 miles to 198 for Pyewacket, which remained in a cluster of the next six boats.

Silver Bullet still hoped to run down the overall leaders that started a day earlier: Hasso Plattner’s R/P 50 Morning Glory, still 99 miles in front; and Neil Barth’s Excel 53 Persuasion, two miles behind the German entry.

In handicap competition, Bonnie Gibson’s all-woman crew on the Cal 40 Antara remained in first place in IMS-C class, and the 102-foot Canadian Navy training ketch HMCS Oriole moved up from fifth to fourth in PHRF-C.