SAILING / RICH ROBERTS : Staggered Starts Leave Finish an Open Question in Transpac

It took sailors years to realize they didn’t need boats that were fast upwind to win the Transpacific Yacht Race, because most of the race was off the wind--a sleigh ride to Hawaii.

Thus, the 70-foot ULDBs, designed to fly with the wind from abeam or behind, have dominated the race since Merlin’s record-setting victory in 1977.

When that got boring, organizers looked for ways to put new life in the event. Under Leon Cooper, commodore of the Transpacific Yacht Club, the current 37th biennial race not only added Performance Handicap Racing Fleet (PHRF) classes for boats lacking ocean-racing ratings but staggered the starts over four days.

The hope was that the head starts would give boats other than the ULDB 70s a chance to finish first, and it seems to be working out that way. It apparently is touch and go whether the sleds will be able to catch a couple of boats that started a day earlier, and nearly half the remaining 39 boats may finish within 24 hours starting late Tuesday.

Generally, trophy winners are determined after actual time is corrected for handicaps, rewarding those who sailed their boats nearest their potential. But a coveted goal has always been the first spot on Transpac Row that goes to the boat that is first past Diamond Head.

The figures change daily with the wind, but as of Friday, John DeLaura’s Santa Cruz 70 Silver Bullet was projected to finish at 10:07 p.m., Honolulu time, next Monday night, 27 minutes ahead of Neil Barth’s Excel 53 Persuasion. Hasso Plattner’s Reichel/Pugh 50 Morning Glory from Germany and Peter Tong’s new SC 70 Orient Express were looking at a dead heat at midnight.

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The biggest and oldest boat in the race is HMCS Oriole, a 72-year-old Canadian Navy training ketch (two masts) skippered by Lt. Cmdr. Michael Cooper with a crew of 25, also the race’s largest.

Numbers are needed. The boat has no winches to help trim the sails.

For a while it seemed that if the crew was going to see Hawaii, it would have to catch a plane. The wind was so light at their start that the heavy boat was unable to overpower a one-knot current running away from the line toward Point Fermin.

Race chairman Joe Cutting said: “We thought she was going to go aground because she was getting closer and closer to shore. They’d get up to the line, and then the current would carry them back.”

Finally, an hour and a half after the starting gun, the Oriole struggled across. The race committee’s sigh of relief was the strongest breeze of the day.

For the first two days the daily position reports listed the Oriole with “no report.” Its radio was fine, it knew where it was, but its position was so far behind the others that the committee tried to save it the embarrassment.

Finally, Oriole found its wings. The latest projection is that it will finish Thursday night, well in time for the trophy dinner.

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There have been three hard-luck dropouts: Barbara Colville’s Harlequin because of electronics and steering problems, John Kerslake’s Kingfish with a broken headstay and Starfish I with a split mainsail.

Bob Kahn, who sailed his own boat Jano in previous Transpacs, was aboard Harlequin for his 14th consecutive Transpac. Although Harlequin is a new Schock 55, apparently some bugs hadn’t been worked out, so the decision was made to turn around after 200 miles. A ruling may be needed on Kahn’s streak.

“I figure I’ve gone 13 1/10 Transpacs,” he said.

Tough luck also befell Starfish I, Roy Disney’s old Pyewacket, which owner Mike Holleren lent to a crew headed by David Delo, Jeff Silver and Mike Elias. The boat did well in tuneup races and was fourth to Santa Catalina Island after the start, but the 5-year-old mainsail ripped apart at 80 miles.

Elias said: “But what’s weird is that in the last Transpac two years ago, Starship broke its boom--one minute earlier in the race and within three miles of where we were this time.”

Sailing Notes

WHITBREAD ROUND-THE-WORLD--Dennis Conner might be the world’s best-known sailor, but he has never been known as a long-distance ocean racer. He still doesn’t know how many legs he’ll sail in the nine-month race, starting Sept. 25 in England, but the New York-to-Southampton Transatlantic Gold Cup will help him decide. The race, which started a week ago, is for Whitbread entries who have to sail across the Atlantic to get to the start, anyway. At the latest report, Conner’s Winston, a Whitbread 60, was second overall. Winston will be one of two American entries in the main event, along with Nance Frank’s US Women’s Challenge.

MATCH RACING--Australia’s fifth-ranked Peter Gilmour defeated San Diego’s third-ranked Peter Isler three in a row in the finals of the Rothman’s Cup event at Sardinia. Rod Davis, now of Australia, was third, followed by Ed Baird, U.S., and Paul Cayard, U.S. New Zealand’s Russell Coutts and Chris Dickson, ranked 1-2, did not compete. Cayard lost crewman Steve Erickson early in the competition when his boat was hit by a strong gust, spun out of control and Erickson fell into the boat, breaking two ribs. . . . The sixth World Championship of Match Racing, won by Coutts at Long Beach last year, is scheduled on the Swan River at Perth, Western Australia, Sept. 20-26.

EVENTS--The second annual Tom Collier Memorial Regatta to benefit the American Cancer Society is scheduled at King Harbor YC July 25. The first event raised $4,369.63 in memory of Tom Collier, a champion sailor who died at 31. It is not necessary to race to participate. Details: (310) 376-2459. . . . The Area J finals of the US Sailing Assn.’s women’s regatta will be at Santa Monica July 24-25 in Martin 242s. . . . The South Shore YC’s 17th Crew of Two Around Catalina Race is scheduled July 24-25, including cruising classes that don’t require yacht club membership.

INTERNATIONAL--Coach Bill Wakeman’s Newport Harbor High School team won the International School Team Racing Championship at Dachet Water, England, this week, topping 12 English and Irish teams in tight competition. Skippers were Capt. Danny Zimbaldi, Nathan Dunham and Steve Kleha, and crew members were Mandy McDonnell, Casey Hogan and Cortney Polovina, with Jack Hogan an alternate.

Bill Hardesty, 18, of San Diego is the only Californian among eight U.S. sailors competing in the IYRU Nautica World Youth Sailing regatta on Lake Garda at Gargnano, Italy, concluding this weekend. Entering the weekend he was in third place, the highest of any U.S. sailor. The U.S. team was 10th among 39. Hardesty qualified by winning the U.S. single-handed title in a 60-boat fleet of Lasers. . . . In the lull between Olympics, the United States is ranked first in only one of the 10 classes: gold medalists Mark Reynolds and Steve Erickson in Stars. No other American man or woman is ranked higher than fourth.