SAILING / TRANSPACIFIC YACHT RACE : DeLaura Finds Wind, Finishes First

John DeLaura’s Silver Bullet rode a mild Kona wind into a Hawaiian sunset Monday for an apparent sweep of line, class and overall honors in the 37th biennial Transpacific Yacht Race.

Line: First to finish among the 42 boats that started. Three dropped out.

Class: Quickest of the dozen ULDB 70s, or “sleds,” that have dominated the race for almost two decades.

Overall: By corrected handicap time, tops in the three International Offshore Rule (IOR) classes, meaning DeLaura and his crew did the best job of sailing their boat.

Final handicap positions can’t be calculated until all boats are finished--which could take as long as Saturday. But Silver Bullet, a five-year-old Santa Cruz 70 berthed in Sunset Beach and representing the Los Angeles Yacht Club, seemed to have a lock on all honors.

It would be only the fourth sweep in the race’s history, following Chance in 1991, Windward Passage in 1971 and Dorade in 1936.

One thing was certain: Silver Bullet, guided by navigators John Jourdane and Mark Rudiger, found the fastest course from Point Fermin to Diamond Head to finish with an elapsed time of 9:09:11:17 for the 2,250-nautical miles.

That was well off the record of 8:11:01:45 set by Merlin in 1977, as well as Silver Bullet’s 8:12:50:35 in 1989.

Silver Bullet also was first to finish in 1989, but was second to Mitch Rouse’s Taxi Dancer on corrected handicap time. In 1991, Silver Bullet finished second to Chance.

This time Silver Bullet made its winning move on the fifth day, when it broke away from a match with Roy Disney’s Pyewacket and went farther north of the rhumb line--the direct course--than anybody and took a 23-mile lead.

The next day Pyewacket tried to follow but fell into a wind hole, logged only 165 miles and had to play catch-up the rest of the way.

The only doubt over the last few days was whether Silver Bullet would be able to overtake two smaller boats in the International Measurement System (IMS)-A class--Hasso Plattner’s Reichel/Pugh 50 Morning Glory from Germany and Neil Barth’s Excel 53 Persuasion from Newport Harbor YC--that started a day earlier.

A persistent cloud cover blocked out the usual strong, cooling trade winds for most of the race and left the islands uncommonly humid.

The skies cleared late Sunday and Monday as the warm winds shifted to the southeast and freshened to 17-25 knots--best of the race.

Silver Bullet hooked into the new breeze to log a 273-mile day and sweep past Persuasion and Morning Glory before dawn Monday.

In the sprint to the finish, Silver Bullet was virtually surfing at 11 1/2 knots into the Molokai Channel, where the venturi effect of the winds between Oaho and Molokai usually give the boats a boost. But then she slowed when the southeast Kona winds came in from her port beam at 5-15 knots, variable.

The leading edge of Silver Bullet’s billowing spinnaker hit the line at 7:17 p.m. Hawaii time, (10:17 PDT).

At the time Persuasion and Morning Glory were two to three hours behind, neck and neck and about 1 1/2 hours ahead of Peter Tong’s new SC 70 Orient Express from Long Beach.