SAILING : Ryley’s Mirage Leads Transpac Cluster

After sailing nearly 600 miles in less than three days, the first seven of nine boats in the Transpacific Yacht Race were within a two-mile cluster Tuesday.

The yachts were led by Jim Ryley’s Mirage of Santa Cruz. Mirage passed some of the boats that started for Honolulu from one to three days earlier, but was being steadily overtaken by the more powerful ILC 70 class that started a day behind Ryley’s crew Sunday.

Sayonara, Larry Ellison’s new 78-foot sloop from San Francisco, led that group and continued to set the fastest pace in the race at 10.4 knots--slightly behind the record pace of 11.1 knots set in 1977.

The unrestricted “invited guests,” Neil Barth’s America’s Challenge and Rich DeVos’ 74-foot Windquest, were unable to make significant gains.

Steve Fossett’s trimaran Lakota and Bob Hanel’s catamaran Double Bullet II were the last of the 38 starters Tuesday.