A Course of Action

Among them are a nurse, a flight attendant, a journalist and a homemaker. Their ages vary by decades. Their personal journeys to the 50-foot sailboat at the end of the dock include all the elements of a compelling summer novel.

Sailing is their passion and their strength, they say. Sailing is their life.

When the nine women boarded the vessel Bay Wolf on July 2, they were committed to working together to reach the demanding and grueling goal upon which each had set her sights: winning the biennial Transpac Challenge from Point Fermin near San Pedro to Honolulu.

With the pop of a starter’s pistol, the members of the Women’s Sailing Team began their 2,216-mile journey across the Pacific Ocean. With the news that their skipper, Linda Elias, was too ill to make the estimated 10- to 13-day journey, the crew left a little sadder but perhaps more determined than ever to take top honors in the race.

Sponsored by the Transpacific Yacht Club, Transpac is one of sailing’s most prestigious races. This year, 41 teams are entered. The race has been run every other year since 1906 except during the two world wars.

It has historically been a race dominated by males. In this, the 39th race, two of the crews are all-female (the other is out of San Francisco). There have been other all-female crews: one each in 1979, 1993 and 1995. This year, there will also be women on other boats, “but just a handful,” said Dan Nowlan, a race organizer who is a veteran of two Transpacs.

The all-female, all-California crew was put together by Elias, a veteran sailor who has sailed in three Transpac races and logged thousands of offshore miles.

Elias credited sailing and Transpac for saving her life. Two years ago, as she sat in a hospital fighting ovarian cancer, Elias vowed that she would cross the Pacific one more time, and that she would do it with an all-female crew.

She came close.

Just days before she was to take the helm of Bay Wolf, Elias, 46, was hospitalized with stomach pains. As the race got closer, her health deteriorated, ending in emergency surgery for an obstructed intestine and the discovery of a small cancerous growth. The awful reality set in: Elias couldn’t make the trip. Co-skipper Betty Sue Sherman drove the boat out of the harbor last week.

The emotional support Elias received from her female sailing buddies during her first illness was her motivation for assembling the all-female Transpac crew, she said. That same connection is what convinced the crew to add Liz Baylis to their roster and sail the race without Elias--a decision made less than 100 hours before the start.

“I know the responsibilities that a skipper has, and I take that very seriously,” said Sherman two days before leaving. “I’m a professional worrywart, and I worried about all kinds of things that you worry about before a long race--will the boat hold up, will the mast fall down, did I bring enough underwear? One thing I never considered was that Linda might not make the trip. I can’t tell you in words how it feels. But she would be devastated if we didn’t go.”

Elias considers herself “extremely fortunate” that her illness didn’t wait until she was 1,000 miles out to sea to occur, but said from her Long Beach Memorial Hospital bed last week that she was disappointed not to make the race.

“I’m disappointed on the one hand, but this may have saved my life on the other,” she said.

The preparations, much of which fell on Elias’ shoulders, included raising enough money to pay for the $25,000 lease of Bay Wolf and an equal amount in expenses, readying the boat for the long trip, and sailing the vessel in enough races to be familiar and comfortable with its idiosyncrasies.

In assembling the crew, Elias considered personalities, strengths, experience and attitudes before deciding on the sailors she would invite to join her.

“Your life could depend on who you take,” said team member Camille Daniels, also a Transpac veteran.

Team member Molly McCloud is a veteran of the open seas and has completed an 8,000-mile, 40-day sail from England to South Africa. At 19, she is the youngest on any Transpac team this season.

When Betsy Crowfoot, a writer for a weekly sailing magazine and a veteran of two Transpac races, received the call last year from Elias inviting her to join the crew, she felt like a child hearing from a sports hero, she said.

“I was on top of the world,” she recalled, but her elation was tempered by knowing the depth of the commitment. “It isn’t just the two weeks we’re gone; it’s the months ahead of time.”

Crowfoot, 38, said the time and energy needed for the planning sessions, practice schedules and efforts to raise the $50,000 needed for the challenge has strained her 16-year marriage and left her feeling guilty for time missed with her daughter, Coco, 5.

Some crew members are married to world-class sailors. But that didn’t necessarily mean the husbands were delighted with the wives’ decisions to sail Transpac.

“Part of the motivation of this is being out,” Crowfoot said. “We push papers, answer phones for most of our lives. We live an intellectual, not a physical, existence. This is a completely physical experience. It’s very sensual. The sun on our bodies and wind in our hair and the feeling of the boat. The dolphins, moonrises and sunsets. Each person is motivated by what’s going on in her head.”

Said Sherman: “I love long races and ocean passages because it is a chance for me to remember how many things one can do without. A long passage is a chance for me to remember, unfettered by all the stress of day-to-day activities, what things in life are really important. Family, friends, good food, a dry bed and dry clothes take on their proper perspective when you are far away from land.”

*

Bay Wolf, the 50-foot sailboat built by Bill Lee of Santa Cruz Yachts, is owned by Kirk and Jocelyn Wilson. They are well-known in the sailing world, having previously chartered the boat Merlin, which still holds the Transpac record of 8 days, 11 hours, 1 minute and 45 seconds.

That record is 20 years old--and Merlin is one of the boats Bay Wolf is competing against.

The 50-foot Bay Wolf’s sparse interior, designed to keep its weight down, was crowded with a dozen sails, three weeks’ worth of food and fresh water, maps, charts, clothing and personal items by the time it left the dock.

Sails can weigh as much as 70 pounds and can require two to four women to trim. In the first few days of the race, when winds traditionally pound the boats, sails can be put up and taken down dozens of times.

But veterans say the grueling first few days of the race give way to a freedom and exhilaration they can’t describe.

“It’s a total sensory thing, like surround sound,” Crowfoot said.

In the last few days of the race, the seas are notorious for undergoing a huge mood swing. With trade winds blowing about 25 knots and kicking up 10- to 20-foot waves, the boats “surf” through the water.

“That’s what everybody hopes for,” Nowlan said. “When you find that, everyone is yelling and screaming.”

*

During the estimated 10 to 13 days on the water, every job--including cooking--aboard the Bay Wolf rotates in shifts of three hours on, four hours off around the clock. Technical jobs rotate about once every 30 minutes to reduce fatigue, and members eat, sleep and conduct routine maintenance during off hours.

The crew is very focused on its goal and, say observers, stands as good a chance as any of winning the race. The emotional decision to sail without Elias might even prove to push the team further.

“We were very motivated before, but this other motivation--that she’s sitting in a hospital bed waiting to see the results every day--we’re doing this for Linda,” Crowfoot said.

* The Transpac Yacht Club posts daily updates on its Web site. The address is kenwoodcorp.com/transpac97/.