Women’s Transpac Team Finishes Fifth in Its Class

The nine members of the Women’s Sailing Team pulled into the Hawaiian harbor of Ala Wai early Saturday morning, finishing the grueling and often harrowing Transpac Challenge in nine days, 19 hours, 24 minutes and three seconds. The team placed fifth in its class.

The team’s skipper Linda Elias, sidelined by emergency surgery just days before the start of the race July 2, was on hand to greet the crew she and co-skipper Betty Sue Sherman had handpicked to compete in the prestigious 2,216-mile race.

It wasn’t an easy race for the all-female team, which was faced with an 18-inch tear in its only mainsail the first night out of San Pedro and lost its electronic wind instruments during the final day of the passage. The team--including Betsy Crowfoot of Tustin, Pamela Dodd-Millett of Seal Beach and Molly McCloud of Huntington Beach-- was also forced to ration water for the length of the race when its water maker malfunctioned.

With winds blowing at 20 to 25 knots in the final days of the race, the loss of electronic devises forced Sherman to steer by “sheer feel” in total darkness through the turbulent Molokai Channel and into the Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor.

Early in the race, the team’s mainsail, which weighs about 70 pounds, developed an 18-inch tear from the pounding winds. Sherman decided not to turn back, but it took the crew about 24 hours to repair the massive sail and cost them about 2 knots of speed.

“That was a very grim day,” said Crowfoot. “We thought we were going to have to go back.”

Susan Colby, editor of the Log, a San Diego-based biweekly newspaper for the boating industry, said she spoke with crew members hours after they pulled into Hawaii.

“They were thrilled that they did so well,” Colby said. “They were right up there in the hunt. If they hadn’t lost their main, they probably would have come in second or third.”

The 39th Transpac Challenge was the fastest in history with several speed records shattered. The sailboat Medicine Man completed the passage in eight days, six hours and 31 minutes, breaking the old record by four hours, 30 minutes and 45 seconds.