Veteran Chases History

Fresh from a face lift, Merlin’s Reata set sail Sunday for a record 12th time in the 41st Transpacific Yacht Race amid light southerly breezes off the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

Whether Merlin’s Reata can regain her glory from 1977, when Merlin set a Transpac record that lasted 20 years, is unclear. But Texas cattle rancher Al Micallef has spared little expense in improvements. He purchased Merlin for $300,000, added nearly $1 million in upgrades and renamed her after his upscale Reata steakhouses.

“She’s really a legend in the industry,” said Micallef, who has a 23-minute handicap. “The boat was losing its luster, it was on the edge of being derelict. Downwind, it’s probably the fastest monohull in the world. She’s an old thoroughbred we breathed new life into.”

The Bill Lee-designed 68-footer revolutionized the industry when it debuted in 1977 and set a Transpac record of 8 days 11 hours 1 minute 45 seconds, which lasted until Roy E. Disney’s boat, Pyewacket II, skippered that year by his son, Roy P. Disney, broke it in 1997. Roy E. Disney set the current standard with Pyewacket III in 1999 with a time of 7 days 11 hours 41 minutes 27 seconds, and that’s the boat Disney is racing this year.

“I’m delighted that Merlin is still around,” Roy E. Disney said. “It will be interesting to see her performance. Her struggles will be the first couple of days until she gets out in surfing conditions.”

Merlin’s Reata is a longshot among the four Division I boats that left for Honolulu on a course covering 2,225 nautical miles.

The scratch boat is Chance, a Reichel/Pugh 74-footer owned by Corona del Mar’s Bob McNulty and one of only three boats since 1936 to make a clean sweep--first to finish, first in class, first in corrected (handicap) time. Roy E. Disney’s Reichel/Pugh 73, Pyewacket, has an 11-second handicap advantage to beat Chance’s elapsed time in corrected scoring. Pegasus, a Reichel/Pugh 75 owned by Philippe Kahn of Santa Cruz, will have a 29-second handicap.

Ragtime was among the eight Division II boats and also was making a Transpac-record 12th start.