Centennial Transpacific Yacht Race Start
by Rich Roberts 12 Jul 2005 07:10 BST
Was the smallest boat the smartest?
That question lingered long after the 33 boats that took the first start of the Centennial Transpacific Yacht Race to Hawaii sailed into the fickle mists of the San Pedro channel amid schools of dancing dolphins Monday.
Soap Opera, a Hobie 33 with green sails sailed doublehanded by Scott Self and Nigel Brown of Rockwall, Tex., appeared to be gaining leverage to the right as most of the fleet went left in the 4-knot southerly zephyrs off the Palos Verdes Peninsula.
If the gray marine layer were to dissolve into sunshine and the channel's celebrated southwesterly sea breeze were to fill and swing their way, the Texans looked golden. But the outcome was still so uncertain more than an hour after the start that only the dolphins had a clue.
The 33 boats comprised Division 5, the 14 Cal 40s and Aloha A and B classes. Divisions III and IV will start Friday, followed by the biggest and fastest boats in Divisions 1 and II Sunday.
One entry - doublehanders James and Ann Read's Stewart 42, Camille, in Aloha B - failed to make Monday's gun after blowing out its main sail and a jib on the way down from San Francisco last week. They will start as soon as they can, but the clock started for them Monday.
Another of the seven doublehanded boats - Patricia Garfield and Diane Murray's Catalina 47, Charmed Life, from San Francisco - almost missed the start for a reason seldom heard in sailboat racing: a lost dog.
Garfield's mother had her pooch on a leash to watch the sendoff from Rainbow Harbor. The dog was spooked by the repeated shotgun blasts saluting the departing boats, and Garfield was well on her way to the starting line when she heard by cell phone from her mother that the animal was lost. She returned to the harbor and after a frantic search found the dog, then reached the start with a half-hour to spare.
Challenged America, the team of disabled sailors from San Diego, started its second successive Transpac unexpectedly shorthanded. They suffered a blow only a day earlier when they learned they'd be sailing with only five men. Jeff Reinhold, a paraplegic from Kirkland, Wash., had an infection in his left elbow serious enough that medical attendants advised him not to go.
"Chances are it would be OK," the disheartened Reinhold said, "but if it wasn't it could be a problem."
The possibility of the infection getting worse could find the team in mid-ocean far from professional medical care or, at best, could force the team to abandon the race. Reinhold agreed it wasn't worth the risk.
"I don't even know what I did," he said, "probably just a scratch I got from crawling around inside the boat."
It was too late to get a replacement. The loss of Reinhold, a 20-year racing veteran, leaves the team with Challenged America co-founder Urban Miyares, who is blind and diabetic; Kevin Wixom, leg amputee; Jim Halverson, leg amputee; Scott Meide, arm amputee and able-bodied skipper Joshua Ross.
Miyares, Meide and Ross were on the boat in 2003. Reinhold, Wixom and Halverson were new crew members.
Stan Honey, who will return as navigator on Roy Disney's Pyewacket Sunday, watched the start from the US Sailing Center's press boat. His wife Sally is sailing their Cal 40, Illusion, with three other very capable women. The early conditions were as much a puzzle to Stan Honey as anyone, but he liked the fact that Illusion had followed Soap Opera to the right, well past Point Vicente into open ocean.
"It worked great for us [in 2003, when the Honeys raced Illusion together]," Stan Honey said.
Otherwise, he said, prospects were good for a straight-line race to Hawaii.
"The Pacific High is farther northwest than usual, so it looks like a cautious rhumb line race," he said - with some reservation.
Another Cal 40, Steve Calhoun's Psyche from Palos Verdes Estates, played the pin end of the line at the start, then tacked across transoms to reach the right behind Soap Opera as most of the fleet - including the 67-year-old Odyssey - crept into mid-channel to the left.
Time - and Tuesday morning's position report roll call - would tell who got it right.
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