July 1, 2008

 

 

Is It Time to Go Yet?

July has finally arrived, but it is only the 1^st. Will this race never get here?!

There are 22 boats scheduled to cross the starting line just after noon on Saturday, July 12, 2008. A 23^rd boat, having just completed a circumnavigation of the world, was to join us, but on her way up to San Francisco from Mexico, she had a mechanical failure of her automatic steering. As the skipper, a TransPac veteran, caught some much need sleep, the boat quietly steered herself onto a reef and became grounded. The waves then went to work pounding her apart. This heartbreaking event has reinforced to all the skippers that sleep, although much needed, may be our worst enemy.

Next week the 22 boats will be arriving from wildly varying areas. About half the fleet calls the San Francisco Bay Area their homeport, but the others are from North Carolina, Minnesota, Washington, Colorado, South Carolina, Virginia and British Columbia. The lost boat was from the United Kingdom.

The range of boat sizes and types vary widely also. The race allows for boats from 20’ to 60’ and our fleet covers this range completely:

• 7 boats are less than 30’
• 9 boats are between 30 and 39’
• 4 are from 40-49
• 2 are over 50’

All are monohulls except one, which is the 54’ multihull.

For such diverse boats to compete against each other in a race, their times will be subject to a handicap to allow for a fair comparison. These handicaps range from “-60” to “+286” seconds per mile of race. What this means is that in the most extreme case, the fastest boat must complete the race almost 9 days prior to the slowest boat in order for it to beat it.

This handicapping can add an interesting dimension to the race because any boat, if sailed to the boat’s full potential has the ability to win, and you will not know the outcome until nearly all boats have arrived in Hanalei. Also the race can be interesting because of the large number of small boats entered this year. So even if the smaller boats don’t do well against the faster boats, they should have some spirited competition amongst themselves.

At the present time “Black Feathers” sits in her berth in San Francisco, fully loaded and read to join the other boats next week at the Corinthian Yacht Club in Tiburon. Until then, I simply need to memorize my diagrams of the boat in order to remember where I put everything!