The race to no wind started off as expected with some of the fleet in the first start right on the line, aggressively looking for room and nailing the favored pin end. All this knowing that just beyond the Gate was a big hole, and the real race wouldn't begin until they could reach the synoptic wind, a consistent northwesterly about 200 miles out.

The Singlehanded TransPac is a 2,120-mile race from the Corinthian Yacht Club in Tiburon to Hanalei Bay on Kauai. After three starts off the CYC race deck at noon on Saturday, the fleet worked their way out to the Farallones, some boats heading north, but most staying south.

Al Hughes on the Open 60 Dogbark describes the dismal conditions: "Day 1 is in the books and someone forgot the wind. Nice start and good sail under the Golden Gate but the wind slowly died. Made it to just off the Farallon Islands by sundown, and we are slowly creeping westward."

Jeff Lebesch on Hecla, a 54-ft trimaran, tells the tale of the possible slow next two days. "The whole fleet is still stuck in this depressing ‘cutoff low’ windless system stretching from southern Mexico to Northern California. We alternate between light southerly winds and sufficient boat speed to steer, to bobbing about with near zero wind, glassy seas and a northerly swell that causes cacophonic slapping and slatting of the sails. The weather data suggests that we need to claw our way another 100 miles west to get through this, or wait 36 hours for it to start to dissipate. But as we discussed on the radio last night, as soon as we get into the normal wind flow, the sailing will become much more interesting and we will forget about this slow start.”

Solo, but not alone, the sailors have been surrounded by sealife, reporting birds, whales, dolphins, sea lions, seals, and sometimes humans. Thomas Kirschbaum on the Folkboat Feral relayed that, “At about 25 miles off of the Golden Gate Bridge Tom reported a sea lion tried to come on board. He called in Saturday eve near the ‘S’ buoy while in sight of a lot of boats of fellow racers, all becalmed. He reported also seeing dolphins, but none tried to come aboard.”

Gear failures sometimes result in early DNFs. We hope that will not be the case with Dwight Odom’s Saga 43 Na Na, which has turned around and at last report was headed back to San Francisco with generator problems, but with the intention of restarting.

Background information, position reports, and log entries are all available at www.sfbaysss.org/TransPac/transpac2008/transpac_2008_index.html. We’ll have more as the race progresses.

Shooting has begun on SSS TransPac: The Movie. Ten of the boats are carrying our video cameras, plus Chris on Carroll E plans to use his kite-cam. We’ll be flying to Hawaii to greet the sailors. We’re accepting commercial sponsors; if you’re interested, send us an email or call producer Jonathan Gutoff at (415) 994-3500.