race report
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 The Pacific Cup has started! But this is a start in RYC's Big Bad-Ass Beer Can Race during PacCup Village. ©2014 norcalsailing.com |
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Pacific Cup Shifts Into Gear
July 8, 2014 The Pacific Cup focus has shifted from the PacCup Village to the PacCup starts. The Village at Richmond Yacht Club wound down while the cruising division departed San Francisco Bay on Sunday. The starts continued on Monday and Tuesday and conclude on Thursday and Friday. The Pacific Cup Village officially opened on June 30, a Monday night, with 220 or so party-goers and nearly half of the competitor boats in the RYC harbor. Walking the docks to visit the boats displaying the Pacific Cup burgee was a popular pastime for racers and race fans alike.
Shuttle cars provided by sponsor Sonnen BMW and driven by RYC volunteers transported competitors and their families to local businesses for provisioning and errands. An special app helped mobile device users locate services for last minute preparations and find out about goings-on. Two sub-zero freezers at the club were a big hit. “Really great,” says Stan Perkins, who is doublehanding the Hood River, OR-based Mirage, one of four Santa Cruz 27s in the race, and needed to store “quantities of goulash” prepared by his daughter/crew, Kerry Hallyburton.
The schedule last week included several seminars conducted by Kame Richards of Pineapple Sails talking about night driving, Scott Easom of Easom Rigging, who will be sailing on Pyewacket, Roy Disney's Andrews 68 (which was available for gawking on the the end of D Dock), Pacific Cup YC Commodore Steve Chamberlin on downloading and interpreting weather grib files, and Will Paxton and Jeff Thorpe of Quantum Sails on sail selection. As each day drew to a close, the partying began, starting with the Taste of Richmond on Monday night accompanied by free beer from Sierra Nevada, Food Truck Night on Tuesday with more free beer, and a chili buffet following the Big Bad-Ass RYC Beer Can Race on Wednesday. The somewhat pricier events began on Thursday with Alaska Airlines Night, followed by RYC's Old Fashioned July 4th BBQ on Friday, and culminating with the Hawaiian-style Bon Voyage Party on Saturday night.
The Cruising (Holo Holo) Division started on Sunday morning off the St. Francis YC race deck. Holo Holo is Hawaiian slang for walking around and having fun. First to cross the start line was Med Viking, a Beneteau 411 from SoCal, skippered by Bernard Debbasch. Gregory Newman's Caliber 40LRC Rapture couldn't get their diesel engine to shut off and so returned to Berkeley, but has since restarted. In Monday’s first start, the Alaska Airlines Division, Rodney Pimentel’s Cal 40 Azure led the way out under the Golden Gate Bridge, followed by Victoria Lessley’s sistership California Girl. Victoria and husband Tim, who own a boatyard in Portland, are sailing this race in memory of Tim’s mother, Betty Lessley, who skippered California Girl in the Pacific Cup six times and died recently – for her, a Betty Boop is painted on the Cal 40’s stern.
The third day of starts saw three race divisions leaving for Hawaii today under high fog and 18+ knot winds. The first group was the Weems & Plath Division. Among this group, Sweet Okole, a 1976 Farr 36 skippered by Dean Treadway has sailed six Pacific Cups (one more than its skipper) and four Transpacs, winning overall in 1981 and 1985. The Matson Division was the second out the Golden Gate today, followed by the Kolea Division, the faster of this year’s two doublehanded divisions. The Kolea bird (Pacific Golden Plover) undertakes an incredible journey of nearly 3,000 miles between Alaska and Hawaii twice a year without stopping once to rest or feed.
The fastest divisions start Thursday and Friday. You can find starting times, more details, photos, and tracking at www.pacificcup.org. Yellowbrick tracker positions are delayed by six hours until the first boat gets 200 miles from the finish, when the data will become live.
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