transpac yacht race tracker

Published on July 13th, 2021 | by Editor

Riding first wave for 51st Transpac Race

Published on July 13th, 2021 by Editor -->

San Pedro, CA (July 13, 2021) – The Transpacific Yacht Club today unleashed the first of three waves of entries on their long westward journey to Honolulu in the 51st running of the Transpac. This biennial 2225-mile race from LA-Honolulu, first run in 1906, is an ocean racing classic.

Seven entries ranging from 37 to 57 feet in length were on the start line today, set one mile south of San Pedro’s Point Fermin lighthouse. Weather conditions early this morning were uncertain, with local thunderstorms in the area, but this stabilized by midday to provide an 11-knot thermal westerly breeze.

Even in this initial upwind leg towards the first of only two marks of the course – the West End of Catalina, 25 miles away – the fleet seemed to split with some opting to head north and others choosing to take the closer tack towards Catalina.

As explained at the virtual Skipper’s Briefing on July 10 by veteran NOAA weather forecaster Joe Sienkiewicz, the large scale position and shape of the North Pacific High seems to be setting up favorably for a good race. The split High is due to merge and strengthen the classic northeast tradewinds that are a typical feature of the middle portion of the race track, while the normal coastal northerlies also seem to be in place to propel all the teams away from the coast quickly.

Mark Ashmore’s Cal 40 Nalu V was among the first starters today, and is riding a wave of enthusiasm coming off their overall win in the SoCal 300. He’s upbeat about the race, his first to Hawaii, especially considering what happened in the previous 50th edition of the race in 2019.

“We had a mysterious leak, or several leaks, that we were never able to pinpoint the source,” he said. “It was serious enough to have us pumping out the bilge four times a day. The conditions were rough, and we launched off a few waves, so it was difficult to track the source. At one point I was able to get my head into the bilge to see some water seeping in.”

At about 200 miles out, the Nalu team decided it was better to head back to the coast than face this situation further out and with fewer option. There were among several entries to that year that had to drop out due to various problems.

This year Ashmore and his team of four are determined to finish what they started two years ago, cross the finish at Diamond Head, and have tons of fun on the way. “We may be one of the slowest boats on the course, but that means we just have more time to enjoy the race!” he said.

The Nalu V team is also sailing for a cause: a good friend and shipmate on the 2019 race, Mark Buttermann, had recently passed from ALS, and the team has dedicated their effort this year to his memory. They have set up a donation fund to fight ALS and within a few weeks have raised an impressive $14,000.

Today’s starters are the first of three waves, with the second group of 15 teams in three divisions starting at 1:00 PM PDT on July 16 at Point Fermin, while the final group of the fastest 19 boats in four divisions will start at the same time and place on July 17.

YB trackers are on board all entries but positions have been delayed by 4 hours, except when within 200 miles of the finish, where they revert to real-time tracking.

Event information – Race details – Entry list – Tracker

Forty-one teams are competing in the 51st Transpac Race which takes the fleet on a 2225 nm course from Point Fermin in Los Angeles to the finish line off Diamond Head in Honolulu, Hawaii.

2021 Schedule July 13 start – Division 8 July 16 start – Division 5, 6, 7 July 17 start – Division 1, 2, 3, 4 July 30 – Honolulu Awards Ceremony

Source: TPYC

Tags: Transpac

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The VO65 Class yachts sail at the start of the Ocean Race, first leg from Alicante to Cabo Verde in Alicante, Spain, Sunday Jan. 15, 2023. (AP Photo/Alberto Saiz)

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Starting June 27, the 52nd annual Transpacific Yacht Club Race will get underway. The first wave of 16 boats will set sail at 10 a.m. HST.

Follow along the 52nd annual Transpacific Club Yacht Race

Matthew Nuttle

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Matthew has been the digital content manager for KITV4 since September 2021. Matthew is a prolific writer, editor, and self-described "newsie" who's worked in television markets in Oklahoma, California, and Hawaii.

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• Jun 27, 2023
• Jun 27, 2023 Updated Jun 27, 2023

The race kicks off in San Pedro, Calif. and ends at Diamond Head – a 2,200 mile trip from start to finish!

There are three waves of sailboats in all, with 58 entrant vessels in all participating including four boats from Hawaii among the field of competitors.

The Transpac Race is one of the oldest and longest sailing ocean races in the world. It first began in 1906!

Starting in California and ending here on Hawaii, the Transpacific Yacht Race is setting sail for this 2200 mile journey!

Trap here to learn more about the race and prizes.

You can also follow along with the race in real-time with this live race tracker tool.

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First wave of boats sets sail on 2,225 mile journey to Hawaii in biennial Transpac yacht race

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - Over a dozen boats and their crews are currently racing from Los Angeles to Hawaii in the first wave of the biennial Transpac Yacht Race .

The first wave left Los Angeles Tuesday afternoon and will be racing to the finish line at the Diamond Head lookout this year.

However, as of Wednesday, two of the 16 boats dropped out of the race and were on their way back to Los Angeles. One of the two boats — Insoumise — is from Hawaii.

The Hawaii boat retired from the race due to rudder issues. Everyone on board is safe and returning to port in Los Angeles.

A total of 58 teams will compete in the race this year, with the two other waves of boats destined to set sail on June 29 and July 1, respectively.

The race is estimated to take between five to 10 days for crews to complete, with a distance of 2,225 miles .

Many yachts and offshore sailing racers from all over the world — including Australia, Canada, Italy and the U.S. — are competing in the race this year.

Out of the 58 teams racing the 2023 Transpac, four crews are from Hawaii — the most in more than a decade.

First created and organized in 1906 by the Transpacific Yacht Club, the Transpacific Yacht Race, more formerly known as Transpac, is an offshore sailing race, where crews will travel from Point Fermin in Los Angeles to Diamond Head in Honolulu — an epic journey. This year’s Transpac is the 52nd one.

Along with other teams racing this year, some crews are entering the world of Transpac for the very first time.

Traveling all the way from Australia, this will be Ian Edwards and his crew’s first time racing the Transpac. They began their journey yesterday as part of the race’s first wave.

“We normally race with 10 or even a 12 crew, but we will race with only eight on this race,” Edwards said.

Their boat, Wings , is no stranger to ocean racing and the crew says that they are intrigued by the unique aspect of Transpac’s course and conditions.

Other boats, however, are already veterans to the race.

Ed Sanford and his crew hail from San Diego and will be racing their boat, Creative . This will be Sanford’s fourth Transpac race, having competed in 2013, 2015 and 2017.

He looks forward to the race this year and him and his crew have been proactive in preparing and planning for the 2,225 mile trek to Hawaii.

“By taking the time to go through all the setup, equipment and systems, we have a much better understanding on how to troubleshoot if needed,” Sanford said.

As the first wave of boats continues on their journey with two more set to follow in the upcoming days, their race progress can be tracked here .

To learn more information about Transpac and their teams participating this year, click here .

Copyright 2023 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.

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The Grunion

Grunion sports, grunion sports | on the water: here’s an update on the transpac race to hawaii.

In yacht racing, early retirement is not a good thing.

Yet, five boats had already dropped out of the Transpacific race to Hawaii as of deadline — and one never even started.

Larchmont Yacht Club’ s entry, Jason Carroll and his MOD 70 Argo, retired with engine issues. Malilia, a Hylas 63, retired because of a shroud issue. SAM returned home after Jerome Sam Marcelli was airlifted off the vessel because of a finger injury and Ben Kaliwoda returned the Carbon 32 singlehanded. Insoumise’s rudder housing broke, forcing that vessel to retire. And Glass Slipper out of Berkeley Yacht Club, never even made it to the starting line.

But then Steve George’s Shadowfax experienced a damaged masthead and started limping its way back to the Alamitos Bay Yacht Club. That one really hit home.

I sat with the Shadowfax crew, wives and girlfriends during the June 24 sendoff party on the USS Iowa , in San Pedro. The crew features a great mix of experienced racers and those for whom Transpac was a bucket list item.

“They are all amazing. This crew was incredible.  They’re eating well,” Julie Green King, whose husband, John, was on board Shadowfax, texted me as the vessel made its way home. “After the initial sad shock of it all, they appear to have come to terms with it — everyone is resolved to go to Hawaii. All the gals have booked their guys a flight except bowman Zach Miller, who has to get back to work.”

During the send-off, Zach told me he had never been to Hawaii.

The airlines were helpful as the shore crew worked to get the Shadowfax team to Honolulu, Julie said. After flights were booked, the wives, girlfriends, adult children and sailing pals started planning a Long Beach greeting on the same level Shadowfax would have received in Hawaii. So as the boat entered Alamitos Bay early in the morning on Tuesday, July 4, when, mai tais were being mixed and the crew was welcomed to their dock at ABYC.

“They were poised to be on the podium, such a bummer,” Julie texted me “They will be in Hawaii to congratulate the victors.”

I watched the third and final start of the 2023 Transpac on Saturday, July 1, on board Seal Beach residents Rick and Christi Von Heydenreich’s yacht, dubbed Boat Hair.

Rick, who is the port captain of the Transpacific Yacht Club is a veteran of the ocean race and he serves as one of the volunteer boat inspectors for the regatta. Rick had spent the last couple of weeks delivering a boat in some gnarly weather, before flying back to Los Angeles International Airport on Friday night. On Saturday morning, he was there ready to take 10 of us to watch the start.

After getting off the start line and around the west end of Catalina Island, most tacked to port and headed northwest. Unfortunately, most got stuck for hours in light and drifting conditions among the outer Channel Islands.

Heather and Chuck Furey’s Santa Cruz 70 Mirage, with navigator Ray Marchetta, reported, according to the TransPac media team, that their crew “fended off a sea lion looking for a resting place, marine mammal presumed we were another rock.”

They also reported that only Manouch Mosheyedi’s Bakewell-White 100 RIO100 and George Hershman and Mark Comings’ Reichel/Pugh 63 Good Energy — with two-time ABYC Staff Commodore Chuck Clay at the helm — were able to break away to the southwest and are progressing on a southerly track at speeds of 10 and 8 knots, respectively.

At the last look of the tracker, Long Beach Yacht Club’s Doug Baker and his Dencho/Kernan Peligroso (with fan favorites Benjamin Wheatley and Dustin Durant on board) have started to lead the rest of the group out of slatting conditions and into a more decent breeze.

All entries in Transpac can be tracked on the “Yellow Brick” system, including positions, speeds and headings. There is a built-in four-hour delay for each entry, except when within 200 miles of the finish, when the tracker goes live. To follow the fleet, go to cf.yb.tl/transpac2023# .  For more information on 2023 Transpac, go to transpacyc.com .

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First wave of Transpac 2023 starts next week

Next week on June 27, the first wave of boats will start the 52nd edition of the biennial Transpac race.

Starting in the vicinity of Point Fermin in San Pedro, they will race past Catalina Island and then onto the finish at Diamond Head in Honolulu. The race can be watched live via a tracker found here .

With the most Hawai‘i racers/boats competing in over 10 years, Hawai‘i racers come from Hawai‘i Yacht Club, Waikiki Yacht Club and Kewalo Basin, including the boats Blue Moon; Insoumise; Ho‘okolohe; and Trader.

There are 16 boats starting on Tuesday: nine teams are competing in Boatswains Locker Division 7, and seven teams racing in smithREgroup Division 8.

Their quest is the culmination of months and even years of planning and preparation for this race. For some, this is their first and others are repeat customers to this classic 2,225-mile ocean race, first sailed in 1906.

The group will be diverse, from large comfortable cruising boats, like Nick Green’s Hylas 63 Malilia with a crew of 11, to small light race boats, like Jerome Sammarcelli’s local-based Columbia Carbon 32 Sam, this year’s smallest entry in the fleet. Sammarcelli is from France and is racing double-handed in Division 7 with Ben Kaliwoda as his co-skipper.

Not all entries starting on Tuesday will be from the US. Skipper Ian Edwards and the crew of seven on his Dehler 46 Wings are one of two entries in the year’s race from Australia. Not only has this team competed in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race, but they have also logged some even more serious offshore mileage in the 1969-mile Ponant Sydney to Noumea Yacht Race.

All boats in the race get scored using the ORR system to give them a rating based on their predicted speed on the course. In this way a small or slow-rated boat may defeat a much faster boat in corrected time. Regardless of their size and type, all members of the fleet starting on Tuesday next week have a chance to beat any of the much faster entries starting later in the week, just as Matt Brooks’ S&S 52 classic ketch Dorade did in 2013.

It comes down to sailing skill, clever navigation, and luck with the weather…especially with this year’s El Nino.

Using the Pasha Hawaii-sponsored satellite tracking system, all boats can be found and their positions plotted over the entire race course from start to finish. Their exact positions will be delayed 4 hours until they reach 200 miles from the finish. At that point, their positions are live.

Many of the entries in the Transpac fleet will be moored at San Pedro’s Cabrillo Way Marina, where a Race Village has just been opened to encourage participants, visitors, and sponsors be part of the pre-race excitement building up now into next week.

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Transpac 2023: Save the Dates

Los Angeles, CA – The Board of Directors of the Transpacific Yacht Club are pleased to announce that start dates are now chosen for the 52nd biennial running of the Los Angeles to Honolulu Transpacific Yacht Race, better known as the Transpac. The first edition of this race was run in 1906 and it is one of the longest and oldest among the world’s classic ocean races, with a start line at Point Fermin in San Pedro and the finish line lying 2220 miles away at Diamond Head in Honolulu.

For the 2023 edition three start dates have been chosen: the first is Tuesday, June 27th 2023, the second Thursday June 29th and the last will be on Saturday July 1st. Once divided into divisions, entries will start in a trend from slowest to fastest in order to have more boats together on the race course and come closer to finishing together at Diamond Head.

“We chose these dates for a variety of factors,” said TPYC Commodore Tom Trujillo. “Starting too early risks having lighter wind conditions on the course, while starting later risks having the fleet affected by possible tropical storms forming to the south. We also wanted to have the racers enjoy as much as possible the full moon scheduled for July 3rd .”

This race attracts a wide range of boat types - monohull and multihull, comfortable cruisers and flat-out racers, as well as a broad spectrum of sailors ranging from those who are interested in just the experience of being at sea to others who want to go all-out to win.

“After our race held last summer in Covid conditions, we expect a strong renewal of interest from teams based both in the US and overseas,” said Trujillo. “Some will be returning after having a hiatus last year, and others will be coming for the first time. We welcome all to come and race to paradise.”

The Notice of Race for the 52nd Transpac is under development now and is expected to be published at some date later this Spring.