More Transpac dispatches

I just received a very nice thank you from an on-line reader in Hammond, Ind., for last week's column that related a few sea stories from a boat's crew in the recent Transpacific Yacht Race.

"Thanks for the insight of the racing crew! Us mainlanders gobble up any ocean info we can get, especially the personal aspects!" she wrote enthusiastically.

So with a mahalo to her in return, how about a few more quotes and comments she might enjoy?

"Our top speed was 17 knots and we needed seat belts," exclaimed Texans Scott Self and Nigel Brown, who won the double-handed division aboard their light and lean Hobie 33 Soap Opera.

They discovered, as they sailed downwind with a spinnaker, their boat would fly off the top of a wave and just drop into the trough, rather than pitch forward and slide down its face.

Nevertheless, they say they will sail Transpac again in 2007 and are hoping enough other Hobie 33s will enter to make a separate fleet.

For Roy Disney, whose max Z 86 Pyewacket finished second in elapsed time (and may have also needed seat belts), it wasn't the excitement of becoming airborne, but rather submerging that was a cause for comment.

"Although I'm sure it was the smoothest race ever for Transpac," he said, "we still went from 24 knots to 8 when the bow took a dive into a wave in the Molokai Channel."

The happiest moment for Urban Miyares aboard the Tripp 40 B'Quest was "finding the islands." That was understandable when you consider he was one of its Challenged America crew that consisted of sailors who all had significant disabilities such as quadriplegia, blindness, arm and leg amputation, arthritis, cancer, diabetes, kidney transplant and hearing impairment.

"Completing Transpac means more than gold medals at a disabled Olympics because we are competing here as equals with the best sailors in the world," Miyares said.

Lloyd Sellinger was the skipper of another boat with an unusual crew. Because he had once been rejected as crew on another boat because of his age, everyone aboard his Cal 40 Bubala had to be at least 60 years old.

They finished the race with a "double-reefed spinnaker" (it had taken a couple of wraps off Diamond Head), but otherwise, there were few problems.

"We had a psychiatrist on board who helped us all to be afraid of being afraid," Sellinger joked. "In fact, he even made us afraid to argue with each other."

Sellinger also presented the Transpac Yacht Club with its newest award: an "Ol' Guy" trophy for future entries such as his.

For a final quote, here's how captain Peter Pendleton on the record holder -- Hasso Plattner's max Z 86 Morning Glory -- succinctly explained the win: "We never did a single digit (made less than 10 knots)."