PEGASUS 77 WINS TRANSPAC 2003

Pegasus 77 and Pyewacket have competed twice against each other: Transpac 2001 and Coastal Cup 2003.
Both times Pegasus 77 clearly won. Transpac 2003 is the culmination of this two year rivalry.
Who will cross the finish line at Diamond Head first?

Transpac 2003 Skipper's Log

Pegasus Racing team accepting the Barn Door award for First to Finish in the Transpac 2003.

Competitor: Pyewacket
Designer: Reichel-Pugh
Sail number: 50008
Rig: Sloop

LOA (ft.): 77
Draft (ft): 12.5 Beam (ft): 15
Hull color: White / Blue
Yacht Club: Waikiki and St. Francis Yacht Club
Builder: McConaghy, Sydney, Australia
Year launched: 2001, turbo-charged in May 2003

Skipper: Philippe Kahn

Navigator: Mark Rudiger
Watch Captain 1: Mark Christensen
Watch Captain 2: Morgan Larson
Crew: Zan Drejes, Samuel "Shark" Kahn, Sean "Doogie" Couvreux, Jeff Madrigali, Mark Christensen, Morgan Larson, Steve Erickson, Mike Mottl, Adam Beashel, Richard Clarke, Mikey Joubert, Justin Clougher

Friday July 4th

Lunch break while getting Pegasus 77 ready for the big race. Shark is now 13 and a growing boy!

Happy 4th of July. For the team at Pegasus Racing, its a lot of focus and work on Friday, July 4th. That's because we decided to get it all done and give the whole team Saturday the 5th off. Time to relax and get psyched up for the big event. Just like a big exam, cramming won't help. We've done all that we could do, now our dice are cast. Of course in the navigation part of the team we're going to be very busy crunching weather information. Most of the team is going to go for a big workout at the gym, jogging or biking. This will be the last big workout before a 7 day match race. And that must be one of the longest match races of modern sailing history: 2250 nautical miles of non-stop adrenaline, 24 hours a day without respite.

There are 4 distinct parts to the Transpac race:

Part 1: Getting out of the coastline into the offshore winds. Big gains or big losses can be made here. We're starting at 1 PM, probably before the seabreeze will be established and there is quite a bit of adverse current. Our goal at the start is to stay in touch with our competitor. We don't need to be ahead, just close enough that we don't make significant losses. This is the same kind of approach that we took successfully during Coastal Cup a few weeks ago.

Part 2: Reaching in the Northwesterly gradient breeze all the way to the ridge that is attached to the South-Eastern part of the Pacific high. That's where we'll meet the North-Easterly tradewinds. How far South do we go? How much more distance should we sail in order to find more wind? Because Pegasus 77 is a sled and planes, every knot of increased windspeed means 1/2 knot of increased boat speed off the wind.

Part 3: Running in the trades and surfing to Hawaii. Sailing to Hawaii is surfing to Hawaii: You want to take down every wave that is surfable. And that's lots of fun.

Part 4: The last 500 nautical Miles where we have to sail with those tricky squalls all around. With these squalls, the wind gets shifted right at the front end but where there is almost no wind in the back. In the last 100 miles we need to find the right line to head for the Diamond Head finish line. And there are a lot of decisions to be made then as to how far to get across the Molokai channel to find better wind and a better angle to the finish, again trading more distance for more boat speed.

Of course weather models change quickly and so by Sunday morning we'll have a pretty good game plan for the first couple of days, but then, we'll need to continue crunching weather information in the navigation station. This makes the Transpac very much a navigator's race because sleds like Pegasus 77 are so responsive to increased wind speeds.

Saturday, July 5th

Friday, 4th of July, watching Division 3 and 4 competitors start 48 hours ahead of us with ideal starting conditions.

Today is big crunch time for working on our weather tactics. Here is a summary of what we know and our competitor probably knows too.

Click here to see the press coverage from today.

There is a possibility that a tropical disturbance may be headed our way from Mexico, two days into the race. That's what the forecasts say. It could be a hurricane, or just a little more wind. Models are not very good at forecasting tropical depressions. Maybe it will fizzle out. Its the kind of situation that if the winds are manageable we may actually head South a bit to catch some of them in order to go faster, trading distance sailed for boat speed. We'll have to watch this one closely.

Click here to see today's weather map

This morning, the dual High pressure is still elongated around 40-41 North, 40-152 West and its central part has strengthened to more than 1030 millibars. That should make for a quick race if it holds up and the double system continues consolidating into one stronger system forecasted to gain force to around 1034 milibars.

For the start, we should se a South Westerly sea-breeze flow of 6-12 knots (probably kicking in between around noon) and clocking all afternoon while building a bit of strength.

Our game plan is going to be to get into the strong offshore winds as soon as we can by sailing a Great Circle route while staying of the Islands in order to avoid their wind shadows.

Then we'll have to see how the different systems evolve. That's a nice forecast and could make for a record breaking year. But its too early to tell yet.

Saturday, July 5th

A happy crew after our team dinner Saturday night at the Papadakis Taverna Greek restaurant in San Pedro

Food while sailing, is really important. But perhaps most important, is a great last meal before a long offshore passage. It's not just the food, but getting the whole team to gel. It's discussing the last details. What positions will we have at the start and what will we all do. Nice company!

While we were having dinner, my assistant Faye Kong and some of our software engineering team are busy putting the last high-tech touches to our weather crunching systems on-board Pegasus 77. We have four networked laptops and we constantly receive satellite-based weather information. We now have developed a sophisticated way to gather, organize and analyze some of that weather. And like every high-tech project, if it wasn't for the last minute, nothing would ever get done!

Sunday, July 6th

Crusty (Mark Christensen) has done a great job during the last 6 months managing the Transpac efforts, among other projects. We must remember that the logistics in successfully campaigning a state-of-the-art 77 feet offshore racer are extremely complex. But then we can't lose sight of racing. With Pegasus Racing, we race all the time. We race small one-design boats like Finns, Star, 29ers, 49ers or Melges 24s, because with a minimum of logistics you get to really race competitively with the best in the world. Then, its a matter of applying those skills to the big boat.

So the morning of the start here is what the logistics look like:

08:30am - Meet at the reception, to hand over bags to be shipped by container to Honolulu
10:00am - Meet at boat
10.30am - Leave dock
12:00pm - Start sailing and tuning up

We decided that the starting positions would be as follows

Rudi is free to do whatever is necessary.

First alternate helm is: Morgan
First alternate main is: Stevie

Sunday, July 6th: The Start!

We won the start and 45 minutes into the race I handed the helm to Morgan who did a great job at extending our lead... Maybe too much of a great job as when the wind shifted right and we fell into a light spot things changed a bit.

We started in a Catalina eddy. That means that a local low pressure is stationed around the Santa Catalina Island and that the winds turn counter-clockwise in the LA basin. So the start was in a Southerly wind that would gradually shift right. We started in 4 knots of wind. We started to leeward of Pyewacket. We crossed the line bow to bow. Pyewacket tried to roll us, but we held our lane and pinched them off. Pyewacket then footed to leeward.

We clearly won the start.

However, the wind was so up and down that we fell into a wind-hole and parked the boat enough, that Pyewacket got their bow out from our bad air. They continued footing and kept on getting a huge right shift. The boat to the right with a big right hand shift makes the gains and they did.

2 hours into the race, Pyewacket is ahead of us, 20 boat lengths forward, leading to the Catalina Islands. We won the start but tactically let them get to our right. Now we're paying the price. We're about 1.5 minutes behind them. We now need to work on caching up. It's a yacht race!

Sunday, July 6th

Pyewacket did a very good job at translating a losing start into a 20 boat length lead after we fell into a wind-hole. Its a yacht race!

Click here to see the press coverage from today.

Wet, windy, cold and a bit wild

Date: Monday, July 7th
Time: 00:05 PST
Boat Speed: 14.1 knots
Course: 220 degrees
Wind Speed: 29 knots

The transition to the strong offshore winds came abruptly. Both boats are now on starboard tack and we're going into the wind in a big seaway. We are carrying two reefs and waves are breaking over the boat. It's cold, wet and windy and it will stay that way most of the night from what the satellite pictures show. For a couple of days we're going to earn our days sailing downwind by getting tossed and banged around.

The Pyewacket team lost the start, Robbie Haines was driving the Pyewacket, while I was helming the Pegasus. When I handed the helm to Morgan, a good hour in the race we became over confident and stretched too much to windward, letting them foot to leeward and gain lots of gage to the right. Then a massive 40 degree shift happened and we fell into a wind hole. I am glad that we are learning our lessons early in this race. In some ways, this is a very similar situation as Coastal Cup. Now we have to catch them. Deja vu...All over again!

When everything bounces, so do stomachs

Wet and Cold at daybreak. Happy boat catching first 20+ knot rides early in the race

Date: Monday, July 7th
Time: 05:05 PST
Boat Speed: 16knots
Course: 220 degrees
Wind Speed: 24 knots

It's fast and crisp sailing, although wet and cold. The wind is down 5
knots. Our first quarter moon has set and the sun is about to rise. When it bounces hard like this right into an offshore race, lots of lunches and dinners come right back out over the side of the boat.

The logistics of it all are complicated by the fact that with fairly rough conditions, everyone is wearing harnesses and tethered to the jack lines on deck at night. So, you got to run, clip-in, and go do your business, all of this while waves are washing over the deck. There are several styles. You have the types like Doogie, who while cleaning up the second reef, straddling the boom and suddenly bounce down on deck, run to the back of the boat, do their business, run back to the mast, hop back on the boom, in less than a minute. Then there is the "I've got a bucket permanently attached to me and I am not moving an inch from where I am" types. And of course being down bellow while we're cooking food doesn't really help... It kind of sets everything on a fast track: Last in, first out!

Shark is now 13 and its his 3rd trans-Pacific crossing. He's worked on the boat since he's out of school, did a great job on the windy Coastal Cup, and is now safely down bellow
holding on to a bucket (Its OK Mom, its part of the rite of passage and he won't remember that it ever happened in a couple of days). The tropical depression that is headed for our projected path has now officially been upgraded to "tropical Storm" and they gave her a beautiful name: Dolores. She apparently carries gusts over 45 kts and picking up strength. We'll stay away from that one. Click here for the latest weather map.

Monday July 7th, 09:00 PST

Rudi calling-in our 08:00 position to race headquarters. We like our positioning South, time will tell.

Roll call is every morning at 08:00 PST. Every racing yacht reports, and every crew member is waiting to know what happened through the night.

That's because during the night, anything can happen. This morning at roll call, Pyewacket is ahead of us in distance to Hawaii. We are 25 Nautical Miles South of them and have gained about 30 degrees of bearing on them. Pegasus actually also sailed about 5 miles more distance. What does this all mean?

First, on all the race reports Pyewacket will be shown leading in distance to Honolulu. And that is what most people will see. Read on, because there is more to this. The shortest distance between two points in sailing geometry is almost never the straight line. Yes, once again we all know that both boats are going to get lifted as the winds clock around the high. And in a lift, its nice to be the inside boat, which is what Pyewacket is doing. However, our weather analysis on Pegasus tells us to expect more wind along a more Southerly route. Our calculations show us that if our wind forecasts are correct, its well worth sailing extra distance to get South. So, Pyewacket is betting on shift, Pegasus is counting on more pressure. We each have our leverage and given a choice Pegasus wouldn't trade places with Pyewacket. The next 24 hours are going to be critical: Will the Pyewacket head South in our direction? Will we eventually cross paths? The answers will come tomorrow, Tuesday at 09:00 PST.

2003 Transpacific Yacht Race

Daily Standings

07/07/03 (PDT)

ID	Yacht	LAT	LON	DST 2GO	CORR TIME	STD CL	GS FL	AVE SOC	24H DOC	24H SOC	FIN TIME/ ETA
DIVISION 1:
1A	Pegasus 77	31-08	121-45	2020	206:23:58	2	29	10.8	232	12.23	15/03:23
1B	Pyewacket	31-27	122-01	2009	196:09:31	1	7	11.3	230	12.1	14/17:09
DIVISION 2:
2A	Alta Vita	31-27	120-54	2066	237:13:31	5	49	8.4	188	9.9	17/14:54
2B	Beau Geste	31-28	121-21	2043	208:27:55	2	31	9.6	203	10.7	16/05:45
2C	Bengal II	31-18	120-17	2096	293:48:03	9	54	6.8	175	9.2	20/04:57
2D	Grand Illusion	32-06	121-29	2043	202:38:23	1	21	9.6	186	9.8	16/04:43
2E	Hesal II	32-36	120-27	2099	299:06:06	10	55	6.6	125	6.6	20/12:54
2F	ICON	31-46	120-47	2075	258:46:57	6	51	7.9	170	8.9	18/06:11
2G	Medicine Man	32-09	121-34	2039	217:38:39	3	41	9.8	188	9.9	16/00:08
2H	Pendragon 4	31-17	120-28	2087	268:49:31	8	53	7.3	181	9.5	19/06:03
2I	Renegade	31-37	120-44	2076	263:33:19	7	52	7.8	175	9.2	18/08:28
2J	Vicki	31-40	121-16	2049	226:48:33	4	46	9.2	192	10.1	16/13:41

Monday, July 7th: 15:00

Shark clipped in, drinking lots of water, "Mom, I'm 13 now, I'm doing great... I even had a couple of Cup-o-Noodles!". Hanging tough while Doogie is trimming the head-sail, Crusty the main and I'm trying to keep the Pegasus going better than windspeed. Good sailing.

We're sailing along nicely. Good news: That tropical storm has weakened and has now been downgraded to tropical depression. We'll still watch Dolores.

It's nice to know that we can safely stay South. The team is a bit ambivalent about this Skipper's log because I kind of spill the beans. I guess that if we see that Pyewacket has put up a kite and dived South to meet us, we won't be surprised. Will they chose to stay the course or try to use their height and cross ahead of us. Could they? From the wind scat pictures, the South route looks the best. Things change quickly and forecasting the weather is more of an art than a science. So the artist in chief is Rudi. And he's a great artist in chief. The thing is, nothing is for sure and it will take a couple of days for all of this to play out.

Monday, July 7th: 15:00

It takes a head-sail trimmer (Doogie), a Main-sail trimmer (Crusty), a driver (Philippe) and two grinders to get the performance out of the beautiful Pegasus 77.

Click here to see the press coverage from today.

Monday, July 7th: 17:00 PST

Mike grinding the head-sail for Doogie, and Adam grinding the main-sail for Crusty. Boat-speed is about putting all the pieces together: Driving, sail-trim, sail plan and setup.

The routine on-board is getting organized, the watches are changing smoothly and we're sailing along in 16 knots of wind, shifted almost all the way to the North. We're about to officially enter the ridge zone. That's much closer to shore than two years ago at Transpac 2001 . You can tell on the latest surface analysis, that things are pretty unsettled in the North East Pacific Basin. First there is Tropical Depression Dolores coming from Baja. Then there is that low with the embedded fronts, going over the Pacific High system and potentially splitting it in two weaker highs.

So we must be wizards to figure all this out... Well not quite. There is a lot of guessing involved.

In the early days of the Dot-Com boom, I remember meeting with a startup that was going to do the next killer IPO. The guys we're supposed to be building the most accurate weather site anywhere, get the numbers up, go public and buy a home by Diamond Head. They had gotten commitments from major brand venture capital firms and just needed the blessing of a technologist. I got the call. They figured that I built a few successful technology companies like Borland and that I knew something about weather from sailing and flying airplanes. Fair enough, I visited these twenty something net-entrepreneurs, meeting with them in plush hip designer offices, South of Market. In the room everyone wore Armani, Prada, Brioni and probably Tortelini Bolognesi. Real Bulgari jewelry and watches, Cartier pens and Chanel Numero Cinq. The PowerPoint kicked in. Presenting "The Weather Net Channel, the most accurate forecast anywhere and everywhere". So I had to ask: "How do you guys do it?" They said: "Well, we are applying for patents on the following forecasting
methodology: We spent half a million dollars in research that confirmed that if you know today's weather and you forecast for tomorrow the exact same weather actually reported today, you'll be more accurate than 90% of the media forecasts. Our method is to call up the weather talkers at every airport and to automatically forecast for tomorrow, today's actual weather and repeat this process daily. We're applying for patent protection."They were dead serious. I couldn't stop laughing. They are now probably retail clerks at Nieman-Marcus.

Weather is hard and there is a good reason why the Ancient Greeks had Aeol, Poseidon, Zeus and other Gods make the weather a bi-product of their capricious tempers. That's almost as good of an explanation as any.

Sailing in a pitch dark night

Date: Tuesday July 8th
Time: 03:45 PST

The weather and sea-state have completely changed. It's now warm, overcast, winds are shifty and lighter and we've got the big kite and a stay sail up. We're entering the running phase of Transpac. It's unusually early: This is my sixth trans-Pacific crossing and it usually takes one to two days more to cross the ridge. With fully overcast skies, its pitch dark. My favorite part of offshore sailing is steering at night specially when there are no visual references. Can't get enough of it.

Shark is back to being 100%. He's grinding, trimming, steering, laughing at jokes and eating all the solid food that he can get his hands on. (He even ate some broccoli!). Now he is sleeping in his bunk.

We are surely crossing the ridge. The wind may be a little further right than we forecasted, so our competition may have made some gains on the shift. There is nothing that we can do about that. We'll wait for the morning report. Now its about sailing fast through the pitch black night.

Hanging South, a fair and balanced report,
in other words, real journalism!

Wind-Spotting: After daybreak, sailing under cloud cover, Morgan looking over the horizon. The roll-call confirmed our strategy: Go South and sail more miles, it will pay off later, like a sound investment.

Date: Tuesday July 8th
Time: 03:45 PST

This morning's roll call report reflected what we forecasted: We are now 100 miles South of our competition, we've gone forward 12 degrees of bearing and sailed 342 nautical miles. They sailed 328. We were significantly faster sailing lower. And that could mean more wind for us as we predicted. However, because the competition is sailing directly to the mark, they've gained on distance to Honolulu. They are now 27 miles closer
as birds migrate along great circle courses. But the geometry of sailing is rarely Euclidian. The straight line is almost never the fastest way to get from point A to point B on a sailboat. However the position reports will show them ahead by 27 miles.

Clearly both boats are digging in their heels. They now have lots of leverage for a big right hand shift. Pegasus is counting on significantly better winds down South. They will be looking at wind direction, we'll be focusing on wind speed. The tropical depression Dolores could now play a bit in our favor. Thanks for being there and being nice to us Dolores. Check out today's wind scat picture.

2003 Transpacific Yacht Race

Daily Standings

07/08/03 (PDT)

ID	Yacht	LAT	LON	DST 2GO	CORR TIME	STD CL	GS FL	AVE SOC	24H DOC	24H SOC	FIN TIME/ ETA
DIVISION 1:
1A	Pegasus 77	28-11	127.16	1711	186:13:03	2	6	11.9	338	14.1	14/07:13
1B	Pyewacket	29-46	128-05	1684	176:43:17	1	1	12.6	329	13.7	13/21:43
DIVISION 2:
2A	Alta Vita	28-06	125.16	1816	205:07:39	6	33	9.5	303	12.6	16/06:48
2B	Beau Geste	28-38	126-26	1758	180:42:23	1	2	10.9	314	13.1	15/01:59
2C	Bengal II	29-15	124-31	1863	229:59:20	8	51	8.4	251	10.5	17/13:08
2D	Grand Illusion	29-19	126-17	1772	182:00:28	2	3	10.5	299	12.4	15/08:05
2E	Hesal II	30-35	124-26	1879	239:21:06	9	53	8.1	237	9.9	18/01:09
2F	ICON	28-49	125-19	1818	212:38:26	7	43	9.5	294	12.3	16/08:02
2G	Medicine Man	29-26	126-23	1768	199:41:38	4	17	10.6	297	12.4	15/06:11
2H	Pendragon 4	29-10	125.10	1828	204:L30:07	5	32	9.2	275	11.4	16/14:14
2I	Renegade	31-31	120-41	2078	637:31:44	10	55	3.4	7	.3	2/13:52
2J	Vicki	29-46	126-20	1773	197:57:13	3	14	10.5	285	11.9	15/08:50

Tuesday, July 8th: 14:00

Garbage-in, Barnacle-out: Sea-life is eager for whatever support, including plastic, glass, nets, you name it. Here barnacles are growing on a piece of yellow plastic, washed-up on deck during the night. (Background hand, courtesy of Zan-Da-Man)

Click here to see the press coverage from today.

Tuesday, July 8th: 20:00

Yes, that's what we came for: Lively seas, steady trades and puffy clouds. Its starting to feel like beautiful Hawaii...

Sailing the trades

Tuesday, July 8th: 20:00

Pegasus 77's mast stretching up almost 100 feet with kite and staysail flying

Sailing the trades

Tuesday, July 8th: 20:00

14 knots of boat speed, 100 degrees apparent, 137 true wind angle, heading 254 (pointing straight to Hawaii), 13.6 knots of wind speed, 34 degrees wind direction.... Just what we ordered, a late shift to the North East. Lets hope that our luck continues.

Sailing the trades

Tuesday, July 8th: 20:00

Just sailing moderate trades, pushing the boat hard to make every wave count

Sailing the trades

Our early morning report, fair and balanced, real journalism.

Breakfast Burrito at sunrise. Zan loves his Tabasco!

Date: Wednesday July 9th
Time: 07:00 HST

Notice how we are now using HST (Hawaiian Standard Time). We're pointed almost directly to Honolulu, we're sailing in light trades, sounds like a good time to skip 3 time-zones.

If you remember for the last three days, we had been sailing more distance than the competition investing in what we thought was a better strategic Southerly position. The difference showed up again this morning at roll call. Here are the raw statistics:

Taking a range and bearing from the Pegasus the numbers compute as following:

	Bearing	Distance
Today:	346 deg	64nm
Yesterday:	323 deg	100nm
Difference:	23 deg of bearing gain to Pegasus	They have come 26 miles closer to us

In terms of performance on the race course, here are the numbers for you statistic lovers:

Made Good to the Mark

Pegasus 77	265 nm @ 246 deg with an average speed of 11.4 knots (not bad for light air!)
Pyewacket	234 nm @ 235 deg with an average speed of 9.75 knots

This shows a 35 Nautical Mile gain to the mark for Pegasus.

What do all these numbers mean? First, a big cheer on-board the mighty Pegasus. Our investment paid off, we are now ahead on all leader boards, including for the first time on the official race schedule. In fact, our calculations show that we are 8 Nautical Miles closer than the competition as birds migrate over Oceans (Great Circle Route).

Our race so far, has mostly gone the way that we planned: We won the match-race start (a nice psychological boost for Pegasus as Robbie Haines, US Olympic Gold Medalist was steering the Pyewacket), we invested in the South and our investment is starting to pay off.

But, this is a long race and our competition is tough. We're not even halfway to Honolulu. We need to stay focus and think about the fact that this may be a race where the lead changes a few times more. And that is great racing. It's a yacht race!

Click here for a winds-cat chart, Pegasus is at about 26 North, 132 West and they are about 1/5th of a square directly North of us.

2003 Transpacific Yacht Race

Daily Standings

07/09/03 (PDT)

ID	Yacht	LAT	LON	DST 2GO	CORR TIME	STD CL	GS FL	AVE SOC	24H DOC	24H SOC	FIN TIME/ ETA
DIVISION 1:
1A	Pegasus 77	27-15	132-09	1447	191:30:41	1	3	11.6	265	11.1	14/12:30
1B	Pyewacket	28-17	132-12	1455	193:31:33	2	4	11.5	234	9.7	14/14:31
DIVISION 2:
2A	Alta Vita	26-52	129-50	1566	197:37:27	3	7	9.8	254	10.6	15/23:18
2B	Beau Geste	27-44	130-47	1523	188:02:41	1	2	10.5	236	9.8	15/09:19
2C	Bengal II	27-52	128-21	1652	225:57:39	8	48	8.6	218	9.1	17/09:19
2D	Grand Illusion	27-56	130-06	1561	195:16:59	2	5	9.9	217	9.1	15/21:21
2E	Hesal II	27-55	126-56	1727	262:26:24	9	54	7.4	207	8.6	19/00:15
2F	ICON	27-54	129-41	1582	209:29:07	6	25	9.6	237	9.9	16/04:53
2G	Medicine Man	27-53	130-*30	1539	207:51:43	5	23	10.2	236	9.8	15/14:21
2H	Pendragon 4	28-30	129-32	1596	200:04:59	4	10	9.4	233	9.7	16:09:49
2I	Renegade	Retired
2J	Vicki	28-38	130-17	1558	209:35:19	7	26	10.0	218	9.1	15/20:28

Wednesday, July 9th

13 year old dreams after a night watch

Click here to see the press coverage from today.

It's just good old navigation and I like it

Mark Rudiger, expert navigator, old and new school

Navigation is mainly about two things: Knowing where you are and knowing how to get to where you want to go, fast and safely. It took a long time to develop systems that would allow ships to precisely know where they are let alone where they want to go.

These days, we have $50 hand held GPS devices. However, for the same reason that we still learn to add, subtract, multiply and divide although we have digital calculators, I believe that it's important that we, as sailors or pilots, be familiar with the more traditional arts of navigation. It's always a treat to play with the sextant on these offshore passages. Mark Rudiger carries the old school tradition with him. A very good thing.

Wednesday, July 9th

View from the top of the Mast of the Mighty Pegasus. The spinnaker is so far forward that it doesn't fit in the picture. What you see forward of the mast is the staysail that we are flying.

Thursday, July 10th: 02:30 HST

Lat: 25 North
Lon: 135 West
Wind: 14 kts @ 74 Deg
Heading: 220 deg
Boat Speed: 13 knots

We're sailing in moderate trade winds. The Moon set and it's pitch dark with the skies mostly overcast. The first part of the night was pure magic: Glittering waters with the reflection of the moon, big skies, bright stars, little trade-wind puffy clouds, lively seas. We gybed a few times taking advantage of the shifts and we are now carrying on port.

The scat chart shows how much the South is favored for pressure. These charts are action direct real-time interpretations of sea surface winds from satellite information. They are very accurate. Every time we plot ourselves at the time of validity of that scat chart and compare what our boat instruments show to what we read on the chart, there is no calibration mis-match.

In the absence of Pyewacket, we could have chosen to just go South, but we decided to do the right thing from a match racing perspective and focus on putting more bearing on them. We'll know in a few hours how that tactic worked out.

Throughout the night, we've made several spinnaker changes in order to always be sailing with the best possible sail combination. That's where our preparation before the race is paying off: We just look at our detailed cross-over charts and pick the right combination of spinnaker and staysail.
There is no guess-work. Mike Motll has been running our sails program under Crusty's tutelage and they both have done a fantastic job.

We're about to have a watch change, all the way into morning roll-call. Life is good on-board the mighty Pegasus.

Thursday July 10th, 07:00 HST

Click here for a detailed weather map

You've found the best place for today's hot Transpac stories: Pegasus 77 stretched from 8 to 43 Miles in 24 hours and increased bearing by more than 45 degrees!

Our early investments in sailing South are paying off. Couple that with sailing the Pegasus at its full potential for 24 hours and the numbers tell the rest of the story:

With Honolulu bearing 250 degrees and about halfway into Transpac 2003, from our deck, Pyewacket is bearing 033 degrees @ 55 Nautical Miles. Furthermore Pegasus has made a gain for 35 Miles straight to the mark.

Our strategy has worked better than expected. The teamwork has been amazing: Everyone is pushing even harder than they usually do. It's nice to see. This is a team that really knows how to perform in all conditions.

We are only half-way into this race and anything can happen. You can lose a four hour lead by getting caught in the back of two squalls. So, now we're going to work even harder. Our management mantra: "Performance, Teamwork and Positive Attitude" is what makes Pegasus Racing win. It applies equally to business. Winning sport teams and successful business in my opinion are managed in a similar way.

Our friends at Alta Vita who chose a route more to the South did well on Beau Geste. Beau Geste didn't play the shifts as we did in order to dive South and cover Alta Vita. In fact, Alta Vita was only second to us in daily run in the last 24 hours and had a better daily run than Pyewacket. Stan Honey is heading North in his Cal 40. It seems that he is trying to call an early layline to set himself up for port approach to Honolulu. That's an interesting move given the present weather forecasts. We'll have to see how that move plays out. We watch those battles with interest, but remain focused 100% on our match race with Pyewacket.

Now off the keyboard and onto the deck!

Thursday, July 10th

Our 13 year old, 29er sailor, apprentice 49er helmsman Shark, steering the mighty Pegasus 77. Morgan Larson, star US' 49er Olympic sailor on the rail, Doogie washing up and Mike Mottl trimming main

Click here to see the press coverage from today.

Thursday, July 10th, 15:00 HST

The trades have picked up again, beautiful sailing with the 4A spinnaker flying and the staysail

Lat: 23 North
Lon: 137 West

It's beautiful sailing here: The trades are back up to 16-18 knots. We've got our 4A spinnaker up with a staysail. This is just what the brochure advertised and why California to Honolulu passages are probably some of the best offshore sailing in the world. This is my sixth trans-Pacific crossing and I'm hooked. Young Shark is just 13 and this is his third, he just loves it. The first couple of days tend to be cold, wet and wild and then the magic begins. We're experiencing that magic now.

As we look at the weather charts, we see squalls ahead. Quite a few of them. Squalls in the North-east Pacific tend to become active as the air temperature cools in the evening, but the Ocean water temperature stays warm. Then before daybreak they usually dissolve and leave hours of light air behind them. When racing we look for Squalls and gybe to stay in front of them where the wind is considerably accelerated and usually shifted right. There can be more than a 50% increase in pressure at the front end of a squall. For example: if we're sailing in 20 knots trades, we could expect 35 knots wind speeds in the front of a squall and we could also expect to find ourselves becalmed if we got caught behind a squall. So its pretty simple: Stay in front of a squall as long as you can and escape quickly as soon as the squall starts overtaking you. Easy to say, tough execution.

The Pyewacket team has a lot of experience with squalls and we are bracing for a fierce battle here on Pegasus 77. If the competition does squall management better than we do, tomorrow morning we could find ourselves trailing. We just passed the half-way point to Honolulu. Its a long race and a 43 mile lead with over 1000 nautical miles to go can evaporate almost instantly.

We learned our lesson at the start when Pyewacket locked hammer us in a match-racing start. It backfired on them: We convincingly won the start. However, we then made the mistake of being over-confident and gave them the opportunity to pass us and build a one mile lead at the West end of Catalina. We learned our lesson. The whole team knows that and we are bracing for a fierce battle all the way to the finish line.

Thursday, July 10th

Juggy doing a rig check while taking a picture of himself. Note light to moderate trades

Friday, July 11th

Beautiful trade wind sailing half way between California and Honolulu, the best in the world!

Beautiful 20 knot trades blowing,
8 to 10 ft waves, sailing in paradise

Sunrise Friday. The little dome is a gyroscop-stabalized satellite communications system. On board Pegasus 77 we have three satellite communications systems that we use in parallel to extract weather information from Internet public sites and build this log (As well as cheer for Lance Armstrong, Hassk returning to the Wings and Klitchsco getting his chance at a fairer rematch with out of shape Lewis)

Date: Friday, July 11th
Time: 08:00 HST
Lat: 21 North
Lon: 140 West

1. Pegasus stretched again on Pyewacket: They are now bearing 050 degrees @ 63 nm with Honolulu bearing 261. That's a gain of 17 degrees of bearing and 8 miles of gauge. More than we ever expected.

2. For the 5th consecutive day we sailed more miles than Pyewacket. In the last 24 hours we sailed 302 nm to the mark to their 295 nm (Pegasus actually sailed 334 nm through the water)

3. We are now almost positioned where leverage on one side or the other for Pyewacket is non-effective. We're almost there.

That's great tribute to the hard work of this team, gybing the shifts through the night and pushing hard 24 by 7. We'll rest on-shore.

Yet we are worried.

That's because several things can happen:

1. We have a major breakdown/accident
2. We get trapped in the backside of a squall
3. They bang the left corner as we expect them to and a huge shift materializes that is outside of the parameters

We are working on addressing those three threats as best we can.

First, are doing preventive maintenance all around the boat. Then, we are rehearsing our squall techniques for the night and finally we are working at positioning ourselves so that we shut down any potential passing lanes.

Still, our Lady Hawaiian Luck will need to kindly smile on us.

We will dance with the wind: Makani Hula!

There are three distinct phases in this Transpac 2003:

Phase one: Invest in the future even if it is painful. That's what we did for the first two days when Pyewacket looked in the lead while we were soundly investing in the Southern route.

Phase two: Reap the benefits of out early investments and turn them into valuable assets: That is what we did for the last three days.

Phase three: Protect our valuable assets using conservative practices. This phase started this morning and will continue to the finish.

Because we are now in phase three, we need to manage, execute and hope for a little bit of luck.

Lets Dance with wind. Makani Hula!

Click here to see today's weather map

Friday, July 11th

20 knot trades, beautiful waves to surf, puffy clouds: Sailing paradise. There is no better place to sail in the world. Crusty (Mark Christensen) steering, Mike Mottl grinding

Click here to see the press coverage from today.

Sailing the winds of Paradise!

Our work-horse (No pun intended), the 4A masthead spinnaker and the little fractional staysail, Makani Hula!

Date: Friday, July 11th
Lat: 21 North
Lon: 142 West

Just beautiful sailing here. The team is working hard, grinding on every wave. We're surfing the Hawaii and that is how it should be. Pegasus 77 loves it: She can smell the barn.

Goals are key to any team. So, our goal is to win this match race with Pyewacket.

We're now setting secondary goals for the team. Goals need to be achievable or they are meaningless. For example: the course record can only be achieved at this point if the trades kicked-up to a steady 25 knots. That's very unlikely.

Yesterday, it didn't appear that we had a shot at beating Stan, Sally, Skip and Jon on their Cal 40 Illusion to the finish. They started 5 days ahead of us and in general had more favorable weather all along. However, yesterday Illusion made a little incursion North that they seem to have later regretted. They now have gone back South for more breeze and sailed a few extra miles in the process. Hence, there may be a little window of opportunity for a secondary goal.

"Will Pegasus be able to beat Illusion to the finish?"

That's a fun bet for the team on Pegasus, because its a pursuit race. Perhaps what the Barn Door should be in the future to attract back the Santa Cruz 50s, 70s, the other sleds etc...: Whoever gets there first wins the prize. I love it because Skip Allan taught me how to navigate the North Pacific Ocean when he and I won the Pacific Cup in 1988, setting a record that held for 10 years with a chartered Santa Cruz 70 designed by Bill Lee. So for the fun of it, we're going to try and catch Illusion.

Friday, July 11th

14 hard working sailors/athletes need to be fed 7 by 24 for over 7 days, no refrigeration (too heavy, Pegasus is all built in carbon fiber to be the lightest it can be), so it's zone-meals, all balanced 40/30/30, frozen in boil bags. Jeff is in charge of nutrition logistics. We have three camping burners to heat up the pressure cookers. Simple, Spartan, efficient and actually delicious.

Friday, July 11th: 21:30 HST

Doogie doing his rig-check at sunset before the night. Yes we are heading West... Right in the direction of the sunset.

Lat: 21 North
Lon: 144 West

Superlative sailing with an extraordinary sunset. We had the visit of a pod of small size friendly Dolphins. We even saw a few sea-bars. Yet we're still more than 750 miles from the Hawaiian Islands.

'We're bracing for the night. We wouldn't be surprised to see Pyewacket make some gains at the morning report. That"s because we are going to be sailing conservatively while they are going to need to be taking risks.

The satellite pictures seem to show us that the squall activity is minimal tonight. We still have to be on the lookout. If we just get on the wrong side of a squall we could get passed.

Beautiful night sailing. Click here to see a relevant weather map

Fly Pegasus fly!

Friday, July 11th: 21:30 HST

Sunset sailing the winds of Paradise

Saturday, July 12th, 06:00 HST

Here is a screen capture for Deckman running on my laptop. The main part of the screen is divided into two tiled windows. One is a wind tape that displays the wind velocity and direction. The second window has a chart of the Hawaiian Islands with our approach waypoint. to Honolulu. You can see the two blue laylines. We are the green boat on the right and you can also see all laylines. We are now 590 nautical miles away from Honolulu, bearing 255 degrees magnetic.

Lat: 22 North
Lon: 146 West

A perfect night of sailing. With the moon almost full, perfect temperature, the ideal wave setup this may have been some of the best sailing ever. We felt that we sailed fast all night and that we kept Pegasus 77 on track, pumping and grinding for every wave.

The morning roll call confirmed our intuition: We gained another 5 miles to the finish on our competition. We had a good day, sailing 349 nautical miles point to point for an average of 14.5 knots. Faster and farther than Pyewacket for the sixth consecutive day. In average, we sailed 3 degrees lower (265 deg vs. 268 deg) and 5 miles further. Lower and faster.

A happy Pegasus 77 team is having breakfast. Jeff is cooking.

Saturday, July 12th

Racing to Paradise at sunrise. Yes the Sun rises East and we are headed West at 14.5 knots. Richard is steering, Morgan trimming the main and Juggy the kite.

Click here to see the press coverage from today.

  Click here to see a today's weather map

Saturday July 12th, 14:45 HST

Lat: 22 North
Lon: 148 West

Around the 14:00 HST race organization roll, call Pyewacket's private jet called the Pyewacket on the SSB. The planes call sign was "Shamrock" and they were overseeing our portion of the race-course having most competitors around lat 22 North and lon 150 West in sight. Pyewacket responded with a lat/lon position to look to and a dialog was initiated. It's neat to see the Pyewacket yacht talking to the Pyewacket jet. This all reminded me of how airplanes and sailboats are similar in many ways, share the same physics as well as the same communication technologies. Sailboats and airplanes are all about foils, lift, drag, apparent airflow. Wireless communications from a sailboat and from a modern jet depend on satellites. So a jet, the fastest mode of transportation, and a sailboat, the slowest mode of transportation share a lot. Humans always dream of sailing and flying.

All day we saw whales breaching, Dolphins, lots of flying fish and even had a squid wash-up on deck. Its quite hot, 85 deg F down bellow and much hotter in the sun. Grinding every wave forces fluid and electrolyte replacement almost constantly. We've got powdered Gatorade that we mix into the water made with our Spectra water-maker. It seems like there is constantly someone mixing Gatorade. Its like a busy bar on Saturday nights in the Marina in San Francisco, except we only mix Gatorade with water and the bar-tender doesn't get tips.

Saturday, July 12th: Honolulu, Hawaii

Dad sail fast and safe, I'll be watching you from Diamond Head. Mom took this Picture-Mail with her brand new Sprint 8100 Camera-Phone

During this voyage I sent a lot of Picture-Mails, they are all collected in this log. I had a terrific surprise when I received one from my daughter, Sophie, who is 6 years old. The Sprint PCS picture-phones are amazing and you can now get them for less than $100 and a $15/month subscription that allows you to send as many pictures as you want. As you can see its fun and a great way to share emotions and memories. I highly recommend it.

Saturday, July 12th

Grinding hard every wave all the way to Diamond Head, every inch adds up to boat-lengths. Doogie and Mike sweating it out.

Saturday, July 12th

No bathroom, just an outside salt water shower and lots of sweat to wash off. Two or three times a day is pretty common for these outdoor showers. Zan doing his business.

Saturday July 12th, 23:00 HST

Another fabulous night of sailing. The waves are just right. We are being conservative and will let Pyewacket take a more risky road. We expect that we could lose 10 to 20 miles in the last 24 hours as we are protecting our lead. Our lead is such that we can well afford this insurance policy.

We saw more Dolphins, dozens of them. Short and gracious. They were leaping 3 to 4 feet out of the water and surfing the waves with us. It's as if they were here to welcome us to Hawaii and whisper in our ears playfully: "Fly Pegasus fly!". We are flying!

Sunday, July 13th: 06:00 HST

Pegasus 77's bow slicing through Hawaiian waves

Lat: 22 North
Lon: 153 West

Another good report card this morning. In the last 24 hours we gained another 14 Miles. Now Pyewacket is 75 miles behind Pegasus dead astern. We sailed point to point 356 miles compared to 336 to Pyewacket.

There is a fierce battle between TP52s about a day behind us: The Kiwi big guns on Beau Geste versus the Santa Cruz smoking guns on Alta Vita. They are within a mile of each other, in-sight.

Now where is Stan this morning? Stan is doing just fine with 236 miles to go and is third on handicap. Alta Vita is surprising everyone and winning the handicap battle. But surely Stan isn't going to give up.

Our projections show that we will be crossing the finish like around 05:00 or maybe a little earlier. Before daybreak.

It's a bit lighter this morning and the skies are overcast. There will be squalls for the last 24 hours of Transpac 2003 and the whole team will be on the lookout.

Sunday, July 13th: 08:00 HST

Pegasus, smells the barn. We're making tracks!

253 nm to Honolulu at a bearing of 241 degrees magnetic

It's lighter but we are pushing really hard. We just realized that we had a chance at top three in corrected time. We really never thought that we'd play in the handicap game. So, now we have a new goal: Let's try to be top 3 for the overall handicap trophy.

The weather is now overcast and squall-prone. Click here for the latest squall chart. We're on the watch.

Sunday, July 13th

Pushing hard to the finish: Adam, Morgan, Doogie, Shark and Philippe

Monday, July 14th: 02:30 HST

Pegasus 77 crosses the finish line and wins the Transpac 2003 race.

SAILING NEWS _/) _/) _/) _/) _/) _/) _/) _/) _/) _/) _/) _/) _/) _/) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 42nd TRANSPACIFIC YACHT RACE Transpacific Yacht Club www.transpacificyc.org July 14, 2003 For Immediate Release PEGASUS 77 RIDES A MOON RIVER TO VICTORY HONOLULU---A full moon lighted the way past the Diamond Head finish line for Philippe Kahn's Pegasus 77 and a second consecutive Barn Door victory in the 42nd Transpacific Yacht Race from Los Angeles early Monday. Kahn's archrival later described the path laid by the lunar reflection on the water as "like sailing down the moon river," but Roy E. Disney and his crew aboard Pyewacket were nearly five hours behind in a match of equally powerful sailing machines. The Barn Door is a 3 ½-by-4-foot slab of carved Hawaiian koa wood that goes to the boat with the fastest elapsed time for the 2,225 nautical miles. Four Aloha boats that started five days earlier finished ahead of Pegasus 77 by as much as 15 hours, but their ETs were days slower. Finishing at 2:31 a.m. local time, Pegasus 77's time was 7 days 16 hours 31 minutes 17 seconds, the fourth fastest ever for the race but nearly five hours over Pyewacket's record of 7:11:41:27 in a windier 1999 race. Pyewacket's time was 7:21:18:01, the eighth fastest ever. "Records aren't something you can control," Kahn said. "Either the weather was going to cooperate or not. We did break a record for the daily run, and what was interesting about that is we did it without a lot of wind." A day earlier, with no more than 18 knots of breeze, Pegasus 77 completed a 24-hour run of 356 miles, breaking the record of 353 set by Magnitude in 1999. Disney, whose boat has been highly modified since '99, said, "Both of these boats are much faster than what we set the record with." When the wind increased late in the race, Pegasus 77, then in a commanding position against Pyewacket, seemed to have a shot at the record. "We thought about that a lot," Disney said, laughing. "Quite a lot." At the time, Pegasus 77 still had an outside chance of achieving a rare Transpac sweep: fastest elapsed time and first in class and fleet on overall corrected handicap time. But, ironically, a 40-year-old Cal 40 whose crew included Pyewacket's usual navigator, Stan Honey, finished in time late the same morning to correct out on Pegasus 77 by about half an hour. However, Bill Turpin's Transpac 52, Alta Vita of San Francisco, has the inside track on the honor with about a two-hour edge and needs to finish before 7:12 a.m. local time Tuesday to clinch it. If the trade winds hold, that is well within its reach. Illusion, with Honey's wife Sally and Transpac veterans Skip Allan and Jon Andron joining Stan, was first overall on handicap time through most of the race but slipped back as the larger, faster boats accelerated in stronger breeze. The problem was, as Stan Honey said, "If [the wind] picks up from 10 to 20 knots, we go from 7 to 8." But, flying a full-blown spinnaker in 30 knots of following wind, they flew down through the finish line, surfing at 16 knots to beat nine other Cal 40s in a revival of the class that dominated the race in the late 60s. Later, several of the disappointed Pyewacket team, including Disney, greeted their teammate at Ala Wai Yacht Harbor, where Doug Rastello told Honey, "We needed that." The outcome of the Pegasus 77-Pyewacket contest was determined early on, not by boat speed but by strategic differences of opinion. "We led them past [Santa] Catalina [Island] by a mile, but then we went right and they went left, and they were right and we were wrong," Disney said. The Pyewacket crew was stunned by the second day's morning roll call and position report that showed Pegasus 77 100 miles south of them. "We were surprised how low [south] they went the second day," said Peter Isler, who replaced Stan Honey as Pyewacket's navigator for this race. Then, when the shift they were expecting failed to produce a lively breeze, they had to eat their mistake and give up a lot of miles to find better wind south. That's when Pegasus 77 came slightly north to drop into a controlling position directly in front. Mark Rudiger, Pegasus 77's navigator, said, "It was [wind strength] pressure versus angle, and I've learned the hard way over the years that the first half of this race you have to go for the pressure and the second half you can start working on angle. So I just tell the guys, 'Send the boat the fastest way it can go.' Speed rules. "Originally our plan was to stay with them, but we decided to sail our own race. Our goal was always to hold at least 30 miles of southing on them to make sure we had a little more pressure but try to put them back on bearing so they had no angle they could get at us with. Crusty did a really good job of masterminding that [plan]." Crusty is Mark Christensen, who was on the winning team in the last two Volvo Ocean Races but had never sailed a Transpac. "The first couple of days I was having trouble getting a grasp on how far off course we were going," he said. "Rudi's [saying], 'Get south, get south.' After that we just had to try to think what they were thinking and do the jibes so we'd always set ourselves up between them and the mark. "We were pretty confident with all our forecasts. It was kind of scary. We just got every shift. Even today, Rudi would say, 'Well, the wind's supposed to go to [a compass direction of] 060 . . . be patient, be patient.' So we waited and waited and finally jibed on 050 and an hour later it was 060 and we came screaming in. The whole race was like that." On the last night, sailing in 26 knots of wind in the Molokai Channel, the wind shifted after Pegasus 77 jibed---a quirk that turned into a half-hour shortcut toward the finish. "Again," Christensen said, "Rudi could do no wrong." The young veteran Morgan Larson said, in a way, the race was routine. "I like it when things go wrong," he said. "It was too easy." Tracking charts for selected boats or the entire fleet may be viewed by clicking on the link at the right side of the www.transpacificyc.org home page. Daily position reports and photos also will be posted until the completion of the race. Boats' handicap ratings may be checked at www.transpacificyc.org/03/tp03-ratings.html COMMODORE Brad Avery (949) 645-9412 brad@occsailing.com ENTRIES CHAIRMAN Bill Lee (831) 464-4782 wizard@fastisfun.com PRESS OFFICER Rich Roberts Honolulu Press Office: (808) 949-9425 cell phone (310) 766-6547 richsail@earthlink.net