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With 17 double-handed boats starting, Pac Cup continues its strong tradition of this kind of racing. While sailing with only two on board can be a tremendous, and exhausting, task, the weight saved on the boat (figure 500 lb per person with food and gear) can be significant.

This year, we divided the double-handers into two groups, generally seeking to bunch the heavier boats in one group and the lighter surfing and planing boats in the other. Moonshine, David Rogers' Dogpatch 26 with a history of winning, has led the Pasha Doublehanded 2 division for a number of days. She'll have to maintain

The last 24 hours have seen the leading edge of our 2024 finishers. Velvet Hammer, Lucky Duck, and Saga led the pack. We got a few hours of drinking rest and we started to see more boats trickle in. J World's Hula Girl, Halawa, and City Lights completed the foursome in the Ocean Navigator ORR 1 division.

The mighty 70-foot Rage took pride of place at the end of the dock to cheers from onlookers.  We're expecting 17 boats today. All will be greeted by the Leis and Trays committee with their, well, you know.

Watch the tracker, standings, and arrival reports for latest information

The "200 mile live" tracker page is now an option on the Pac Cup tracker site (https://pacificcup.org/track)

Boats within 200 nm will appear on the page without the 4-hour tactical delay. That delay is one that has been applied since we started using trackers in about 2006. Its purpose is to preserve the "shooting in the dark" aspect of offshore racers, where we normally don't know where each other are till hours later.

While our all-information-all-the-time culture will likely do away with this eyes-shut racing tradition by 2026 or 2028 at the latest, we can appreciate the tactical decisions

"First across the line" is a great feeling, and Velvet Hammer (crowned) seems poised to collect it, along with an anticipated clean sweep of race honors. "Not so fast," say Saga (purple) and Rage (yellow), who started a day later but threaten to overtake the Hammer at the line.

Of course, having started later, to beat Velvet Hammer in elapsed time, they'd need to already be full day ahead, but we score the race on "corrected time," meaning that we multiply the elapsed time by a "time correction factor" generated by US Sailing based on predicted boat performance. Under this system, Rage and Saga

While the fast boats in the ORR divisions get attention due to being, well, faster, the core of the Pacific Cup is hot on their heels. The vast majority of the participants are racing under PHRF and include everything from heavy ketches to lightweight J-boats and everything in between.

The doublehanders are also racing under PHRF. Leading Doublehanded 1 group is Erica Mattson Siegel on Accelerando. She's held that lead for several days. Pell Mell (Alex Simanis) has similarly led Pasha Doublehanded 2 and the doublehanders overall. Like all the Monday starters, the doublehanders spent a day or so