Getting by with a little help from our friends

After a much anticipated wait, Kaneohe Yacht Club saw a flurry of activity Saturday! Beginning just a few minutes after midnight, Alan Lubner’s R/P 55 Zvi came ripping across the finish line to become the second boat to finish the 2022 Pacific Cup. Docking at around 1:45 AM, the Seattle based team became the first Pac Cup finishers to be welcomed into Kaneohe Yacht Club in nearly years (Pyewacket docked in Waikiki due to draft limitations).

At ten minutes after midnight (local time) Zvi, the RP65, finished! July 16, 2022

Crew:

As Friday’s dawn breaks in Hawaii, just one boat is happily nestled in the barn while the rest of the fleet is lining up their approaches to the islands. The next competitor to finish should be Alan Lubner’s Seattle based R/P 55 Zvi, though they are not slated to arrive until the early hours of Saturday.

With a stunning run of almost exactly six days, Roy Disney's Pyewacket 70 is within a mouse's throw of finishing (15 miles at this writing).  Tweaking every possible feature to maximize speed, this 70-foot rocketship has left the fleet in the dust, all the while being gracious and friendly on the radio to the boats she passed.

UPDATE: Pyewacket has finished at 11:05:59 HST (14:05:59 PDT)

Another 24 hours have gone by in this 2022 Pacific Cup, and we’ve seen significant movement both on the leaderboard and on the race course. The first boat expected to finish this year’s race, Roy Pat Disney’s turbo Volvo 70 Pyewacket, is now just over a day out from Oahu. Elsewhere in the fleet, we have seen multiple battles gain clarity as some boats made big gains overnight.

Eight days into the 2022 Pacific Cup, the bulk of the fleet is approaching the halfway mark. Boats continue to consolidate around  the rhumb line. Pyewacket 70, meanwhile, is now just over 800 miles from Kaneohe and beginning to line up their approach to the islands. They are expected some time on Thursday.

Just over a week into the 2022 Pacific Cup, we are beginning to see boats consolidate. Firmly in the trades, northerly boats are taking quick hitches over to port while southerly boats are being lifted on a starboard pole, with paths now converging for many competitors.

Going offshore brings new stresses to boat and crew alike.  Several of our boats reported minor to intermediate mechanical problems: broken steering cable, jammed halyard, failed checkstay, leaking prop shaft.

Although it may be Sunday, it’s no day of rest for the intrepid crews in the 21st edition of the Pacific Cup. While conditions have ‘normalized’ a bit since the early days, the five dozen boats racing to Hawaii still have their hands full in more ways than one.