HistoryThe fleet that came to the starting line for the 1983 race to Honolulu was an exceptional one. Of the 66 entries, 50 had been built in the last four and one-half years — half of these 50 in the last eighteen months. So it was a very new fleet and therefore a quite competitive one. In the end, though, as has happened so often in the past, the deciding factors prove to be choice of course and the weather.
During the final week before the race, the Pacific high presented a very discouraging picture. As late as Thursday evening, when the U.S. Weather service representative gave his final report to the crews and skippers at the Instruction Dinner, he was apologizing for the prospective lack of wind and suggested that everyone take a hard look at the southern course.
By Saturday morning, July 2, prospects for wind in the Catalina Channel were still dismal, but there was one bright spot. A small craft advisory was posted for the outer waters from Point Conception to the Mexican border.
The start at 1300 PDT went off without incident, but it was 1750 before sAGA, the lead boat, rounded the West End—three hours behind the pace set in 1981.
From this point on, however, wind conditions for the race proved to be as favorable as anyone could wish. unfortunately, most of the skippers, still psyched out by the prerace forecast, fell off to the south after rounding Catalina. All this maneuver brought them was the disadvantage of sailing farther, but no faster. The few mavericks, led by BRAVURA, who refused to believe the weatherman, headed down the rhumb line. They were the ones that were going to collect most of the hardware.
Two boats, SAGA and NIGHT TRAIN, were knocked out of the race during the first 20 hours, but for the next several days the fleet encountered no problems. Then on Friday night, July 8, things began to happen. Four boats lost man-overboard gear. At 0300 sunday, KATHMANDU was dismasted. Three more boats were going to be knocked out of competition during the final days of the race — one by dismasting, two with lost rudders. In addition, there were many other instances of bent spinnaker poles, broken booms and assorted gear failures.
Practically all these mishaps took place during the night. The Trade Winds this year were not extraordinarily strong, 18-25 knots. neither were the seas exceptionally large. But there were an abnormal number of rain squalls, possibly because of El Niño, carrying winds of up to 40 knots at their center.
These weather conditions were quite manageable during the daylight hours. nighttime was an entirely different matter. With no moon, and no starlight under the continually overcast skies, sailing the boats became extremely difficult. The darkness was so intense there was no way of knowing the squalls were coming until they hit and by that time it was too late to do anything but hang on. Many helmsmen developed vertigo and became disoriented. some crews even put two men on the steering operation, one to watch the binnacle and call out compass headings, the other to watch the sails and steer.
Under the circumstances, it is not surprising that knockdowns and round-ups during the night became commonplace. Practically every boat suffered at least one and some had as many as five. several others had round-downs as well. The crews on the ULDB’s took a particular beating. In fact, some reached such a point of exhaustion they quit carrying spinnakers during the night.
LIBALIA TOO’s crew, through all this, turned in a damage control and jury-rigging performance that not only won them second place in Class D but the Steve Newmark Seamanship Trophy as well.
In spite of some wild nights, the 1983 race was a fast race; not quite as fast as 1981, but fast enough. Forty five boats finished in less than 12 days, a time period that marked for many years the watershed between a fast passage and an average one. BRAVURA’s elapsed time was only 47 minutes slower than her time in 1981 when she won First Place in Class B.
As noted above, the closer onestayed to therhumb linethe better one did. BRAVURA hardly strayed at all from this course based on the computer data from the daily position reports, she traveled only 2235 miles to cover the 2225 mile rhumb line course. CHARLEY, by contrast, logged 2302 nautical miles and her first-to-finish elapsed time was 15 hours slower than MERLIN’s in 1981. Part of this differential could be accounted for in the slow start of the 1983 race. But a far larger part was the result of CHARLEY’s longer course.
So the 1983 race proved once again that while the southern route to Diamond Head often pays off, the shortest distance between two points can also be the fastest.