The Story of the 1991 Transpacific Yacht Race

Transpac ’91 had 42 yachts departing this year for the islands in the form of two separate starts on two different days. Eleven yachts started the race on June 27th in very light air and 31 yachts started the race of June 29th with a stiff westerly blowing at about 15 knots!

The reason behind the double start was to try and have all of the participants finish a little closer together in Hawaii.

There were 12 IMS Class Yachts and 28 IOR Class Yachts in total. As in the past couple of years, the larger and faster sleds in the form of both 50’s and 70’s created the larger classes. In all, there were 20 large sleds, and 11 fifty footers.

The weather for Transpac ’91 was relatively light air, overcast with lots of rain the entire race. The average wind velocity was 10 to 15 knots with calm seas. Many of the competitors reported no wind for hours on end.

The Santa Cruz 70 CHANCE, owned by Robert Mcnulty, led the race in the IOR Division wire to wire. They started first, sailed to the West End of Catalina in two hours and one minute and finished first, 9 days, 21 hours, 59 minutes and 35 seconds after starting. The next boat to finish was SILVEr BULLET, some two and a half hours later.

MERLIN, the Bill Lee designed 67 foot record holder for the race, was remeasured under the IMS rule for this year’s race and was first-to-finish in their division with an elapsed time of 10 days, 5 hours, 18 minutes, and 8 seconds. RAGTIME was second to finish in the IMS division about an hour behind MERLIN.

WAVE RUNNER, the Custom 48, ended up winning on corrected time to be first in IMS-A and first in IMS fleet.

KOTUKU was first in IMS-B and second in fleet.

Recapping the race, basically the boats that sailed the shortest course (closest to the rhumb line) would have more wind, sail less miles and should win the race! That is in essence what all of the class and overall winners did.

For CHANCE it was a great victory as they were able to hoist the broom to the masthead signifying a clean sweep (first-to-finish, first-in-class A, first overall) which has only been done twice before in Transpac history! Once in 1936 by DORADE and once in 1971 by WINDWARD PASSAGE.

The Don Vaughn Memorial Trophy for the best crew member on the first-to-finish yacht went to Marshall “Duffy” Duffield.

In closing, a good time was had by all and most competitors are looking forward to Transpac 1993.

- Dennis Durgan