The Story of the 2001 Transpacific Yacht Race

A battle of wits and wind found Philippe Kahn’s PEGASUS claiming line honors in the 41st Transpacific Yacht Race in a three-boat duel with Roy E. Disney’s record holder, PYEWACKET, and Bob Mcnulty’s new Reichel/Pugh 73, CHANCE.

Because of light winds early on, PEGASUS, an R/P 75, didn’t threaten PYEWACKET’s record of 7 days, 11 hours, 41 minutes, 27 seconds set in 1999, but its time of 8 days, 2 hours, 34 minutes, 3 seconds was the 10th fastest on record and earned Kahn the Barn Door on only his second try. PYEWACKET, R/P 74, finished 63 minutes later, about an hour and a half ahead of CHANCE.

Other notable prize winners included seth radow’s new Sydney 40, Bull, from Marina del Rey, first overall on corrected handicap time and first in Division IV; Wendy Siegal’s 36-year old Cal 40, WILLOW WIND, in the Aloha Division, and Howard Gordon’s Open 50, ÉTRANGER, San Luis Obispo, with a double-handed record of 10 days, 4 hours, 4 minutes, 1 second. PEGASUS, Bull, and ÉTRANGER were all built in Australia.

Bull, featuring an angry, smoke-snorting male bovine on the hull, was owed about 65 hours in handicap time by PEGASUS and beat the clock by 1 hour, 32 minutes, 8 seconds with a pre-dawn finish winning the King Kalakaua Canoe trophy that recognizes the crew that theoretically sailed its boat nearest to its potential.

David Janes’ new Transpac/Andrews 52, J-BIRD III, Newport Beach, beat all the larger boats straight up in Division II, although James McDowell’s Santa Cruz 70 GRAND ILLUSION, HAIKU, Hawaii, corrected out. Brent Vaughan’s chartered Andrews 53 CANTATA won in Division III.

Altogether 11 boats – a third of the fleet – finished the same day. Those included RAGTIME, the 1973 and 1975 Barn Door winner under charter to Maui resident Trisha steele and Owen Minney of Newport Beach. The sleek black wooden boat was sixth among eight boats in Division II and still shared the record for most Transpacs at 12 with another two-time winner, MERLIN – now a colorfully rebuilt MERLIN’s REATA – and steele was the third generation of her family to do the race. Only the top three maxi-sleds finished faster than MERLIN's REATA.

The smallest boat was Dan Doyle’s sonoma 30, sailing doublehanded with Bruce Burgess and making its third Transpac start but first finish with the owner aboard. TWO GUYS ON THE EDGE won the doublehanded division and the third overall in Division IV, which included one other doublehander, WATERCOLORS, and six fully crewed boats.

“It was too nice a trip,” said Burgess. They never saw wind stronger than 17.6 knots until they found 25 knots in the Molokai Channel Thursday night – a common story in the Transpac.

As the last boat to finish, Michael Abraham’s WATERCOLORS, a Sabre 402 sloop from Newport Beach, won the Tail End Charlie award, finishing the day after the awards dinner. Abraham sailed doublehanded with former college chum Phil Rowe. Each was 64. They finished 3 minutes, 32 seconds shy of 14 days.

The contest among PEGASUS, PYEWACKET and CHANCE was a classic. “We were within sight of each other for seven consecutive days,” Disney said.

The most important thing PEGASUS’ crew learned was that their boat was just enough faster than the older PYEWACKET so that the smart strategy was to say in the same breeze with their rivals. “Everywhere we went, they went too,” said Robbie Haines, PYEWACKET’s sailing manager.

One factor was the addition of a second daily roll call at dusk. Compared to 1999 when PYEWACKET slipped away from ZEPhYRUS during the 24-hour gap, there was less opportunity for stealth. The critical time came on the next-to-last day when the three boats sailed into a squall. PEGASUS and PYEWACKET went one way, CHANCE the other. CHANCE sailed into a wind hole from which it never recovered. PEGASUS and PYEWACKET jibed five times to stay in the pocket of breeze, but PEGASUS caught the key puff and was gone for good.

PEGASUS’ Zan Drejes received the Don Vaughn award for the second consecutive race as the most valuable crew member on the fastest boat. His former employer was Disney. The crew also included Samuel Kahn, a.k.a. Shark, Kahn’s 11-year-old son.

- Written by Rich Roberts