Previous spread
Orma 60 Mighty
Merloe set the
multihull course
record in 2017
at four days and
seven hoursAbove
Can Comanche
better her 2017
monohull record
of five days and
two hours?Opposite
Dorade’s famous
overall win in
2013 came 77
years after her
first, in 1936Below
All eyes are on
PowerPlay for the
2019 race, pictured
here in the RORC
Transatlantic Race
last November e fastest boats in the 2019
race are the MOD70 trimarans and
among the favourites for this year’s
race is Peter Cunningham’s record-
breaking PowerPlay, formerly Concise
10, which among other victories
won the 2017 Rolex Fastnet Race
multihull division on line honours.
Welsh-born Cunningham is a
computer industry pioneer. He has
Londoner Ned Collier Wake eld,
aged 31, leading his PowerPlay crew,
which made the boat’s reliveried debut
in last year’s Rolex Middle Sea Race,
nishing a close second to Giovanni
Soldini’s MOD70 Maserati, who
then beat her by just 46 mins in the
2018 RORC Transatlantic Race.
is could be PowerPlay’s moment
and her recent form on the US west
coast has been good. At the end of
May, she won the California 500
from San Francisco to San Diego,
an hour and 37 minutes ahead of
Jason Carroll’s Argo and Maserati.Collier Wake eld said: “It was great
to line up against the other MOD’s
again in the Cal 500 and a er a tight
battle we were pleased to get the result.
Looking forward to the Transpac, which
is the perfect course for these boats.
Weather depending, I’m sure all of us
will be pushing for a course record.”
Handicap favourite in the 50th
Transpac is the radical 46 Maverick,
campaigned by Guernsey-based Quentin
Stewart. She is very much a stripped
out carbon bre race boat, with no
comforts below. She has a canting keel
and her DSS foils reduce heel angles
and li the boat for reduced drag.
Stewart said: “I asked two fellow
Brits, Hugh Welbourn and Gordon
Kay, to build me a pocket rocket,
for the price of a sparkler.
“ ey designed and built Maverick
and have far exceeded the brief. Her foils
give the boat the scope to out-perform
across a wide range of conditions.
e potential is astonishing and the
better we sail the boat, the bigger
that envelope seems to become.
“Our DSS foils kick into full throttle
when we can get about 15 knots of boat
speed. So for us, that is possible at all
angles wide of 75° to about 145° true and
wind strength a few clicks over 15 knots.”
Her record is impressive. Soon
a er her 2016 launch, she was on
the podium with a Rolex Middle
Sea Race class win. Following that
she took a class win and was second
overall in the 2016 RORC Transat. In
the 2017 Rolex Middle Sea, she won
IRC 1 and was rst in her division in
the 2018 Newport-Bermuda Race.
And her current form is strong,
she won the 2019 SoCal300, o the
California coast, beating last year’s
Sydney-Hobart winner, Alive, on
handicap, along with 40 other boats
that are heading for Hawaii. e
Transpac is more than likely to provide
tailor-made conditions and a historic
rst British win could well be on.
Phillip Turners Alive, a Reichel-Pugh
66 canting keeler, was purpose-built
for the Transpac and campaigned in
Australia as Black Jack. en she was
bought by Tasmanian entrepreneur
Phillip Turner and won the 2018
Rolex Sydney Hobart Race. Alive
will be out to spoil Maverick’s fun.
Skipper Duncan Hine says: “Her long
narrow hull is ideal for VMG running,
but we will struggle in the strong
reaching conditions in the rst couple
of days. So picking the right line is
critical to having a chance at winning.”FEATURE TRANSPAC
F
irst raced in 1906, the 2,225
nautical mile race from
Los Angeles to Diamond
Head in Honolulu is one
of the classic ocean races,
alongside the Fastnet, the Sydney
Hobart and the Newport to Bermuda.
is July, in the record eet of
100 boats, there will be two British-
campaigned boats among the
favourites, as well as some notable
others with strong British connections.
ere are, of course, some non-Brits
with victory plans of their own.
e chance to sail in the 50th
anniversary edition of this race has
proved a big attraction, bringing in the
numbers, however 75% of the skippers
are doing the race for the rst time.
Transpac spokesman Dobbs Davis,
himself a ve-race veteran, explains
some of the allure of this classic, which
has seen so many great moments in
ocean racing over its 113-year history. “It
seems that living on the US west coast,
many-a-sailor looking out to the Paci c
Ocean, they are a bit like the Portuguese
and Spanish in the 1400s dreaming
about what is over the horizon....Hawaii
is, in everyone’s mind, an unvisited
paradise. For sailors, you get the ever-
warming weather as you approach, the
strengthening winds, the warming sea,
there are dreams of swaying palm trees
and the lively welcome when you nally
tie up. It’s an enticing mix of ingredients.
“Meanwhile with the sailing itself
the wind goes from a beat to a reach
and then to a run. So, everything
about this race is physically and
psychologically positive.”SHARON GREEN/ULTIMATE SAILINGARTHUR DANIEL/RORC42 Yachts & Yachting August 2019 yachtsandyachting.co.uk