Team Pegasus receives the coveted Barn Door Trophy

Pegasus 77 wins Transpac 2001!!!

Class: Division 1
Make and Type: Reichel-Pugh 75
Sail number: 50008
Rig: Sloop
LOA (ft.): 77
Draft (ft): 12.5
Beam (ft): 15
Hull color: White / Blue
Yacht Club: Waikiki Yacht Club
Hailing port: Honolulu, HI, Waikiki Yacht Club
Designer: Reichel Pugh
Builder: McConaghy
Where built: Sydney, Australia
Year launched: 2001
Racing Class or Division: Division I

Skipper: Philippe Kahn
Navigator: Mark Rudiger
Watch Captain 1: Morgan Larson
Watch Captain 2: Zan Drejes
Crew: Kevin Miller, Curtis Blewett, Adam Beashel, Samuel "Shark" Kahn, Michael Mottl, John Hayes, Jeff Madrigali, Don McCracken.

Shark and I

Sunday July 1st: The start, part I

Our Starting line is just off San Pedro in the port district of Los Angeles. Then we must leave the Santa Catalina to port (left side). After that, its free-style to Honolulu, we get to pick our course. Of course the shortest distance to Honolulu is a great circle. And every year a couple of boats attempt that route. You end-up sailing less miles. However 90% of the time that direct route will take you right into the heart of the Pacific High, the center of the local anti-cyclonic zone that is totally becalmed. And that is very bad news on a sailboat. I can safely say that it is very likely that we at Pegasus 77 will end-up going enough South to find better trade winds. But before we depart, I can’t talk about our strategy as our worthy competitors could get wind of it. Speaking of worthy competitors, this is going to be a very competitive race with Merlin, Chance, Pyewacket all having a good shot at the barn door trophy.

Samuel “Shark” Kahn my 11 year old son didn’t sleep much last night. Adrenaline is pumping. It’s his first offshore race and I think that he is the youngest by quite a bit in this fleet. Shark will stand a full watch and carry his own weight across the Pacific. This is a big international competitive event for a developing young man.
Yes, I’m a proud Dad today!

Curtis and Shark at Nightfall

Upwind Monday Morning

Adam says Happy Birthday Mom!

First night at Sea

Date 07/02/01
Lat 32 30 North
Lon 120 26 West
Course over ground: 230 Degrees
Speed over ground: 11 knots
Wind Speed: 12 knots

First night at sea and the race starts again!

As the sun came down we headed almost straight for Honolulu on a course of 220 degrees magnetic. The wind was where we expected to be we were happy to have a little lead over our competition. We started our watch system at 19:00 PST, basically two watches with 5 hours on and 5 hours off. Shark's watch ended at Midnight and he was ready to get a nap. It had been a long day. The night was cool but the wind seemed steady. And then at the edge of a cloud layer we basically fell into a wind hole and the little wind that there was veered left 80 degrees. Now the distant lights of our competitors weren't so distant anymore and if things continued, they could end-up ahead of us.

In fact the three of us within an hour got compressed in such a small area that we thought for a moment that we could have made use of fenders to avoid damage to the boats. Essentially Mother Nature just restarted the race between the three giant supersleds.

For 3 hours it was a tireless regime of changes to and from drifters, code zero reachers until we started to lift off both Chance and Pyewacket and reestablish a lead. The wind then started to come up. Big swells rocked the boat: We finally were in open ocean sailing conditions, away from the Catalina Eddy.

The morning roll call confirmed that our approach had been the right one and as I type this we are sailing a direct rhumb line course to Honolulu. Our breakfast burritos tasted delicious and Adam "The best 49er sailor in the world" Beashel would like to wish "Happy Birthday" to his Mom.
So Happy Birthday!

Fast, Windy, Cold and Wet Night #2

Fast, windy, cold and wet night #2

Date 07/03/01
Lat 30 05 North
Lon 125 14 West
Course over ground: 240 Degrees
Speed over ground: 14 knots
Wind speed: 17 knots
Wind direction: 350 degrees

A beautiful night of sailing, but a wet, windy and cold one. Just what night #2 of Transpac is supposed to be: Full foul weather gear and breeze on! When the sun came down Shark committed to stay down below. The concern is of course that if one of us went overboard in the kind of weather that we had last night it could be a challenge to find them fast enough: Being knocked overboard by a rogue wave at night can be a life-threatening experience. For Shark, my 11 year old son, we solved the problem by keeping him inside, down below. Probably not what Shark wanted to do, but the safe thing to do. Tough regime because its easy to get sea sick down below, but all that could happen was that his dinner came back from where it came from. And it did (To Shark's Mom: Don't worry, he's doing great!) Most of the night was spent with winds averaging 18 gusting to 25 with 8 to 10 feet quartering rollers. We sailed through the night on a close reach with jib top and staysail. The speed contests between helmsmen started at about midnight. Jeff and Zan were tied at 17.1 knots for a while then Morgan smashed their record as the breeze came up with an 18.7 knots. Now that was a challenge! Just before daybreak, in a 25 knot puff, I'm proud to report that I was lucky to top this with 18.8 knots on the front of a wave and take the prize for the night: Hot chocolate, which I traded for hot miso soup! Those speeds were just a taste of what is hopefully coming. The new Pegasus is fast and if the wind cooperates we'll be seeing mid-twenties surfs riding the legendary Hawaiian waves. Last night was illuminated by a beautiful full moon, which made the breaking waves sparkle like rhinestones. To the South a very bright planet Mars was hanging in the sky like an ornament off a Christmas tree. It 's apparently the closest that Mars has been to our blue planet for a long time. Spectacular!

Decisions, Decisions

After this morning's position report we knew that we had increased our lead a little bit through the night. We probably sailed harder and tougher than our competition. But our lead is so narrow that we really need to think that we're behind and act as such. The changing weather patterns are key to our success and deciding what route to follow is key. Weather this year over the Northern Pacific is quite unusual and even unpredictable. ."Rudi" (Mark Rudiger) our rock star navigator has been analyzing every single piece of information that he can get ahold of. There are two factors that greatly influece our strategy: weather and what our competition is doing. And this of course leads to spirited debates among all of us. We made a decision, but I can't quite share it with you now as the competition may be watching this website. We'll know more after this evening's position report.

Spartan galley, three camping burners, no microwave or fridge, all frozen and dried food

Mast Digital Displays and spinnaker pole artwork

Date 07/04/01
Lat 28 06 North
Lon 130 49 West
Course over ground: 216 Degrees
Speed over ground: 11.5 knots
Wind speed: 14 knots
Wind direction: 008 degrees

For most of the night the wind was oscillating between 345 and 015 degrees magnetic, with header puffs gusting to 20 knots and lulls down to 10 knots in the lifts. This was strange weather with a cold drizzle that made the night cold.

The challenge for us was to average a heading of 220 degrees. That number was important because yesterday night Chance was still in sight on our right, but Pyewacket was building leverage to the South. And Pyewacket was our greatest worry because we don't think that there is much leverage to the North (lets hope that we are right!) Therefore at 22:00 PST we decided to set a spinnaker, sail low, and attempt to take away most of Pyewacket's leverage. We picked our "juicer" our unique super high-tech carbon fiber asymmetrical spinnaker. Team Pegasus sailed hard through the night. After daybreak when we heard the position reports the whole boat cheered. We had essentially doubled our lead on both competitors but most importantly we had removed most of Pyewacket's leverage.

On-board Pegasus, when we sail fast, even in a pitch dark night we sail mostly by feel, and use instruments mostly as a reference. We have 6 digital displays on our mast for the helmsman and the trimmer's reference. They are from top to bottom: Boat speed, Apparent wind angle, True wind angle, True wind speed, True wind direction and Magnetic heading.

Celebrations onboard Pegasus are frugal. Our galley is minimalist and we don't carry any of the modern amenities such as microwave oven, refrigeration or any standard stove with a built-in oven. We leave those to cruisers, it's just too heavy. We have three camping burners to heat water, a pressure cooker and pack 7 days of frozen food with two extra days of freeze dried food. For silverware, we only carry 8 sets as watches alternate and don't get fed at the same time. The team picked 8 solid dog bowls (they are almost impossible to break and come with non-skid bottoms) and 8 toddler forks (Power Puff Girls and Scooby Doo because they are very light and durable without too many sharp edges). In order to celebrate our good tactical move, this morning Morgan hand-squeezed a large glass of orange juice for each one of us. Delicious! (Alcohol, cigarettes or any form of drugs are not allowed on-board Pegasus) Shark gulped his big cup of OJ, asked for another one and said: "I need the strength for all this grinding that you guys make me do!" Shark is 200% back!

At about that moment, looking off the leeward side we saw a whole school of flying fish. They were fleeing Pegasus as if it was a giant predator. Some of them even changed direction in flight, something that I hadn't notice before. Are they "evolving"? And then eight hundred nautical miles from the closest point of land, in the middle of nowhere a Dodo bird appeared, circled for about 10 minutes and then disappeared. Strange weather today. I think that Zan called it "fluky".

Only frugal celebrations are in order for Team Pegasus because although we are very well positioned, we are only one third down the race track with many challenges ahead of us and now we need to figure out what tactics our worthy competitors are going to be using. More chess playing on the great Pacific Ocean!

Sailing in the trades from the top of the mast

1000 miles from shore, Pyewacket so close to us!

Tactical changes

Date 07/06/01
Lat 28 53 North
Lon 141 35 West
Course over ground: 264 Degrees
Speed over ground: 16 knots
Wind speed: 22 knots
Wind direction: 051 degrees

This morning when we all reported our positions Team Pegasus was silently waiting for the news: Was our gambit paying off?

The news was mixed: In some ways we gained ground, but not enough to allow Pyewacket and Chance to build so much leverage to the right of the race course. It was obvious that they got good pressure, more pressure than any of the weather forecasts showed. And we know that one thing is certain as we sail to Honolulu: the wind always shifts right. Geometrically, all other things being equal, whichever boat has control of the right of the race course has a significant advantage.

One of the cool things about having Shark on-board is that he keeps on asking: "When are we going to be ahead? What can we do to pass Pyewacket?" All excellent questions!

Now was the time to make our move. With the new, twice a day mandatory position reports we have a pretty good idea as to where our competitors are and how to get to them.

After a few hours of intense sailing, Morgan from the top of the mast sighted Pyewacket. On-board Pegasus, the intensity redoubled. We pumped every wave and rotated helmsmen every 45 minutes or as appropriate. Shark got us water and food and soon all got psyched because Pyewacket "was getting bigger".

At 3 PM, we had Pyewacket on our beam. Amazing, right in the middle of the Pacific after 5 days of racing both boats could have a water balloon fight! Clearly side by side we push each other hard and we are both in the hunt for Chance. They are leading the race halfway down the race course. Boat racing doesn't get better than this. What we clearly have here is evenly matched boats with great crews on a very challenging race course battling each other for 8 to 9 days, around the clock.

At 5 PM we caught up with Chance. Now Pegasus, Chance and Pyewacket are within ½ mile from each other.

Squalls in the North Eastern Pacific form as a result of evaporation of the warmer Ocean water. They look like black threatening clouds that overtake you with lots of wind ahead of them, rain and wind underneath them, dead calm behind them.

That is how we all lost track of Chance. Pegasus and Pyewacket both jibed to avoid the squall's updrafts and Chance kept on going. Only the morning position reports will tell us their position.

An epic night of sailing.

With Pegasus and Pyewacket in sight of each other and squalls building all around as the full moon was rising, a jibing duel started with a first cross within 5 boat lengths of each other, Pegasus on port, clear ahead. We exchanged five jibes within the next 2 hours to find ourselves going down the track at over 15 knots in 22 knots of wind. Nothing that any weather forecast anywhere ever showed.

Absolutely epic trade wind sailing under a full moon!

Carbon and Satellite communications don't mix!

Curtis clowning around in 25 knots!

Squalls everywhere!

The night is full of squalls. Now anything can happen in this race. We lost touch with Pyewacket in the heavy rain. We were becalmed for a while. They may have passed us.

Now we are on the front end of another squall with winds gusting to 30 knots shifted 35 degrees to the right. That is why I can now send reports: Our heading is 260 degrees, we're on port tack and the target satellite is bearing 225 degrees.

Shark thinks that these squalls are really cool. I think that we may be creating a monster here... He says: "They are just like giant Pacmans trying to eat us up like the dots in the game..."Hmmmm......

Trade Wind magic!

A night without sleep, sailing hard for the finish line at sunrise

All night long Pegasus has been flying on a tight spinnaker reach headed by every squall. With each squall we got a right wind shift that put us on our ear to make course towards Makapu Lighthouse.

As we ride through this fast and windy night I remember hiking up to Makapu Lighthouse, high on the cliffs behind Koko Head and looking in the direction of the sunrise, thinking about this Transpac finish.

Many times while at our home in Honolulu we'd visit both Makapu Lighthouse and Diamond Head Lighthouse (up on Diamond Head road) and visualize the Transpac finish. Now we are almost in sight. When we pass the 100 mile distance to the finish, we are supposed to check in by radio with the race committee.

We've been monitoring the race committee's frequencies with the angst that Pyewacket or Chance would be checking in before us. We're pushing very hard, during this fast night ride. Fly Pegasus, fly!

Pegasus 77 crosses the finish line

Epilogue

Team Pegasus won long hard battle on the great Pacific Ocean. There are a few remarks that I thought pertinent as I am sitting here in Honolulu looking at beautiful Diamond Head.

Race tactics and strategy: On Pegasus 77, we were determined to match race Pyewacket for 2250 nautical Miles. Our understanding is that Pyewacket didn’t really want to follow that path, but I think that we did a good job at forcing Pyewacket into the match-racing mode. We wanted to take as much of the luck factor out of the equation. Here is the logic behind our race tactics and strategies:

1. Learn to sail Pegasus 77 from Pyewacket: Pegasus 77 was a brand new boat and we never had a chance to test her against another boat. Not even in a local race. Transpac was our first race ever and we only had 15 days of sea trials to learn to sail Pegasus 77 without a tuning partner. Therefore being next to a comparable boat (Pyewacket) that we knew was fast helped us make sure at any time that we were sailing Pegasus 77 close to its potential. The more we sailed next to Pyewacket, the better we got at sailing our boat. After 2250 nm we really learned a lot. Pyewacket was our tuning partner <smile>

2. Never let Pyewacket build leverage: We decided what whenever we “tried something different” that we’d evaluate at the next position report, at most 12 hours if needed. If it didn’t seem productive, we’d fight to get right back in touch with Pyewacket. It turns out that except for the last 24 hours we always cut our losses and “nothing different worked”. Pyewacket was obviously well navigated and did not leave us windows of opportunities.

3. Work as hard as needed to always position Pegasus 77 between Pyewacket and Honolulu: That included working hard at winning the start, and whenever behind at expanding as much energy as needed “to be one boat length ahead”.

With tight covering tactics it’s clear that one gives up the potential of much bigger gains with the trade-off of a greater chance to win the race. We felt that we only needed to win Transpac by one boat length and that therefore a lead of more than one hour was a good stretch given our tactical and strategic approach to the race.

Future Transpac racing: We obviously had essentially one-design offshore sailing across the Pacific in the Volvo Cup style. Three evenly matched boats are in existence. It would make a lot of sense to “formalize this class” and encourage more owners to develop new boats to the class.