In high school, my sailing coach Mr. Jack McAleer, would tell us stories of his experiences sailing in offshore distance races and deliveries while we drove to regattas. At this point in my life and sailing career I had never even heard of a TransPac, Pacific Cup, Sydney to Hobart or Fastnet, yet he had sailed in all of them. All I knew was I loved surfing the team’s CFJ’s on the ocean swells when Monterey got breezy and these races to Hawaii sounded like doing just that, but for weeks. As I expressed my interest, Mr. McAleer told me that the best way to gain the offshore experience necessary for racing was to deliver boats before or after offshore races. During the summer of 2005, my friend Dave Kurtmen was delivery crew on the TransPac 52 Rosebud from Hawaii to California and I instantly knew what I wanted to do the next summer.
My first offshore delivery was in 2006 aboard the ILC40, Mureadritta’s XL, which had just raced in the Pacific Cup and was going from Oahu, Hawaii, back to San Francisco, California. Among the crew was the boat’s owner, Nick Barran, his friend David Smith, Nathalie Criou and myself. However, 425 nautical miles north of Hawaii, a Sperm whale rammed and sank the boat. We attempted to stem the flow before taking turns manning the bilge pumps and sending out mayday attempts over the radio. Nick activated the EPIRB and even resorted to calling friends on Oahu with the satellite phone when there was no response to our Mayday calls on the Single Sideband Radio. With every effort of saving the boat exhausted, Nick gave the order to abandon ship and we stepped up into the liferaft with XL’s cabin top awash and just the stern above water.
Several hours later we heard the drone of engines and saw a Coast Guard C-130 flying low and right at us. Unfortunately we couldn’t reach them on the handheld VHF in the emergency grab bag and watched as it waggling its wings, then circled XL’s listing mast. (Note: The designer of Mureadritta’s XL later confirmed that due to the boat’s construction of carbon fiber over a foam core it would remain slightly buoyant before sinking.) The C-130 then flew back over us, dropping a smoke flare to judge the wind before coming on a final pass to drop an orange barrel on a parachute. The barrel landed 50 yards from the life raft and I swam to retrieve it. Wrapped in foam inside it was another handheld VHF, on and tuned to the channel 16, the Coast Guard emergency channel.
The Coast Guard informed us that we were well out of helicopter range, but a container ship and two fishing boat had been vectored to our position. The container ship would reach us first and take us aboard, then transfer us to one of the fishing boats heading back to Hawaii. At dusk the Maersk Darwin appeared over the horizon and launched a lifeboat to retrieve us. We climbed aboard and were taken back to the ship where we had to climb the forty-foot tall rope and wood Pilot ladder to deck level. After being taken to the bridge to meet the captain we were served dinner in the Officer’s Mess. By then we had converged with the Long-line fishing boat Kami M and prepared to make the transfer. The seas had risen and we were unable to directly board the Kami M, so we were lowered down in the lifeboat, which motored us to the side of fishing boat. By carefully timing with the waves we were able to jump to the rail and the crew dragged us aboard. Four days later we were back in Hawaii.
While in Hawaii, I found another boat that had raced in the Pacific Cup and was leaving soon for California. I wanted to finish the delivery, even if it was on another boat, but my parents quickly shut that idea down and I flew home a few days later. Even though everyone wanted to hear the story of the whale (and this particular version is drastically shorter), I still felt like I had started something and not finished it.
In 2007 I was supposed to be delivery crew on the Turbo’d Santa Cruz 52 Kokopelli 2 following the TransPac, but Eckerd College’s freshman orientation and autumn term coincided. I sent a two-page letter to the school explaining my situation and asking to be excused for the first four days, but Eckerd refused. If I wanted to go to Eckerd I would have to be there for all of autumn term. I read Sailing Anarchy as the Morning Light crew became international superstars of the sailing world and the crew of On the Edge of Destiny set the record as the youngest crew to do the TransPac with an average age of 19.8 years old. At this point I knew that I wanted to be part of the youngest crew to sail an ocean race.
By 2008 I had greatly expanded my sailing knowledge and abilities, but I was still lacking a true blue-water passage. After putting my name on the Pacific Cup website crew list I was approached by a skipper from Hawaii looking for crew for the race. This was my dream-come-true! The boat, called Buzz Off was a Henderson 30, a high performance sport boat and far from an offshore design. However, the idea of screaming downwind for 2070nm enticed me and I signed on as crew. Not only was I going to be racing to Hawaii, but I was also delivery crew on the R/P 45 Criminal Mischief back to California. After finishing my freshman year of college and flying home I spent 6 weeks working on the Buzz Off before the Pacific Cup. Due to some commitment issues, one of the crew was dropped, leaving a spot open. I called my friend Cody Spruce, another freshman sailor I met at Eckerd, and he quit his job to do this race.
While the boat was well prepared and passed all the Pacific Cup safety inspections, it had some weak points and we quickly found them. 12 hours after our start, the main shredded as we were beam reaching in 25-35 knots of wind with a single reef. The main had been made in Ventura, California and was designed for the light winds of Southern California. This, combined with the reefing lines getting tangled so we were unable to reef the main further, caused the sail’s untimely demise. We would sail the remainder of the race with a storm trysail instead of a main. And this was just the beginning of many things that would go wrong.
During the race we had numerous spinnaker halyard failures requiring me to go up the mast at least eight times. The boat was so wet that the battery charger failed from moisture condensing below decks and we were pumping the bilge between every watch shift. Then the “Vara System” rudder bearings began to fail, causing the helm to lock up while surfing, forcing the driver to wrench it free to the sound of crunching Delrin bearings. Furthermore, of the four crew, only Cody and I were able to steer the boat with the spinnaker up without broaching. In the middle of the Pacific Cup, Cody and I began talking about doing the race double-handed. We were already doing all the steering, following a 3-hour on, 3-hour off watch schedule. However, we would need a more controllable boat that could be sailed well double-handed, something the Henderson 30 was not.
After making it safely to the finish in Kaneohe Bay, we began planning how we would be able to race the 2010 Pacific Cup double-handed. While talking to a group of sailors from Velos, an Ullman Sailmaker named Chuck Skewes introduced himself and offered his support in our efforts. And we are currently working with him to get the best price on sails possible. Cody also found a spot as delivery crew on Velos going back to San Diego.
The Kami M is my boat and we did severe damage to it picking you up. I see no mention of that or how I had the vessel go out of its way to pick your sorry asses up
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