The Harbor Report: A Trans Pac ‘match race’ to remember

The following is the second and last part of Len Bose’s retelling of the first Trans Pac raced by Santa Cruz 50s. His story incudes two boats from Newport Beach, Hana Ho for the Balboa Yacht Club and Shandu for the Bahia Corinthian Yacht Club/Newport Harbor Yacht Club.

The crew aboard Hano Ho was made up of Morrie Kirk, skipper; Peter Isler, navigator; Dave Ullman, watch captain; and Bill Herrschaft, Tom Willson, Kevin Kirk, Jim Laws and Dennis Riehl.

Aboard Shandu was Michael Braun, owner; Peter Willson, watch captain; LJ Edgcomb, navigator and MacGyver; Dennis Durgan, watch captain; and Bob Burns, Marshall “Duffy” Duffield, Rex Banks and Gordo Johnson.

We pick up the tale with the boats racing to Hawaii on July 9, 1981 — the morning after a rough night in which Dave Ullman said, “There was carnage everywhere across the fleet.”

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Over the next three days and nights the boats rarely lost sight of each other. If one boat jibed the other boat would follow. If the other boat would change spinnakers and set a staysail so would they.

Around 2 a.m., referred to as one of the “nights of terror,” Shundu lost a spinnaker crane at the top of the mast that held the halyard blocks. The first thought by the Shundu crew, was to take the spinnaker down and make the repair when they had daylight.

Well Edgcomb did not agree and was not about to lose any ground to his good buddies on the other boat. He grabbed the boatswain chair — a device used to suspend a person from rope to perform work aloft — and headed up the mast.

Can you see Durgan’s face as he sat at the helm and Edgcomb said he was going up the mast? Durgan had to have replied, you want to go where? Edgcomb “MacGyver” then went up the mast with a bunch of kevlar line to make the repair.

“It looked something like that osprey next on that power boat on the moorings in front of the Newport Harbor Yacht Club today,” Gordo Johnson said.

MacGyver had done it again and as Peter Isler said, “It was all on” from there on in.

Going into the last day, Shandu was in the lead with only 205 miles to the finish, Hano Ho had 211 miles to go. As the boats sailed past the big island, the VHF radio banter continued with the Hana crew asking who was driving and why they did not have their big spinnaker up. Shandu had lost their big chute a couple of nights before and Hano Ho still had theirs.

The sun went down and the two boats split jibes in the dark as they grew closer to the finish line. When the two boats arrived at Kalaupapa point on the island of Molokai they both made their final jibe for the finish line under a full moon with dolphins jumping from their bows.

Riehl, aboard Hana Ho, remembers first surviving the jibe and then looking to his right and seeing Shandu just 200 yards away on their starboard side bow to bow.

Gordo Johnson explained the situation like this: “Have you ever wondered what your boat looked like while surfing down huge waves with the bow of the boat out of the water all the way back to the keel? Water flying everywhere as the boat dropped into its third consecutive wave. Well, he said with a laugh, Hana Ho was right next to us and I can’t tell you how many times we exchanged the lead while the other boat caught the next wave.”

Morrie Kirk the owner of Hana Ho said, “We were close to those guys that’s for sure.”

Peter Isler aboard Hano Ho said, “I was on the helm at the jibe at Kalaupapa point. It was very intense and exhausting. Both boats were pumping their mains on every wave and the lead changed a number of times.”

This all went on for more than an hour as the boats crossed Molokai channel and approached Coco head when the wind started to lighten up and Hana Ho pulled away with their larger spinnaker. Hano Ho crossed the finish line 1 minute and 35 seconds before Shandu crossed the line. Shandu won on corrected time by more than an hour but as you can guess, they wanted to be that first Santa Cruz 50 to finish.

The two boats had matched-raced some 1,217 miles over the four plus days. What a race.

Let’s hope we have wind this year.

Sea ya.

LEN BOSE is an experienced boater, yacht broker and boating columnist.