Date: Thursday, July 18th Lat: 25 31 North Lon: 151 39 West Course over ground: 226 degrees magnetic Speed over ground: 12 knots In sail boat racing there is a factor that nobody controls: The weather. No matter how good and prepared you are, no matter how much technology you use, you can hardly go…
Date: Thursday, July 18th Lat: 26 38 North Lon: 149 37 West Course over ground: 220 degrees magnetic Speed over ground: 15 knots At sunset, we jibed on what could be a 500 lay line to Honolulu. Now its mostly port jibe. Unfortunately, it’s pretty light, with winds between 16 and 19 knots most of…
On-board I am very busy, steering Pegasus 8 to 10 hours a day, trimming sails sleeping a bit and writing the “Skipper’s Log” a and taking most of the PictureMails on this site and then getting it all on the Pegasus Racing website using LightSurf technology (www.lightsurf.com ) Its all outgoing communications. That is until…
Date: Wednesday, July 17th Lat: 26 45 North Lon: 146 08 West Course over ground: 256 degrees magnetic Speed over ground: 15 knots All night we jibed on every shift. This was a pitch-dark night as the moon set early. We executed each jibe like clockworks. Wind ranged from 18 to 26 knots. Jibing Pegasus…
Date:Tuesday, July 16th Lat: 28 02 North Lon: 140 58 West Course over ground: 226 degrees magnetic Speed over ground: 14 knots We think not. However, we still feel like we are defying gravity: We again have covered more miles and gained distance on both Mari-Cha and Zephyrus, for the third consecutive day. We…
Date: Monday, July 15th Lat: 29 05 North Lon: 135 13 West Course over ground: 232 degrees magnetic Speed over ground: 17 knots The plan to accomplish the impossible, for David to beat Goliath in other words, for Pegasus 77 to beat Zephyrus and Mari-Cha boat for boat seems now remotely possible. That is…
Date: Sunday, July 14th Lat: 31 09 North Lon: 129 07 West Course over ground: 214 degrees magnetic Speed over ground: 17 knots Racing sailboats that are as different in size and potential as Pegasus 77 from the huge Zephyrus or the behemoth Mari-Cha is like is radically different than racing fundamentally similar boats.…
Date: Sunday, July 14th Lat: 31 59 North Lon: 128 05 West Course over ground: 203 degrees magnetic Speed over ground: 16 knots We loved Pegasus when we won Transpac 2001. Since the finish of Transpac 2001 we put Pegasus in her Transpac 2003 mode. That meant taking out 7000 pounds of lead out of…
Date: Saturday, July 13th Lat: 35 47 North Lon: 125 17 West Course over ground: 18 degrees magnetic Speed over ground: 19 knots As day broke we all waited for the 9 am PST roll call. We had lost track of our competitors and had found good wind. Fundamentally their size should make them average…
We started in 20 knots. Pegasus had the better start but with our water length disadvantage, by the time we got out of the Golden Gate, both Mari-Cha and Zephyrus were significantly ahead. When we crossed the Gate, we expected a right hand shift and we stayed right. Both Mari-Cha and Zephyrus tacked and went…
The night before the start there is great appreciation for a nice quality meal. Shark was in rare form. He just decided to drink coke out of a wine glass and have it show in the team picture above and get his Dad in trouble… Not he’s only 12 and is turning to be both…
Now is the time for last minute preparations: 13 hungry sailors will need to eat well, drink well, sleep as well as possible in order to perform. That’s a lot of planning because we don’t have refrigeration in order to save weight. In fact we carry very little water as we make water along the…
We have a strong high pressure system building which should make for a good race. Forecasting precisely passed 3 days is challenging. That is one of the challenges of Pacific Cup: Being good enough meteorologists and strategists to take full advantage of changing weather patterns. We will be on the ocean for more than 7…
April 20th, 2002, in San Francisco, was the single-handed Farallon Race, windy, with big waves, and fun. I was lucky and won the first-to-finish trophy… 60 Nautical Miles, starting in San Francisco, offshore on a bearing of 240 degrees magnetic around the Farallons 30 Miles out and back into the Bay through the Golden Gate…
Philippe Kahn and Pegasus Racing sailing Pegasus 77 win Transpac 2001. Team includes key sailors from Alinghi, OneWorld, and Team New Zealand. Photos by Sharon Green.
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:…
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…
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…
For the last 5 hours its been light and hot. Real light. And that is nerve racking because we’re all thinking: “If the Pyewacket guys have 5 knots more wind than we do, we could see our lead evaporate”. There is not much that we can do but to rest the team, sail fast and…
Date 07/08/01 Lat 24 21 North Lon 152 03 West Course over ground: 220 Degrees Speed over ground: 12.5 knots Wind speed: 18 knots Wind direction: 079 degrees Team Pegasus battled squalls all night, making endless spinnaker, jib-top, stay sail changes. After seven days of hard racing this was a heroic effort. When we lost…
Date 07/09/01 Lat 21 58 North Lon 156 27 West Course over ground: 264 Degrees Speed over ground: 14 knots Wind speed: 19 knots Wind direction: 096 degrees Towering at 10,000 ft the Haleakala volcano situated on Maui is the first majestic landmark that we sight. You can see and accumulation of clouds with the…
500 Miles out as customary on-board Pegasus we started a betting pool for ETAs. We started it, but Shark seems to have taken ownership of all the process. He’s on the ship’s computers looking at routing software trying to figure out the “best educated guess”. Each bet is $10 and we’re all allowed to…
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.…
Date 07/07/01 Lat 26 23 North Lon 148 20West Course over ground: 264 Degrees Speed over ground: 18 knots Wind speed: 27 knots Wind direction: 062 degrees The position report this morning showed Pegasus ahead of Chance and Pyewacket. Chance is farther north and behind us probably betting on a very large and sudden right…
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…