| Disney's Transpac Race |
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Page 1 of 5 Roy Disney’s 94-foot maxi-yacht, Pyewacket, is the true e-ticket. Our writer David Vann joined the crew for a 24-hour offshore sail in preparation for Transpac.  I'M WEARING MY NEW SHOES with their non-marking soles, and technical pants, carrying a gear bag from West Marine, feeling like a poseur. Pyewacket is a monster of a boat, almost a hundred feet long, black carbon mast thick as a redwood and just as tall, 140 feet. It’s taller than an America’s Cup mast, just impossible-looking up close. The boom hanging behind it must be 30 or 40 feet long, like a giant I-beam on a skyscraper. “Wings” on the back sweep out past the sides, so there’s a big overhang, something I’ve seen only on aircraft carriers. There’s power in this machine, power to suddenly rip a human body to pieces. In short, the boat is a beast. I’m a charter captain with 40,000 miles offshore, but I’m scared of Pyewacket, and I’m about to spend 24 hours sailing on her shakedown cruise.The crew are hanging out on the dock and on the boat: Robbie Haines, an Olympic gold medalist; Rick Brent, winner of an America’s Cup; Stan Honey, the top navigator in the world and winner of the Volvo Ocean Race, which is the premier blue-water race in the world. Then there’s Disney himself: Roy Disney, nephew of Walt Disney. He’s about as close as we come in America to aristocracy. Like the Kennedys. He shakes my hand and welcomes me aboard. He’s friendly, even chatty, and mild as milk. He loves this boat and loves this group of guys he has sailed with for almost two decades. I’m grateful just to catch a glimpse. The shakedown cruise is required to qualify Pyewacket, which is named after a magical cat in the 1958 movie Bell, Book and Candle, for the Transpac race. She’s had so many modifications—including getting a new mast, the wings, and even being cut in half and lengthened—that she’s considered a new boat and, even though she’s raced Transpac before, has to re-prove her seaworthiness. 
Transpac began in 1906, when Clarence MacFarlane, of Honolulu, challenged a few Californians to race to the Hawaiian Islands. Run every odd-numbered year now, it starts in San Pedro, California, and ends off the Diamond Head lighthouse near Honolulu, 2,225 miles away. It used to be that winners finished in two weeks; now they can finish in less than a week.Disney is a veteran of more than a dozen Transpacs, and his team broke the record in 1997 and 1999. He thinks this one could be something special. But it’s never been about the trophies for Roy; it’s been about the friendships. The race is more of a reunion than anything else. AS WE PUSH OFF FROM THE DOCK, there’s almost no wind, three or four knots at most, but the moment they raise the mainsail, we’re moving. The captain, Gregg Hedrick, is a big guy on the bow. “Ben, hold up Greggie,” someone says, speaking to one of the crew. “Do the Titanic on the bow.” “That just gave me chills,” another says, but then the concern turns to whales. “Greggie, you get in the water, one might try to mate with you.” “Whale versus bear,” another laughs. |
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