July 18, 2025 • 37 mins
Today, we talk with Quantum San Diego's Eric Heim, who just helped drive the Cal 40 Restless to both its class and Overall win in the just-completed 2025 Transpac.
A great story with plenty of good stuff. And apologies - like an idiot, I hit the wrong button and the last couple minutes didn't record!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Hey, it's the Sailing AnarchyPodcast with me, your host,
Scott Tempesta.
Uh, I don't have any of my hokeybed music.
Which, you know, really sucks asthey say in the industry.
I've, I've gotta come on cold.
So no sound effects, nocrickets, no Wawa, none of that.
None of that.
(00:21):
It's just me, but not just me.
Today we got a really, reallygood episode and I'm really
looking forward to this.
Um, one of my better buddies, Imean, he might be my only buddy,
uh, in the sailing scene is aguy named Eric Heim.
Uh, those of you in SoCal knowEric and to know him is to, you
know, mostly love him.
I think for the most part.
(00:42):
Uh, he works for Quantum SanDiego and uh, it's just an all
around good dude.
And he did something.
Well, he's part of something,let's say that, I don't want to
give him too much credit, but hewas on board the Cal 40 Restless
that just won the um.
Uh, LA to Hawaii race, thatwould be the Transpac 2025.
They didn't win just class.
(01:03):
They won overall.
And I mean, it's quite a feat.
There's nobody that's nottalking about this, you know, in
like, oh my God.
Well, how did, how did they doit?
So I'm, I'm just gonna cut rightto the chase.
Hey Eric, how'd you do it?
Um, you know, uh, it's a greatquestion.
Uh, I still don't even knowexactly how it was.
(01:27):
It was really good planning overthe years.
Certainly we got lucky, but Iwould say one of the biggest
contributing factors, you know,in offshore racing is the
people, right?
So we had a solid team, um, andif you look at our track.
We sailed like 150 miles lessthan the next boat.
And on a Cal 40, that's justwhat you have to do.
(01:50):
And it, it took everybody on theteam to be just super diligent
about respecting the fact thatlike, gotta point the ballot,
Hawaii, gotta keep, keep an eyeon performance of the boat and
not go reaching around thecourse for like speed and fun.
Um, and so everybody just being,buying in to like.
(02:10):
This is how we're gonna sail andsticking with it for 12 and a
half days, that that's how wewon.
So instead of speed and fun, youhad slow and no fun.
We had lots of fun.
I know you did.
Yeah.
Anybody who followed along onsocial media knows we had a
pretty good time.
Yeah, you guys did have a goodtime.
And, and Eric was kind enough tosend us a few of the articles,
(02:31):
which we, which we dutifully ranon sailing anarchy.
Um, so it's funny, I was gonnalike, go, so are you a watch
captain?
But then I realized, you know,you guys only sailed with five.
So it looks to me that virtuallyeverybody had to do everything
to some degree, right.
Yeah, I mean for sure, like, youknow, everybody drove, we had a,
you know, it was just a rotatingthing.
(02:52):
You were two hours on, threehours off, which was actually
really nice.
'cause two hours on deck's easy,even when it's like kind of
shitty out.
Um, and three hours off isenough that you get pretty good
rest breaks.
Um, so timing wise, it workedreally well.
You'd come on deck.
You were kind of like in trimand boat setup mode and you
(03:17):
know, if anything needed to bemoved around, whatever, um, and
sort of just help the driver outa little bit.
Keep him on the instruments and,you know, talking through stuff
that was happening.
And then, um, your second hourwas you jump on the, on the
helm.
Drive with a tiller, which iscool.
Um, but yeah, you just drive foran hour and then you had an off
(03:41):
watch.
So from that perspective, itworked really well.
Um, and everybody had somedifferent strengths on board.
And um, you know, our navigatorwas Graham Bell, Ally's cousin.
Uh, he did a great job.
I think one of the interestingthings though is like I.
Historically, everyone's like,oh, navigating transpac.
(04:03):
It's become much more of acollaborative process than I
think it ever used to be, justwith all the technology and like
the fact that you can look atreal time, which was new this
year of like where everyone is.
Um, and I think it changes thegame a little bit.
I liked it a lot better thanbeing beholden to going down,
talking to the navigator, beinglike, Hey.
(04:24):
Where are we, how are we doing?
You know?
Right, right.
The information's there, and soit allowed really, Allie,
Graham, and myself to just sortof pow wow and have good chats
and like stay on it and, and,and all be on the same page all,
all the time.
Y you know, and, and on thewatch systems, by the way.
(04:45):
So it was one person up at atime.
Uh, well, no two people on deck,but.
Okay, so two people up and twopeople down.
Right.
Three down.
Three down.
That's right.
You had five.
Okay.
Five.
Yeah.
It, it's interesting to hearthat about the collaborativeness
of, of this, of the pro, thenavigation process and you know,
(05:06):
I think the last, I mean, JesusChrist, I'm old, but I think the
last trans back I did.
Was on the Santa Cruz 52pressure cooker, and I was in
like these 94 maybe.
And you know, and every, everyone I, every long distance race
I'd done before that, it waslike.
Hey, navigator, how are wedoing?
(05:26):
Like, where are we?
Like what do we think aboutwind?
And that kind of stuff.
And it was like, you know, it,it was all on the guru.
And, and if the guru wasn'tactually a guru, then you were
pretty much fucked.
Um, yeah.
And, and so, you know, that'sinteresting to hear.
And I, I did like, and I'm sureyou guys liked, and I bet every
boat liked the fact that it,everything was, was real time.
(05:46):
I mean, that was, I think that'sway better, don't you?
I do too.
I mean, it made it feel like.
A small boat race.
It was no different than goingout and racing in Ethel's
weekend.
You're like, you knew whereeveryone was.
You could see how they weregoing.
Um, I mean, dude, we, we roundedthe west end of Catalina and we
(06:07):
saw a couple competitors formaybe, I don't know if we even
saw anybody on day two.
And we never saw anothersailboat until we pulled into
aoi.
You're kidding.
No, we saw one light one nightof, we think it was Groundhog
Day.
But again, we were sailing suchdifferent angles.
(06:28):
Yeah.
That these guys were just sortof zigzagging around around us.
And if they were five miles offand it was dark, you just didn't
see'em.
Y you know, and I, I wasobviously following you guys,
you know, rabidly and, um, andI, you know, I saw you guys, you
got out of the blocks in goodshape.
Your whole fleet, your wholeclass, I should say.
Got out of there with pressureand, you know, I, I was kind of
(06:51):
waiting for you guys to hit somesort of odd hole.
Or some big lightning phase thatgenerally happens relatively
early on in this race and it, itjust didn't happen.
I mean, I'm like, holy shit,these guys have had breeze.
Like literally the, I know itgot lighter, but like, it never
really shut off as far as Icould tell.
And it looked like you guys justgot launched with Breeze and it
(07:12):
never really ended.
Is that, is that accurate?
It's pretty accurate.
Um, you know, they're all, alltrans facts are a little
different.
This is my fourth one, but, um.
This one felt, I mean, two yearsago was, was atypical for sure.
This one was a much more typicaltranspac.
Um, but yeah, it's always alottery, right?
(07:35):
The start date thing.
Of course, we started on thefirst, the fast guys started on
July 5th.
So there's nothing you can do.
You're, you're gonna have adifferent experience.
Yep.
And different weather.
And that's why the rating systemchanged this year.
Um.
I am not gonna lie, I wasskeptical about the change in
the rating system this year.
I'm like, oh, let's see how thatplays out.
(07:56):
Um, now I'm obviously a huge fanof it Now.
What was, what was the change?
Eric, can you explain, explainto people what that change was?
Yeah, so the change is,previously they had, they've
spread the start dates out for,for a number of years now
because they just, they havesuch dissimilar boat speeds and
you can't have people sittingaround in Hawaii for three
(08:18):
weeks.
Um.
So what they used to do was theywould take a 20 year average of
transpac, whether you know whatit had been, and average it out.
And then the boats were rated onunder or R on that format.
And it was kind of a luck of thedraw on when your start date
(08:39):
was.
If you had a good start date,things were gonna be good.
If you had a bad start date, youwere not gonna win overall.
So what they did this year wasthey changed it.
And they gave, I don't rememberif it was 24 or 72 hours before
each start date, they ran theweather models, ran the VPPs
through ORR and said, okay, thisis projected what this boat
(09:03):
should do this year under theseconditions.
And it was basically like, couldyou fail at or above or near
your potential?
And that was, that was it.
So I think.
And you know, there's, there's afew things that will always
apply.
You'll never win overall if youdon't, if you don't win your
start date.
Yeah.
You still have to win your date.
(09:25):
Yeah.
So that was kind of.
Goal one is win your day.
And that gives you theopportunity.
And by the way, you did, Jesusdecides, you know what, what
you're getting on that day.
You don't decide, right?
Nope.
You can pick the day or you canpick the weather, but you can't
pick both.
Um, so and so then, how did thatmanifest itself in just in terms
(09:47):
of, you know, the handicapprocess, corrected times, time
owed, allowed, all that sort ofstuff.
I mean, I think overall itworked out pretty well given
there were people from the day,two starters, definitely seemed
to have gotten, they, they hadthe worst conditions.
Yes, they did.
They had the worst start by, byfar.
And, and so just ignoring themfor one second, like you had
(10:12):
boats from the first start dateand the third start date, all
like right there, and the finalstanding's all very tight.
So I think conceptually itprobably worked out really well.
Um, this is a Stan Honey idea,so anybody who knows Stan and,
and his pedigree knows it'sprobably a really good idea.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and a probably a more fairway to run it.
(10:35):
I think, you know, from where Isit, it, like thinking about it
for the, the day two guys, ifyou have, you know, the worst
weather, it's also hardest foryou.
To get through those bad spots.
And so if you're racing againstyour, you know, performance
(10:55):
potential, it's a harder hill toclimb to be at that higher
percentage over those poorconditions.
Right, right.
Um, you know, the fast boats,they, when it's windy, they haul
butt.
When it's light, they don't.
We kind of just go the samespeed no matter what.
(11:17):
No, every, every time I looked,you were go.
I mean, I, I'm trying to thinkof the right number, but let's
just say you were going 7.9knots, like, uh, yeah, it was
like 7, 7 3, 7, 4 was, and, andthat was, you know.
Stan Honey, speaking of himagain, um, he was instrumental
for us, uh, as far as justgiving us some like, I mean,
(11:38):
he's, he's never won the transpack to Hawaii, I don't believe,
but he is won multiple PacificCups, multiple single handed
trans packs, and he is obviouslywon multiple trans packs on
other boats.
And so he gave us a bit of acookbook on like, here's what
you do.
I'd say the number oneoverarching thing that we did
was like, he goes, if you'regoing seven knots, you better be
(12:00):
pointed at the island.
Otherwise you're just giving itaway.
Mm-hmm.
And so we just stuck to that.
Like, if you're going sevenknots, you're going there.
So our speed was like seven,four the whole time.
You know, it, it was remarkablyconsistent.
I'll, I'll give you that.
And you know, there probablyweren't any real highs to sort
of get, um, and certainly itcertainly pointing the bow up on
(12:21):
Cal 40 ain't gonna buy you allthat much.
Um, and so did you have to beaton everybody or did everybody
have to beat on everybody?
Like dude.
Pull the pullback a little bit.
Like, we're going too fast,we're going too high.
Was that, was that a constantrefrain on the boat?
Um, most, most of the team wasreally just pretty diligent
about it.
And it wasn't, it wasn't likeyou were yelling at people, um,
(12:44):
but you'd feel the boat rock upa little bit once in a while and
you're like, are we sailing toohigh or was that a wave?
Yeah, generally it was a wave.
I mean, we put a new rudder onthe boat.
Uh, not long before the start,the boat had a one of the Carl
Schumacher rudders, which werequite good.
Um, but then it was suggested tous that maybe we take it a step
(13:05):
further and we put it an evendeeper rudder on.
Um, and we used, we put bar, uh,we put bearings in, so modified
Brad Fitzgerald modified theboat and put some.
Put rudder bearings in the boat.
Didn't originally have rudderbearings when they were built 58
years ago.
Smart.
Yeah.
Smart.
Who designed the rudder?
Um, so this rudder was built by,uh, brownie up at Phos Foam.
(13:28):
Mm-hmm.
Um, big shout out to him, man.
Like, you know, he got it to us.
He time for a way better pricethan, uh, going to some of the
other ones that another Cal 40.
Has done and was completelyunaffordable.
Oh really?
Yeah.
So yeah, I mean some, somebodyelse put like a$25,000 carbon
(13:51):
rudder on a boat and we kind oflooked at that rudder and said,
well, it looks sort of like thismold that Brownie had kicking
around.
I think it was from like an IMX40 and we're like, let's try
that.
We threw that on.
I love, I love it.
That one looks about right.
Let's do that.
It was totally a, that looksabout right, dude.
I love that.
That's, you know, that's prettymuch all I've ever been able to
(14:11):
do is like, yeah, this feelsabout right.
That looks about right.
I don't, you know, anythingelse, you know, uh, logic,
reason or technical, eh, I don'tknow.
I just know it feels right or itdoesn't feel right.
Um, let's talk a little bitabout sailing the Cal 40.
So.
You know, I had, when I wasgrowing up, my parents had a Cal
29, which was kind of like amini 40 in a lot of ways.
All the Lapworth boats, youknow, of that era all had, you
(14:35):
know, you know, you've got a Cal34, I don't have to tell you,
but, and I've sailed on the cala Cal 40 before, and you know,
there, there.
They're great and they're fuckedat the same time.
And, but you know, everybodyknows that downwind is, you
know, where they, they're just afaster boat downwind than they
are upwind.
And so tell me a little bitabout some of the techniques you
(14:57):
guys used, um, go into, if youcan, just a little bit about,
you know, your sail inventory,what, what was fast, what
wasn't, um, those sort ofthings.
Yeah.
Um, so it was cool, like, youknow, we didn't have an
unlimited budget at all.
We're, we're not that program.
Yeah.
Um, and so it, everything wasjust sort of, how do we do this?
(15:20):
The best is possible withoutcutting corners that were gonna
matter, but really maximizingevery dollar we spent.
Um, and so the sale inventory isdefinitely one of those things.
And, you know, that's, that'swhat I do.
So I, I enjoyed it.
And Allie, Allie gave me, shenever, she never said.
You can't do that.
(15:41):
Um, so she was really, reallyhelpful with that.
But I also, you know, we're allfriends and we all know, like
we're trying to pull this off.
And so we, we were really smartabout some stuff where we built
two new sails for the boattotal.
We built a new number one Genoathat we just, I mean, we, we
did, we kind of needed one.
Uh, when she bought the boat, ithad a sale that I built.
(16:04):
25 years ago when I was juststarting out sail making.
And I was like, oh yeah, she gotthe boat.
And I'm like, I rememberbuilding that Genoa.
She's like, oh my God.
So that thing kind of, kind ofdied on us last year, and I'm
like, we need a genoa.
She's like, all right.
So poi up, built a nice Genoa.
Um, and that, that it's been agreat sale, phenomenal sale.
(16:26):
Um, the guys at North, uh, builta main sale for another Cal 40
and.
They made it black instead ofgray.
And the guy was like, I don'twant it, I don't want it a gray
sale.
And so Allie called me up, she'slike, Hey, they, they have this
sale kicking around.
Never been up.
I can get it for X number ofdollars.
(16:47):
And I'm like, I looked at math.
I'm like, yeah, you're buyingthat.
Like, I can't, I can't build youa sale for that.
So yeah, let's, let's do that.
So we got a really nice Maine,um.
It's not exactly what I would'vebuilt, but it was one of those
things where I'm like, yeah, itwas crazy not to.
So that's a good sale.
Um, and then moving on fromthere, like we knew we needed a
(17:10):
jib top.
And, and there were a few sailthat I'd just sort of cobbled
together and recut, like theboat came with like a really old
Watts Dacron number two.
Yeah.
And I go, I go, we need a blastreaching sail.
And we'd done some training andstuff and some heavier sailing
and we're like looking at sailcharts from Stan and like, we
(17:31):
need a blast reacher.
I took this old Dacron sale,recut it into a blast.
Reacher.
We didn't end up bringing on therace, but we tested with it and
we're like, well, if it's gonnabe windy, it's coming.
So we had stuff like that.
Um, we also Rob Walker, who hasNazomi up in the Bay Area.
Yeah.
Uh, he's, you know, Rob, I do.
(17:52):
Great dude.
And.
He's kind of done racing thatboat.
He's done mul, multiple singlehanded trans packs,
double-handed pack cups.
Um, so he had some good usedgear that, uh, we were pretty
happy to pick up at fractions offractions on the, the dollar.
Um, we got a really nice gib topfrom him, which, if you look at
(18:12):
the sale chart is, has thebiggest blot on the sale chart
is the GIB top?
I would think so.
Um, and it's cool, like.
Old masthead boats like this,you, you don't even need a code
zero.
Like it's not, it's notsomething you take, you just
bring a Gib top and a Genoadiesel and you go for it.
Did you guys use thatcombination much?
We did.
(18:33):
You did?
That was a, that was a workhorsecombination.
As soon as we got round the westend, we sailed with the Genoa
for a little bit more thatevening and.
I can't remember if we made itall the way through the night or
if we changed to the jib topthat night.
Yeah.
Now, are you able to, were youable to put a, the Genoa Day
sale inside the regular Genoa orno?
Um, we didn't do that.
(18:55):
We just didn't, we, we were onthe outboard on the rail with
the Genoa for a little bit oftime before we got the JT up,
but it was like.
Once we're on the outboard lead,you go, well, we should probably
just put the Gib top up and youput the Gib top up and you're
like, okay, we're sailing kindof tight with it.
You know?
You also gotta remember theboat's so slow.
(19:17):
It's not creating the apparentwind.
Yeah.
That modern boats create.
Yeah.
And it's so easy to look atmodern boats and be like, oh,
these guys are all tripleheading.
We, we double heading for us iswe have to have things just
right.
You know the old adage of youput a STA up and it gains you a
quarter knot and take it down,it gains you another quarter.
An old boat, it's still true.
(19:38):
So it's easy to try and befashionable, but it ain't always
fast.
So, um, other stale wise, Imean, I know you commented at
some point you're like, whydon't you have a Spinnaker sta
up?
Yeah.
Well, we brought two SpinnakerSTAs and they were both too big.
Really?
They just, we didn't have enoughapparent and they, they blocked
(20:00):
the kite.
Okay.
Make the kite unstable.
And that was slower.
Harder to sail to than just nothaving them.
So if you, if you could have youwith what you know now, if I
said, Hey, Eric, I'm, I'm buyinga California and I'm putting
together a program, you wouldmake it?
No, let's do it Scott.
What's, but you won't go, youwon't go with me, you fucker.
Um, no.
At this, at this point I'mretiring from California to
(20:21):
Hawaii sailing.
Absolutely.
I don't think you can top this.
No.
I could say like, you know,we're shooting the shit on deck
one day.
You know, this and that, andsomehow it came up about
single-handed trans pack.
And I'm like, yeah, I think I,I'd consider a single-handed
trans pack at some point.
She's like, well, this boat'savailable if you ever wanna
borrow it.
I'm like, oh God, don't temptme.
(20:43):
But, um, I think that's the onlyway I'd ever do a California to
Hawaii.
Wouldn't you, wouldn't yourather do double-handed?
I don't think so.
Really?
No.
Wow.
I what?
Yeah.
For some reason, double-handeddoesn't appeal to me as much for
a Hawaii race because like younever actually get to sail with
your friend.
You're just like, Hey, how's itgoing?
(21:04):
See you later.
Like, true, I like thecamaraderie of, of fully crude,
but then like there's that sortof challenge aspect of
single-handed and you know.
The single land trans pack's.
Pretty cool.
I got some friends that have alldone it.
Like it, it's a, it's a brotherand sisterhood for them.
Like for sure you do that.
It's, you know, for sure.
(21:25):
I mean, that, that's a realbadge of honor, you know?
And that takes Totally, you talkabout commitment.
I mean, you're all fucking in onthat.
There's no half ass, I mean, no,because we all know all the
million things that can and mostlikely will go wrong.
So it's, it's all, it's all onyou.
And you know, that's just.
Too much for me.
Um, so back to the And go aheadScott.
Go ahead.
Fun fact, the last three singlehanded trans packs have all been
(21:48):
won by California.
I know.
I, the boats are just friggingremarkable.
And the fact that you guys.
In 2025 just did what you knowyou weren't expected to do.
But everybody who knows CalForty's, were not all that
goddamn surprised, especiallyhow you approached the race, the
(22:08):
way that you sailed there.
You guys were just like rum linedown, down, down, as best you
could.
And so it's really no surpriseto those, those of us who know.
Um, so if, if we were doing a a,a trans pack, you'd make a what?
A, a thin.
A s much smaller, maybe lighterSpinnaker stay sale.
(22:28):
Yeah.
You know, I, I don't even knowexactly how you do it.
We, it was interesting'causeyou'd, you'd think that the pole
would be much more square, um,squared back for a lot of it,
but you are accelerating downwaves.
Yeah.
So like our average speed waswhat it was.
But I think you need forgivenessin waves and.
(22:51):
You sail a boat completelydifferent in flat water than you
would, you know, polars aredifferent.
We could never sail the polarsthat, that were provided to us.
There's zero chance of likesquaring that far back and
sailing that deep because youjust become too unstable every
time a wave goes underneath you.
Okay, got it.
And, and Spinnaker stay saildoesn't help that.
(23:11):
It does not help that, no.
So, I mean, we, we've, wethought about a little bit about
putting the GS up.
But it's so small.
I'm like, it's not gonna doanything like it, it's just not
gonna do anything.
So we just didn't Go ahead.
I don't, I don't, I don't, Idon't know that you need a
spinnaker stale, um, but youalways bring a drifter, which
(23:31):
kind of does double duty.
Sure.
If you really needed it to.
Sure.
Um, sure.
If you gotta have a drifter, Iwould guess.
I would think maybe like a, somesort of ideal design spinnaker
stay sale on a furler.
So that you could just, youknow, zip it out and zip it back
in.
I mean, that would probably bepretty ideal, but maybe not on a
Cal 40.
Yeah.
(23:51):
I, I don't know.
And, and all of our STAs were onfurlough.
Okay.
We had one furlough Okay.
Used for all the STAs, so theywere all on a furlough.
Copy that.
So the one sale that you've leftout is really the money sale, as
you called it.
It was glamor.
Tell us about that one.
Um, we had, we, we, we reallyused three spinnaker the entire
time.
We put up a shy reaching kitefor like, I don't know, two
(24:14):
hours.
That was a borrowed sale offanother Cal 40.
Um, we didn't use it for verylong.
It was just sort of the bridgebetween the jib top and putting
up the, the running kites.
And we put it up and we're like,this isn't very good.
This is under width.
Screw this.
And we're like, let's put up thebig shit.
So we put up the big shit.
Um, one of the sails I built forthe boat was an S two.
(24:37):
Um, that was a nice sail.
Um, we built it like, kind of asan offshore S two, so it's not
overkill, but it's, it's alittle gruer to go up range if
you needed it to.
But also, you know, the boats,she's, she's not gonna do
another trans back, we don'tthink so.
(24:58):
It has to be the sales she'sgonna use for stuff like hot
rums and some other stuff.
Uh, local San Diego races.
Um.
And so that, that's kind of the,the all purpose light medium
kite.
And then the other sale that weactually ended up using a heap
load was the S four, which was ahand me down from Rob and omi.
(25:20):
Um, and it was just a gruyrunner that you could abuse and
we, we did try and abuse it.
Um, it'll be the only sale thatI think.
After the whole race needs tocome back into the loft because
our one incident was, um, youknow, miraculously we had like
no breakdowns the entire time.
(25:41):
We, we bent a jib track on therail because a sheet got caught
under it.
Big deal.
It's like, you know, he didn'tbeat it back into shape.
Um, and the only other thingthat happened was we had an
after guy come off of a winch.
During our first squall, and sothe pole went flying forward.
It loosened the four guy and itwent way up in the air.
(26:03):
Oh.
And it was like, oh boy.
Everyone on deck got on deck.
And, um, our four guy system wasnot perfectly engineered.
And so we're like, wow, we gottaadd a little bit of.
We gotta re-engineer it.
So we had to work on the fourguy system the next day.
Um, and to do that with what wehad on board.
(26:25):
You know, you're alwayscobbling, spares and stuff
together, but you don't know,you can't plan for every
eventuality.
No you can't.
And so I actually ended upstealing the rope outta the
lough of our Genoa sta hold torework the four guy system.
It was a piece of spectrum.
I'm like, well, I think that'llwork.
(26:45):
Took that cut another chunk ofspectra out of our, basically
our, one of our, our third beefline that was also our spare
hallard.
Um, took a bit of tail, youknow, tail out of that and was
like, okay, we're gonna usethese to cobbled a new, new four
guy system together.
And, but that took the gentaoutta the equations.
I'm like, it doesn't have arough rope.
We're not putting that back up.
Yeah.
(27:05):
Right.
And, and Scotty Dalen from SD 1Drigging did.
Did, I mean, everything that Isaw that he was doing, he, you
know, knew shrouds andeverything else and looked like
when I was checking out theboat.
I mean, the boat is justabsolutely tits.
I mean, it's so cherry, but Iwas noticing like nice rigging,
you know, the boat looked, therig looked super clean on that
(27:26):
boat.
Um, and I, I just, I have tothink that Scotty did a great
job with all this stuff.
He really did.
Um, he, he was phenomenal.
The rope package is perfect.
We, we wanted for nothing onthat front.
Um, and I'm gonna give himanother shout out here, the four
guy system in engineering, hehad nothing to do with that.
(27:46):
So I'm not fitting that one onhim at all.
That's, that's awesome.
Um, yeah.
Uh, so take us aboard sailingthe boat just a little bit.
So, you know, I know youraverage speed was, was, you know
what it was, but like when youguys had breeze, you know, how
fast did you get that thinggoing?
Top speed, um, was obviouslydown Moloka channel.
(28:07):
We had good breeze down Molokai,um, and, and uh, top speed was
Greg Reynolds in like a 28 knotpuff.
Um, and it was 14 six, Ibelieve.
I, I was gonna guess 14.
So yeah, it was like mid 14.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(28:28):
And then there were, there werea few times.
Over various parts of the race,even when it wasn't super windy
where you just set up just righton a wave and like a couple of
us got well into the thirteens,mid to high thirteens we're like
you, you'd hit one of those andyou're like.
It felt like falling off a log,but it, you did it and you're
like, and then you drop backdown to eight, you're like, what
(28:51):
the hell?
I know, I know.
What just happened?
Did we break the rig?
The boat would just, the boatwould just take off on some of
these waves and just go downlike a surfboard.
Wow.
I mean, listen, that, that's themagic of that, of those boats
and they got all this buoyancyforward.
Yeah.
So you're never worried aboutstuffing it.
Yeah.
It just kind of floats outthere.
(29:12):
So we left, we left the forwardhatch open for so much of the
race.
Really?
Because you just didn't have toworry about water pouring in.
Yeah.
Oh, that's great.
Yeah, it was awesome.
So Eric, Eric and I weretexting, you know, at various
times.
I mean, am I allowed to saythat?
Were you cheating?
Um, no, I, that was, you know,starlink has changed the game
for everybody.
Yeah, it has.
And it's one of those thingswhere everybody's gonna be doing
(29:37):
it.
Yep.
There's no policing.
Remember in the old days whenyou weren't allowed to stack
sales, but everyone did itanyway?
Yeah.
They decided, you know what?
Screw it.
We're gonna let'em do that.
Right.
I mean, they, they've evenchanged the rules for this
where, um, you know, before youcould only access publicly
available weather forecasts, youcan actually now pay for a
(29:59):
meteorologist as long as thatguy is offered to work for
everybody, even if it's a paidsubscription.
Hmm.
Um, we, that wasn't in ourbudget.
We didn't do that.
Um, would it have been nice tohave Chris Bedford or somebody
phenomenal to do our routing andsend us exactly what to do every
day?
Sure.
But didn't have it.
(30:20):
We didn't have that.
And, and you, and you guys had agame plan.
Anyway, so what, what I wasgonna say is because you guys
were getting right down to it,and I think I woke up really
early one morning and.
I was looking, I'm like, holyshit.
Like they are, if they'relooking like they're gonna do
it.
And I, I'm like, Hey, hey, heyEric, what's it like?
And he goes, everything's greatexcept it's blowing 25.
(30:40):
And like, we got a fucking jive.
Like I could just feel, I couldjust feel the tension.
I could feel the clenching like,oh God, I mean, don't, please
don't let us lose the race withsome shit jibe that, that we, I,
we managed to pull off.
But you guys totally, you guysmanaged to pull it off and you
were doing double pole jives,correct.
Yeah.
(31:01):
Um, so we had a couple oldschool, Cal, you know, the Cal
40 people?
Cal 40 group.
Yeah.
And like the knowledge base ofhaving, having sailed people
sailing these boats for 60 yearsdoing this race, like you don't
lose that data.
Um, it's freely available and.
(31:22):
And they're happy to talk aboutit and help work you through it.
So, you know, we did a bunch oftraining and stuff before the
race did Islands race.
Um, we did some stuff but wedidn't, like, we borrowed a
second pole and, and so the twopole js were a thing.
Um, we.
Uh, our poles were slightlydifferent'cause one was borrowed
(31:45):
and one was bought.
And so we bought this pole andit came off of a bigger boat.
And so we had to shorten it.
And now he's like, what do wecut it to?
And I'm like, I want thisnumber.
And so I gave her a number.
We rated for that, and thenshe's like, okay, we're getting
the second pole to, you know,borrow.
And it was like, I don't know,six inches shorter.
Oh, well here's what it's, yeah,right.
Figures can't be choosers.
(32:06):
We're stoked.
So we bought this other pole,but I'm like, well, you know,
for the bulk of the racer onstarboard early on.
So I put the long pole there andsaid, we're we gotta just
maximize while we're here in theslot car zone?
Sure.
So then we had to, like thefirst job that we came out of,
I'm like, well, the ge, the waythe gear was set, we had two,
(32:27):
four guys and that was the polethat was gonna ultimately move
to the port side.
So it.
First jab was just a dip pull,um, you know, just like a far 40
or something.
And it was daytime easy, noproblem, no drama.
Um, and those were the jabs thatwe sort of ever practiced with
and raced with.
Previously, we'd never done adouble pull j and so the double
(32:50):
pull jab you, you basicallyjust, you hook the af new after
guy in, and right before youjive you just, you got two
dongles on the mast and.
Before you jive, you just sendthat topping, lift up, and as
the boom's coming across, youtrip the other one away and then
you bring that pole on deck.
(33:11):
And man, those things are soeasy.
Like I was the only guy up atthe front of the boat and I'm
doing'em by myself and it was soeasy.
It was really nice.
Wow.
Um, so very controlled.
Did you guys, did you guys dothat when it was blowing?
Like is that when you went tothose Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, we did those for the wholeremain of the race.
We did a total of six tribes forthe whole race, whole race.
(33:33):
We did one, one dip pole andfive, um, double poles.
We did four tags and six tribesthe entire time.
It was like, and, and you sailed150 miles less than any other
boat in the race.
Yeah.
But we, I'll tell you like,that's the other part though is,
you know, if you got the poleand the ability to kind of
(33:54):
square and manipulate a littlebit, yeah.
You don't necessarily have tojive on a, on a five, 10 degrees
shift because you can justadjust a little bit.
So, you know, on a strip boat,you can't do that.
If you're on a 52 and it goes 10degrees, you're like, we gotta
capitalize on this.
Yeah.
Because we're pointed 15 degreesthe wrong way now.
Right.
(34:14):
So.
You just sail the boat sodifferently.
Um, and I think being true to,and that goes to a 52 as well,
like you gotta sail that boatlike it's meant to be sailed.
You gotta sail this boat likeit's meant to be sailed.
Sail sled the same way.
So.
You gotta say, be true to theway that your boat sails.
Don't look around and justthink, oh, I gotta do that, I
(34:35):
gotta do that.
Like, it's not keeping up withthe Joneses, it's just being,
being your own best.
It's, yeah, it's keeping up withthe Cal 40.
That's, that's what it's doing.
You know?
And I mean, I just love, and I,and I got that vibe, you know,
as we, as we chatted and youknow, and I, I read what you
said, you know, you obviouslyhad some, I mean, Greg Reynolds,
Steven Driscoll.
Um, yourself, you know, uh,Ali's a a good sailor and I
(34:58):
don't know much about Graham,but, um, you know, you had a
nice core of people and I just,it, it felt like you guys had, I
don't think it felt like, Ithink this is just true.
You guys had a plan.
You stuck to it.
Stuck to it, and you know, damnif it didn't work.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's pretty much the way itwent down.
I know.
(35:18):
It's, so how was life on board?
So what, by the way, how many,uh, what was your elapsed time?
Um, 12 days, 13 hours orsomething like that.
12 doesn't change.
Uh, god knows I, we got plentyof, uh, snack and food updates,
and I love how you threw Gregunder the bus about 900 times
(35:39):
for just like being a, the snackfiend on board.
Um, he is.
Was that surprising?
Like, dude, no, not at all.
Um, you know, when.
And Allie first bought the boat,like, you know, she, she, she
bought the boat and she's like,I'm gonna do Transpac.
And, you know, she, her cousinGraham, they've done multiple
(36:01):
trans packs together.
Um, and so he was an obviouschoice and I was, I was always
begging her.
I'm like, listen, we're doingTranspac.
And then she's like, okay, okay,we're gonna do it.
And she's like, we'll do it in,you know.
Kicked the can down.
She was gonna kept trying tokick the can down the road.
I'm like, Nope, we're going nextyear for two years from now.
(36:21):
So it was kind of a two yearprogram and, uh, and I'm like,
Nope, we're going in 25.
And she's like, okay.
So boat got all tickled.
Um, and she goes, who else arewe taking?
And I go, well, I'm not sailingto Hawaii without Steven
Driscoll.
Like he, I mean, they've been,they, they recently got married.
Um, they've been dating and.
(36:42):
For decades at this point.
Okay.
So, uh, but Steven Driscoll agreat friend of mine and he's
one of those guys just quiet,works hard and he, he obviously
of the Driscoll family knowsboats like nobody else.
And he was an integral part oflike, totally redoing this boat.
(37:03):
And I go, if, if something goeswrong out there, like some gum
engine thing that.
That's not the rest of us.
We need Steven.
I'm like, I ain't going if he'snot going, so.
Mm-hmm.
Hey, it's the Sailing AnarchyPodcast with me, your host,
Scott Tempesta.
Uh, I don't have any of my hokeybed music.
Which, you know, really sucks asthey say in the industry.
I've, I've gotta come on cold.
So no sound effects, nocrickets, no Wawa, none of that.
None of that.
(00:21):
It's just me, but not just me.
Today we got a really, reallygood episode and I'm really
looking forward to this.
Um, one of my better buddies, Imean, he might be my only buddy,
uh, in the sailing scene is aguy named Eric Heim.
Uh, those of you in SoCal knowEric and to know him is to, you
know, mostly love him.
I think for the most part.
(00:42):
Uh, he works for Quantum SanDiego and uh, it's just an all
around good dude.
And he did something.
Well, he's part of something,let's say that, I don't want to
give him too much credit, but hewas on board the Cal 40 Restless
that just won the um.
Uh, LA to Hawaii race, thatwould be the Transpac 2025.
They didn't win just class.
(01:03):
They won overall.
And I mean, it's quite a feat.
There's nobody that's nottalking about this, you know, in
like, oh my God.
Well, how did, how did they doit?
So I'm, I'm just gonna cut rightto the chase.
Hey Eric, how'd you do it?
Um, you know, uh, it's a greatquestion.
Uh, I still don't even knowexactly how it was.
(01:27):
It was really good planning overthe years.
Certainly we got lucky, but Iwould say one of the biggest
contributing factors, you know,in offshore racing is the
people, right?
So we had a solid team, um, andif you look at our track.
We sailed like 150 miles lessthan the next boat.
And on a Cal 40, that's justwhat you have to do.
(01:50):
And it, it took everybody on theteam to be just super diligent
about respecting the fact thatlike, gotta point the ballot,
Hawaii, gotta keep, keep an eyeon performance of the boat and
not go reaching around thecourse for like speed and fun.
Um, and so everybody just being,buying in to like.
(02:10):
This is how we're gonna sail andsticking with it for 12 and a
half days, that that's how wewon.
So instead of speed and fun, youhad slow and no fun.
We had lots of fun.
I know you did.
Yeah.
Anybody who followed along onsocial media knows we had a
pretty good time.
Yeah, you guys did have a goodtime.
And, and Eric was kind enough tosend us a few of the articles,
(02:31):
which we, which we dutifully ranon sailing anarchy.
Um, so it's funny, I was gonnalike, go, so are you a watch
captain?
But then I realized, you know,you guys only sailed with five.
So it looks to me that virtuallyeverybody had to do everything
to some degree, right.
Yeah, I mean for sure, like, youknow, everybody drove, we had a,
you know, it was just a rotatingthing.
(02:52):
You were two hours on, threehours off, which was actually
really nice.
'cause two hours on deck's easy,even when it's like kind of
shitty out.
Um, and three hours off isenough that you get pretty good
rest breaks.
Um, so timing wise, it workedreally well.
You'd come on deck.
You were kind of like in trimand boat setup mode and you
(03:17):
know, if anything needed to bemoved around, whatever, um, and
sort of just help the driver outa little bit.
Keep him on the instruments and,you know, talking through stuff
that was happening.
And then, um, your second hourwas you jump on the, on the
helm.
Drive with a tiller, which iscool.
Um, but yeah, you just drive foran hour and then you had an off
(03:41):
watch.
So from that perspective, itworked really well.
Um, and everybody had somedifferent strengths on board.
And um, you know, our navigatorwas Graham Bell, Ally's cousin.
Uh, he did a great job.
I think one of the interestingthings though is like I.
Historically, everyone's like,oh, navigating transpac.
(04:03):
It's become much more of acollaborative process than I
think it ever used to be, justwith all the technology and like
the fact that you can look atreal time, which was new this
year of like where everyone is.
Um, and I think it changes thegame a little bit.
I liked it a lot better thanbeing beholden to going down,
talking to the navigator, beinglike, Hey.
(04:24):
Where are we, how are we doing?
You know?
Right, right.
The information's there, and soit allowed really, Allie,
Graham, and myself to just sortof pow wow and have good chats
and like stay on it and, and,and all be on the same page all,
all the time.
Y you know, and, and on thewatch systems, by the way.
(04:45):
So it was one person up at atime.
Uh, well, no two people on deck,but.
Okay, so two people up and twopeople down.
Right.
Three down.
Three down.
That's right.
You had five.
Okay.
Five.
Yeah.
It, it's interesting to hearthat about the collaborativeness
of, of this, of the pro, thenavigation process and you know,
(05:06):
I think the last, I mean, JesusChrist, I'm old, but I think the
last trans back I did.
Was on the Santa Cruz 52pressure cooker, and I was in
like these 94 maybe.
And you know, and every, everyone I, every long distance race
I'd done before that, it waslike.
Hey, navigator, how are wedoing?
(05:26):
Like, where are we?
Like what do we think aboutwind?
And that kind of stuff.
And it was like, you know, it,it was all on the guru.
And, and if the guru wasn'tactually a guru, then you were
pretty much fucked.
Um, yeah.
And, and so, you know, that'sinteresting to hear.
And I, I did like, and I'm sureyou guys liked, and I bet every
boat liked the fact that it,everything was, was real time.
(05:46):
I mean, that was, I think that'sway better, don't you?
I do too.
I mean, it made it feel like.
A small boat race.
It was no different than goingout and racing in Ethel's
weekend.
You're like, you knew whereeveryone was.
You could see how they weregoing.
Um, I mean, dude, we, we roundedthe west end of Catalina and we
(06:07):
saw a couple competitors formaybe, I don't know if we even
saw anybody on day two.
And we never saw anothersailboat until we pulled into
aoi.
You're kidding.
No, we saw one light one nightof, we think it was Groundhog
Day.
But again, we were sailing suchdifferent angles.
(06:28):
Yeah.
That these guys were just sortof zigzagging around around us.
And if they were five miles offand it was dark, you just didn't
see'em.
Y you know, and I, I wasobviously following you guys,
you know, rabidly and, um, andI, you know, I saw you guys, you
got out of the blocks in goodshape.
Your whole fleet, your wholeclass, I should say.
Got out of there with pressureand, you know, I, I was kind of
(06:51):
waiting for you guys to hit somesort of odd hole.
Or some big lightning phase thatgenerally happens relatively
early on in this race and it, itjust didn't happen.
I mean, I'm like, holy shit,these guys have had breeze.
Like literally the, I know itgot lighter, but like, it never
really shut off as far as Icould tell.
And it looked like you guys justgot launched with Breeze and it
(07:12):
never really ended.
Is that, is that accurate?
It's pretty accurate.
Um, you know, they're all, alltrans facts are a little
different.
This is my fourth one, but, um.
This one felt, I mean, two yearsago was, was atypical for sure.
This one was a much more typicaltranspac.
Um, but yeah, it's always alottery, right?
(07:35):
The start date thing.
Of course, we started on thefirst, the fast guys started on
July 5th.
So there's nothing you can do.
You're, you're gonna have adifferent experience.
Yep.
And different weather.
And that's why the rating systemchanged this year.
Um.
I am not gonna lie, I wasskeptical about the change in
the rating system this year.
I'm like, oh, let's see how thatplays out.
(07:56):
Um, now I'm obviously a huge fanof it Now.
What was, what was the change?
Eric, can you explain, explainto people what that change was?
Yeah, so the change is,previously they had, they've
spread the start dates out for,for a number of years now
because they just, they havesuch dissimilar boat speeds and
you can't have people sittingaround in Hawaii for three
(08:18):
weeks.
Um.
So what they used to do was theywould take a 20 year average of
transpac, whether you know whatit had been, and average it out.
And then the boats were rated onunder or R on that format.
And it was kind of a luck of thedraw on when your start date
(08:39):
was.
If you had a good start date,things were gonna be good.
If you had a bad start date, youwere not gonna win overall.
So what they did this year wasthey changed it.
And they gave, I don't rememberif it was 24 or 72 hours before
each start date, they ran theweather models, ran the VPPs
through ORR and said, okay, thisis projected what this boat
(09:03):
should do this year under theseconditions.
And it was basically like, couldyou fail at or above or near
your potential?
And that was, that was it.
So I think.
And you know, there's, there's afew things that will always
apply.
You'll never win overall if youdon't, if you don't win your
start date.
Yeah.
You still have to win your date.
(09:25):
Yeah.
So that was kind of.
Goal one is win your day.
And that gives you theopportunity.
And by the way, you did, Jesusdecides, you know what, what
you're getting on that day.
You don't decide, right?
Nope.
You can pick the day or you canpick the weather, but you can't
pick both.
Um, so and so then, how did thatmanifest itself in just in terms
(09:47):
of, you know, the handicapprocess, corrected times, time
owed, allowed, all that sort ofstuff.
I mean, I think overall itworked out pretty well given
there were people from the day,two starters, definitely seemed
to have gotten, they, they hadthe worst conditions.
Yes, they did.
They had the worst start by, byfar.
And, and so just ignoring themfor one second, like you had
(10:12):
boats from the first start dateand the third start date, all
like right there, and the finalstanding's all very tight.
So I think conceptually itprobably worked out really well.
Um, this is a Stan Honey idea,so anybody who knows Stan and,
and his pedigree knows it'sprobably a really good idea.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and a probably a more fairway to run it.
(10:35):
I think, you know, from where Isit, it, like thinking about it
for the, the day two guys, ifyou have, you know, the worst
weather, it's also hardest foryou.
To get through those bad spots.
And so if you're racing againstyour, you know, performance
(10:55):
potential, it's a harder hill toclimb to be at that higher
percentage over those poorconditions.
Right, right.
Um, you know, the fast boats,they, when it's windy, they haul
butt.
When it's light, they don't.
We kind of just go the samespeed no matter what.
(11:17):
No, every, every time I looked,you were go.
I mean, I, I'm trying to thinkof the right number, but let's
just say you were going 7.9knots, like, uh, yeah, it was
like 7, 7 3, 7, 4 was, and, andthat was, you know.
Stan Honey, speaking of himagain, um, he was instrumental
for us, uh, as far as justgiving us some like, I mean,
(11:38):
he's, he's never won the transpack to Hawaii, I don't believe,
but he is won multiple PacificCups, multiple single handed
trans packs, and he is obviouslywon multiple trans packs on
other boats.
And so he gave us a bit of acookbook on like, here's what
you do.
I'd say the number oneoverarching thing that we did
was like, he goes, if you'regoing seven knots, you better be
(12:00):
pointed at the island.
Otherwise you're just giving itaway.
Mm-hmm.
And so we just stuck to that.
Like, if you're going sevenknots, you're going there.
So our speed was like seven,four the whole time.
You know, it, it was remarkablyconsistent.
I'll, I'll give you that.
And you know, there probablyweren't any real highs to sort
of get, um, and certainly itcertainly pointing the bow up on
(12:21):
Cal 40 ain't gonna buy you allthat much.
Um, and so did you have to beaton everybody or did everybody
have to beat on everybody?
Like dude.
Pull the pullback a little bit.
Like, we're going too fast,we're going too high.
Was that, was that a constantrefrain on the boat?
Um, most, most of the team wasreally just pretty diligent
about it.
And it wasn't, it wasn't likeyou were yelling at people, um,
(12:44):
but you'd feel the boat rock upa little bit once in a while and
you're like, are we sailing toohigh or was that a wave?
Yeah, generally it was a wave.
I mean, we put a new rudder onthe boat.
Uh, not long before the start,the boat had a one of the Carl
Schumacher rudders, which werequite good.
Um, but then it was suggested tous that maybe we take it a step
(13:05):
further and we put it an evendeeper rudder on.
Um, and we used, we put bar, uh,we put bearings in, so modified
Brad Fitzgerald modified theboat and put some.
Put rudder bearings in the boat.
Didn't originally have rudderbearings when they were built 58
years ago.
Smart.
Yeah.
Smart.
Who designed the rudder?
Um, so this rudder was built by,uh, brownie up at Phos Foam.
(13:28):
Mm-hmm.
Um, big shout out to him, man.
Like, you know, he got it to us.
He time for a way better pricethan, uh, going to some of the
other ones that another Cal 40.
Has done and was completelyunaffordable.
Oh really?
Yeah.
So yeah, I mean some, somebodyelse put like a$25,000 carbon
(13:51):
rudder on a boat and we kind oflooked at that rudder and said,
well, it looks sort of like thismold that Brownie had kicking
around.
I think it was from like an IMX40 and we're like, let's try
that.
We threw that on.
I love, I love it.
That one looks about right.
Let's do that.
It was totally a, that looksabout right, dude.
I love that.
That's, you know, that's prettymuch all I've ever been able to
(14:11):
do is like, yeah, this feelsabout right.
That looks about right.
I don't, you know, anythingelse, you know, uh, logic,
reason or technical, eh, I don'tknow.
I just know it feels right or itdoesn't feel right.
Um, let's talk a little bitabout sailing the Cal 40.
So.
You know, I had, when I wasgrowing up, my parents had a Cal
29, which was kind of like amini 40 in a lot of ways.
All the Lapworth boats, youknow, of that era all had, you
(14:35):
know, you know, you've got a Cal34, I don't have to tell you,
but, and I've sailed on the cala Cal 40 before, and you know,
there, there.
They're great and they're fuckedat the same time.
And, but you know, everybodyknows that downwind is, you
know, where they, they're just afaster boat downwind than they
are upwind.
And so tell me a little bitabout some of the techniques you
(14:57):
guys used, um, go into, if youcan, just a little bit about,
you know, your sail inventory,what, what was fast, what
wasn't, um, those sort ofthings.
Yeah.
Um, so it was cool, like, youknow, we didn't have an
unlimited budget at all.
We're, we're not that program.
Yeah.
Um, and so it, everything wasjust sort of, how do we do this?
(15:20):
The best is possible withoutcutting corners that were gonna
matter, but really maximizingevery dollar we spent.
Um, and so the sale inventory isdefinitely one of those things.
And, you know, that's, that'swhat I do.
So I, I enjoyed it.
And Allie, Allie gave me, shenever, she never said.
You can't do that.
(15:41):
Um, so she was really, reallyhelpful with that.
But I also, you know, we're allfriends and we all know, like
we're trying to pull this off.
And so we, we were really smartabout some stuff where we built
two new sails for the boattotal.
We built a new number one Genoathat we just, I mean, we, we
did, we kind of needed one.
Uh, when she bought the boat, ithad a sale that I built.
(16:04):
25 years ago when I was juststarting out sail making.
And I was like, oh yeah, she gotthe boat.
And I'm like, I rememberbuilding that Genoa.
She's like, oh my God.
So that thing kind of, kind ofdied on us last year, and I'm
like, we need a genoa.
She's like, all right.
So poi up, built a nice Genoa.
Um, and that, that it's been agreat sale, phenomenal sale.
(16:26):
Um, the guys at North, uh, builta main sale for another Cal 40
and.
They made it black instead ofgray.
And the guy was like, I don'twant it, I don't want it a gray
sale.
And so Allie called me up, she'slike, Hey, they, they have this
sale kicking around.
Never been up.
I can get it for X number ofdollars.
(16:47):
And I'm like, I looked at math.
I'm like, yeah, you're buyingthat.
Like, I can't, I can't build youa sale for that.
So yeah, let's, let's do that.
So we got a really nice Maine,um.
It's not exactly what I would'vebuilt, but it was one of those
things where I'm like, yeah, itwas crazy not to.
So that's a good sale.
Um, and then moving on fromthere, like we knew we needed a
(17:10):
jib top.
And, and there were a few sailthat I'd just sort of cobbled
together and recut, like theboat came with like a really old
Watts Dacron number two.
Yeah.
And I go, I go, we need a blastreaching sail.
And we'd done some training andstuff and some heavier sailing
and we're like looking at sailcharts from Stan and like, we
(17:31):
need a blast reacher.
I took this old Dacron sale,recut it into a blast.
Reacher.
We didn't end up bringing on therace, but we tested with it and
we're like, well, if it's gonnabe windy, it's coming.
So we had stuff like that.
Um, we also Rob Walker, who hasNazomi up in the Bay Area.
Yeah.
Uh, he's, you know, Rob, I do.
(17:52):
Great dude.
And.
He's kind of done racing thatboat.
He's done mul, multiple singlehanded trans packs,
double-handed pack cups.
Um, so he had some good usedgear that, uh, we were pretty
happy to pick up at fractions offractions on the, the dollar.
Um, we got a really nice gib topfrom him, which, if you look at
(18:12):
the sale chart is, has thebiggest blot on the sale chart
is the GIB top?
I would think so.
Um, and it's cool, like.
Old masthead boats like this,you, you don't even need a code
zero.
Like it's not, it's notsomething you take, you just
bring a Gib top and a Genoadiesel and you go for it.
Did you guys use thatcombination much?
We did.
(18:33):
You did?
That was a, that was a workhorsecombination.
As soon as we got round the westend, we sailed with the Genoa
for a little bit more thatevening and.
I can't remember if we made itall the way through the night or
if we changed to the jib topthat night.
Yeah.
Now, are you able to, were youable to put a, the Genoa Day
sale inside the regular Genoa orno?
Um, we didn't do that.
(18:55):
We just didn't, we, we were onthe outboard on the rail with
the Genoa for a little bit oftime before we got the JT up,
but it was like.
Once we're on the outboard lead,you go, well, we should probably
just put the Gib top up and youput the Gib top up and you're
like, okay, we're sailing kindof tight with it.
You know?
You also gotta remember theboat's so slow.
(19:17):
It's not creating the apparentwind.
Yeah.
That modern boats create.
Yeah.
And it's so easy to look atmodern boats and be like, oh,
these guys are all tripleheading.
We, we double heading for us iswe have to have things just
right.
You know the old adage of youput a STA up and it gains you a
quarter knot and take it down,it gains you another quarter.
An old boat, it's still true.
(19:38):
So it's easy to try and befashionable, but it ain't always
fast.
So, um, other stale wise, Imean, I know you commented at
some point you're like, whydon't you have a Spinnaker sta
up?
Yeah.
Well, we brought two SpinnakerSTAs and they were both too big.
Really?
They just, we didn't have enoughapparent and they, they blocked
(20:00):
the kite.
Okay.
Make the kite unstable.
And that was slower.
Harder to sail to than just nothaving them.
So if you, if you could have youwith what you know now, if I
said, Hey, Eric, I'm, I'm buyinga California and I'm putting
together a program, you wouldmake it?
No, let's do it Scott.
What's, but you won't go, youwon't go with me, you fucker.
Um, no.
At this, at this point I'mretiring from California to
(20:21):
Hawaii sailing.
Absolutely.
I don't think you can top this.
No.
I could say like, you know,we're shooting the shit on deck
one day.
You know, this and that, andsomehow it came up about
single-handed trans pack.
And I'm like, yeah, I think I,I'd consider a single-handed
trans pack at some point.
She's like, well, this boat'savailable if you ever wanna
borrow it.
I'm like, oh God, don't temptme.
(20:43):
But, um, I think that's the onlyway I'd ever do a California to
Hawaii.
Wouldn't you, wouldn't yourather do double-handed?
I don't think so.
Really?
No.
Wow.
I what?
Yeah.
For some reason, double-handeddoesn't appeal to me as much for
a Hawaii race because like younever actually get to sail with
your friend.
You're just like, Hey, how's itgoing?
(21:04):
See you later.
Like, true, I like thecamaraderie of, of fully crude,
but then like there's that sortof challenge aspect of
single-handed and you know.
The single land trans pack's.
Pretty cool.
I got some friends that have alldone it.
Like it, it's a, it's a brotherand sisterhood for them.
Like for sure you do that.
It's, you know, for sure.
(21:25):
I mean, that, that's a realbadge of honor, you know?
And that takes Totally, you talkabout commitment.
I mean, you're all fucking in onthat.
There's no half ass, I mean, no,because we all know all the
million things that can and mostlikely will go wrong.
So it's, it's all, it's all onyou.
And you know, that's just.
Too much for me.
Um, so back to the And go aheadScott.
Go ahead.
Fun fact, the last three singlehanded trans packs have all been
(21:48):
won by California.
I know.
I, the boats are just friggingremarkable.
And the fact that you guys.
In 2025 just did what you knowyou weren't expected to do.
But everybody who knows CalForty's, were not all that
goddamn surprised, especiallyhow you approached the race, the
(22:08):
way that you sailed there.
You guys were just like rum linedown, down, down, as best you
could.
And so it's really no surpriseto those, those of us who know.
Um, so if, if we were doing a a,a trans pack, you'd make a what?
A, a thin.
A s much smaller, maybe lighterSpinnaker stay sale.
(22:28):
Yeah.
You know, I, I don't even knowexactly how you do it.
We, it was interesting'causeyou'd, you'd think that the pole
would be much more square, um,squared back for a lot of it,
but you are accelerating downwaves.
Yeah.
So like our average speed waswhat it was.
But I think you need forgivenessin waves and.
(22:51):
You sail a boat completelydifferent in flat water than you
would, you know, polars aredifferent.
We could never sail the polarsthat, that were provided to us.
There's zero chance of likesquaring that far back and
sailing that deep because youjust become too unstable every
time a wave goes underneath you.
Okay, got it.
And, and Spinnaker stay saildoesn't help that.
(23:11):
It does not help that, no.
So, I mean, we, we've, wethought about a little bit about
putting the GS up.
But it's so small.
I'm like, it's not gonna doanything like it, it's just not
gonna do anything.
So we just didn't Go ahead.
I don't, I don't, I don't, Idon't know that you need a
spinnaker stale, um, but youalways bring a drifter, which
(23:31):
kind of does double duty.
Sure.
If you really needed it to.
Sure.
Um, sure.
If you gotta have a drifter, Iwould guess.
I would think maybe like a, somesort of ideal design spinnaker
stay sale on a furler.
So that you could just, youknow, zip it out and zip it back
in.
I mean, that would probably bepretty ideal, but maybe not on a
Cal 40.
Yeah.
(23:51):
I, I don't know.
And, and all of our STAs were onfurlough.
Okay.
We had one furlough Okay.
Used for all the STAs, so theywere all on a furlough.
Copy that.
So the one sale that you've leftout is really the money sale, as
you called it.
It was glamor.
Tell us about that one.
Um, we had, we, we, we reallyused three spinnaker the entire
time.
We put up a shy reaching kitefor like, I don't know, two
(24:14):
hours.
That was a borrowed sale offanother Cal 40.
Um, we didn't use it for verylong.
It was just sort of the bridgebetween the jib top and putting
up the, the running kites.
And we put it up and we're like,this isn't very good.
This is under width.
Screw this.
And we're like, let's put up thebig shit.
So we put up the big shit.
Um, one of the sails I built forthe boat was an S two.
(24:37):
Um, that was a nice sail.
Um, we built it like, kind of asan offshore S two, so it's not
overkill, but it's, it's alittle gruer to go up range if
you needed it to.
But also, you know, the boats,she's, she's not gonna do
another trans back, we don'tthink so.
(24:58):
It has to be the sales she'sgonna use for stuff like hot
rums and some other stuff.
Uh, local San Diego races.
Um.
And so that, that's kind of the,the all purpose light medium
kite.
And then the other sale that weactually ended up using a heap
load was the S four, which was ahand me down from Rob and omi.
(25:20):
Um, and it was just a gruyrunner that you could abuse and
we, we did try and abuse it.
Um, it'll be the only sale thatI think.
After the whole race needs tocome back into the loft because
our one incident was, um, youknow, miraculously we had like
no breakdowns the entire time.
(25:41):
We, we bent a jib track on therail because a sheet got caught
under it.
Big deal.
It's like, you know, he didn'tbeat it back into shape.
Um, and the only other thingthat happened was we had an
after guy come off of a winch.
During our first squall, and sothe pole went flying forward.
It loosened the four guy and itwent way up in the air.
(26:03):
Oh.
And it was like, oh boy.
Everyone on deck got on deck.
And, um, our four guy system wasnot perfectly engineered.
And so we're like, wow, we gottaadd a little bit of.
We gotta re-engineer it.
So we had to work on the fourguy system the next day.
Um, and to do that with what wehad on board.
(26:25):
You know, you're alwayscobbling, spares and stuff
together, but you don't know,you can't plan for every
eventuality.
No you can't.
And so I actually ended upstealing the rope outta the
lough of our Genoa sta hold torework the four guy system.
It was a piece of spectrum.
I'm like, well, I think that'llwork.
(26:45):
Took that cut another chunk ofspectra out of our, basically
our, one of our, our third beefline that was also our spare
hallard.
Um, took a bit of tail, youknow, tail out of that and was
like, okay, we're gonna usethese to cobbled a new, new four
guy system together.
And, but that took the gentaoutta the equations.
I'm like, it doesn't have arough rope.
We're not putting that back up.
Yeah.
(27:05):
Right.
And, and Scotty Dalen from SD 1Drigging did.
Did, I mean, everything that Isaw that he was doing, he, you
know, knew shrouds andeverything else and looked like
when I was checking out theboat.
I mean, the boat is justabsolutely tits.
I mean, it's so cherry, but Iwas noticing like nice rigging,
you know, the boat looked, therig looked super clean on that
(27:26):
boat.
Um, and I, I just, I have tothink that Scotty did a great
job with all this stuff.
He really did.
Um, he, he was phenomenal.
The rope package is perfect.
We, we wanted for nothing onthat front.
Um, and I'm gonna give himanother shout out here, the four
guy system in engineering, hehad nothing to do with that.
(27:46):
So I'm not fitting that one onhim at all.
That's, that's awesome.
Um, yeah.
Uh, so take us aboard sailingthe boat just a little bit.
So, you know, I know youraverage speed was, was, you know
what it was, but like when youguys had breeze, you know, how
fast did you get that thinggoing?
Top speed, um, was obviouslydown Moloka channel.
(28:07):
We had good breeze down Molokai,um, and, and uh, top speed was
Greg Reynolds in like a 28 knotpuff.
Um, and it was 14 six, Ibelieve.
I, I was gonna guess 14.
So yeah, it was like mid 14.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(28:28):
And then there were, there werea few times.
Over various parts of the race,even when it wasn't super windy
where you just set up just righton a wave and like a couple of
us got well into the thirteens,mid to high thirteens we're like
you, you'd hit one of those andyou're like.
It felt like falling off a log,but it, you did it and you're
like, and then you drop backdown to eight, you're like, what
(28:51):
the hell?
I know, I know.
What just happened?
Did we break the rig?
The boat would just, the boatwould just take off on some of
these waves and just go downlike a surfboard.
Wow.
I mean, listen, that, that's themagic of that, of those boats
and they got all this buoyancyforward.
Yeah.
So you're never worried aboutstuffing it.
Yeah.
It just kind of floats outthere.
(29:12):
So we left, we left the forwardhatch open for so much of the
race.
Really?
Because you just didn't have toworry about water pouring in.
Yeah.
Oh, that's great.
Yeah, it was awesome.
So Eric, Eric and I weretexting, you know, at various
times.
I mean, am I allowed to saythat?
Were you cheating?
Um, no, I, that was, you know,starlink has changed the game
for everybody.
Yeah, it has.
And it's one of those thingswhere everybody's gonna be doing
(29:37):
it.
Yep.
There's no policing.
Remember in the old days whenyou weren't allowed to stack
sales, but everyone did itanyway?
Yeah.
They decided, you know what?
Screw it.
We're gonna let'em do that.
Right.
I mean, they, they've evenchanged the rules for this
where, um, you know, before youcould only access publicly
available weather forecasts, youcan actually now pay for a
(29:59):
meteorologist as long as thatguy is offered to work for
everybody, even if it's a paidsubscription.
Hmm.
Um, we, that wasn't in ourbudget.
We didn't do that.
Um, would it have been nice tohave Chris Bedford or somebody
phenomenal to do our routing andsend us exactly what to do every
day?
Sure.
But didn't have it.
(30:20):
We didn't have that.
And, and you, and you guys had agame plan.
Anyway, so what, what I wasgonna say is because you guys
were getting right down to it,and I think I woke up really
early one morning and.
I was looking, I'm like, holyshit.
Like they are, if they'relooking like they're gonna do
it.
And I, I'm like, Hey, hey, heyEric, what's it like?
And he goes, everything's greatexcept it's blowing 25.
(30:40):
And like, we got a fucking jive.
Like I could just feel, I couldjust feel the tension.
I could feel the clenching like,oh God, I mean, don't, please
don't let us lose the race withsome shit jibe that, that we, I,
we managed to pull off.
But you guys totally, you guysmanaged to pull it off and you
were doing double pole jives,correct.
Yeah.
(31:01):
Um, so we had a couple oldschool, Cal, you know, the Cal
40 people?
Cal 40 group.
Yeah.
And like the knowledge base ofhaving, having sailed people
sailing these boats for 60 yearsdoing this race, like you don't
lose that data.
Um, it's freely available and.
(31:22):
And they're happy to talk aboutit and help work you through it.
So, you know, we did a bunch oftraining and stuff before the
race did Islands race.
Um, we did some stuff but wedidn't, like, we borrowed a
second pole and, and so the twopole js were a thing.
Um, we.
Uh, our poles were slightlydifferent'cause one was borrowed
(31:45):
and one was bought.
And so we bought this pole andit came off of a bigger boat.
And so we had to shorten it.
And now he's like, what do wecut it to?
And I'm like, I want thisnumber.
And so I gave her a number.
We rated for that, and thenshe's like, okay, we're getting
the second pole to, you know,borrow.
And it was like, I don't know,six inches shorter.
Oh, well here's what it's, yeah,right.
Figures can't be choosers.
(32:06):
We're stoked.
So we bought this other pole,but I'm like, well, you know,
for the bulk of the racer onstarboard early on.
So I put the long pole there andsaid, we're we gotta just
maximize while we're here in theslot car zone?
Sure.
So then we had to, like thefirst job that we came out of,
I'm like, well, the ge, the waythe gear was set, we had two,
(32:27):
four guys and that was the polethat was gonna ultimately move
to the port side.
So it.
First jab was just a dip pull,um, you know, just like a far 40
or something.
And it was daytime easy, noproblem, no drama.
Um, and those were the jabs thatwe sort of ever practiced with
and raced with.
Previously, we'd never done adouble pull j and so the double
(32:50):
pull jab you, you basicallyjust, you hook the af new after
guy in, and right before youjive you just, you got two
dongles on the mast and.
Before you jive, you just sendthat topping, lift up, and as
the boom's coming across, youtrip the other one away and then
you bring that pole on deck.
(33:11):
And man, those things are soeasy.
Like I was the only guy up atthe front of the boat and I'm
doing'em by myself and it was soeasy.
It was really nice.
Wow.
Um, so very controlled.
Did you guys, did you guys dothat when it was blowing?
Like is that when you went tothose Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, we did those for the wholeremain of the race.
We did a total of six tribes forthe whole race, whole race.
(33:33):
We did one, one dip pole andfive, um, double poles.
We did four tags and six tribesthe entire time.
It was like, and, and you sailed150 miles less than any other
boat in the race.
Yeah.
But we, I'll tell you like,that's the other part though is,
you know, if you got the poleand the ability to kind of
(33:54):
square and manipulate a littlebit, yeah.
You don't necessarily have tojive on a, on a five, 10 degrees
shift because you can justadjust a little bit.
So, you know, on a strip boat,you can't do that.
If you're on a 52 and it goes 10degrees, you're like, we gotta
capitalize on this.
Yeah.
Because we're pointed 15 degreesthe wrong way now.
Right.
(34:14):
So.
You just sail the boat sodifferently.
Um, and I think being true to,and that goes to a 52 as well,
like you gotta sail that boatlike it's meant to be sailed.
You gotta sail this boat likeit's meant to be sailed.
Sail sled the same way.
So.
You gotta say, be true to theway that your boat sails.
Don't look around and justthink, oh, I gotta do that, I
(34:35):
gotta do that.
Like, it's not keeping up withthe Joneses, it's just being,
being your own best.
It's, yeah, it's keeping up withthe Cal 40.
That's, that's what it's doing.
You know?
And I mean, I just love, and I,and I got that vibe, you know,
as we, as we chatted and youknow, and I, I read what you
said, you know, you obviouslyhad some, I mean, Greg Reynolds,
Steven Driscoll.
Um, yourself, you know, uh,Ali's a a good sailor and I
(34:58):
don't know much about Graham,but, um, you know, you had a
nice core of people and I just,it, it felt like you guys had, I
don't think it felt like, Ithink this is just true.
You guys had a plan.
You stuck to it.
Stuck to it, and you know, damnif it didn't work.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's pretty much the way itwent down.
I know.
(35:18):
It's, so how was life on board?
So what, by the way, how many,uh, what was your elapsed time?
Um, 12 days, 13 hours orsomething like that.
12 doesn't change.
Uh, god knows I, we got plentyof, uh, snack and food updates,
and I love how you threw Gregunder the bus about 900 times
(35:39):
for just like being a, the snackfiend on board.
Um, he is.
Was that surprising?
Like, dude, no, not at all.
Um, you know, when.
And Allie first bought the boat,like, you know, she, she, she
bought the boat and she's like,I'm gonna do Transpac.
And, you know, she, her cousinGraham, they've done multiple
(36:01):
trans packs together.
Um, and so he was an obviouschoice and I was, I was always
begging her.
I'm like, listen, we're doingTranspac.
And then she's like, okay, okay,we're gonna do it.
And she's like, we'll do it in,you know.
Kicked the can down.
She was gonna kept trying tokick the can down the road.
I'm like, Nope, we're going nextyear for two years from now.
(36:21):
So it was kind of a two yearprogram and, uh, and I'm like,
Nope, we're going in 25.
And she's like, okay.
So boat got all tickled.
Um, and she goes, who else arewe taking?
And I go, well, I'm not sailingto Hawaii without Steven
Driscoll.
Like he, I mean, they've been,they, they recently got married.
Um, they've been dating and.
(36:42):
For decades at this point.
Okay.
So, uh, but Steven Driscoll agreat friend of mine and he's
one of those guys just quiet,works hard and he, he obviously
of the Driscoll family knowsboats like nobody else.
And he was an integral part oflike, totally redoing this boat.
(37:03):
And I go, if, if something goeswrong out there, like some gum
engine thing that.
That's not the rest of us.
We need Steven.
I'm like, I ain't going if he'snot going, so.
Mm-hmm.
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