Sometime in July, I read an article in Sunset magazine about the Transpacific Yacht Race, a biannual yacht race from Los Angeles to Honolulu. Since I’m a (novice) sailor and have owned a sailboat in the past, this interested me. I remember the Transpac of 2001, and I recall seeing Roy Disney’s boat docked in Marina del Rey, where my boat was also docked. This year’s Transpac was extra special because it was the 100-year anniversary of the race.
One particular sentence in the article caught my attention, and that was a mention of Challenged America, the disabled sailing crew that raced their first Transpac in 2003 and were coming back in 2005 on their Tripp 40, named B’Quest. All the Transpac racers were moored at Rainbow Harbor in Long Beach the week before the race started, so I went down to Long Beach the day before the race start to meet the crew of B’Quest. I was extremely curious to see the boat, because these guys had more debilitating handicaps than my deafness – these guys were blind, blind/deaf, diabetic, paraplegic, amputee, and one was a quadriplegic.
We found the boat, and were greeted by crewmember Scott Meide, who is blind, partially deaf, and has one arm. The other crew members were on the boat as well, although we learned that the quadriplegic was in the hospital; the previous night, he’d been crawling around down below and moving things around, and scratched his arm up, and somehow he got an infection in his bloodstream and had to back out of the race. So here they were, the day before the race, one crew member short, and they were a little worried. The sixth crew member, Urban Miyares, who is blind, a cancer survivor, has a kidney transplant, and is diabetic, and “doesn’t hear so good either” according to him, wasn’t feeling well and was hoping to find a last-minute replacement so he could back out of the race. When they found out I was deaf and a sailor, they begged me to come with them, but I had to turn them down because I haven’t sailed for 4 years, and a 2200-mile race isn’t something someone just throws themselves into without training and preparation. But I was very tempted.
The boat was very interesting. It was set up in a way that it required very little movement on deck, and could be easily managed by two people sitting in chairs. The deck had chairs bolted to it with backpack-style straps, so that one could just strap themselves into a chair and trim sails. They had installed an elevating device at the stairs leading down to the cabin; those who couldn’t climb the stairs just sat on the platform and pushed a button, and a set of electronic-powered winches and cables pulled the platform up to deck (or back down below.) The lavatory was made wider and had grab bars installed in the walls. It was important that everything have its own place and be put back exactly where it was meant to be, so the blind guys could find it. Imagine moving the first aid kit, and then needing a blind person to bring it to you, only they can’t find it because it’s not where it’s supposed to be.
They had a special man-overboard system where all the life vests were installed with a homing beacon; if one of them fell overboard, a computer on board would track the man in the water, and the life preserver had an electronic device installed in it that would cause it to “look” for the homing device and move towards the person in the water. They also had GPS and email (via satellite) on board.
We chatted with them for a bit, and Jim Halverson, who is a leg amputee, was making pirate jokes and saying he had a peg leg. Pirates, yarrr!
The next day was Monday, July 11. The start time was noon, and the first wave of boats took off out of Palos Verdes Peninsula amid schools of dolphins in foggy weather. I’d wanted to go watch the race start, but I had a conference call that morning. Instead, I watched the race reports on the internet, and I tracked the progress of Challenged America daily on their voyage to Hawaii through the Transpac website. They had a very good race – they started off one crew member short, and then Day One into the race, Urban got seasick and while he vomited, he ruptured his esophagus and had to sit out the rest of the race – he couldn’t sail the boat and had to stay down below and rest. So, the Challenged America crew ended up sailing the race with only four out of the original six crew, and considering that some of them are amputees, I think they are in reality 2 1/2 or 3 crew members put together.
The first three days of the race are the toughest as this part of the ocean is very rough. No one was eating much. They got caught in a squall and their spinnaker broke off.
On Day Three, the captain reported in with the following message:
It’s been like a washing machine out here and we’re not really drag racing, but we have the pedal down.
The crew is still going strong although some of us are starting to get a bit sea sick. I’ve only had one egg and some cookie crumbs today.
They managed to be in first and second place the first few days of the race (yay!) but fell down to fourth and fifth as some technical problems with the boat hampered them.
On Day Nine, Captain Josh reported in:
Where are the women? Whoever said women are bad luck on a boat should walk the plank; talk about madness. Next Transpac we’re going to sail with some women and everyone will smell better. I hope.
After the first three or four days, they hit the trade winds, which made things a bit smoother for the rest of the way to Hawaii.
At 23:31:50 on July 24th, 13 days after leaving Los Angeles, B’Quest crossed the finish line at Diamond Head and sailed into Honolulu, finishing fourth in their division, only 12 hours and 21 minutes behind the first place winner. As crewmember Kevin Wixom said, “Not bad when you consider that we lost 1/3 of the original crew on day one, and the remaining 4 who can work are missing 2 legs, 1 arm, a lung, and various other parts amongst us.”
This was a very impressive and fun race to watch. I’m not much for spectator sports, but I was rooting for them the whole 2 weeks.
Now I need to brush up on my sailing skills and get a race or 2 under my belt so I can join them in 2007.
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