The biennial Pacific Cup attracted 64 entrants for the 2070 nm course from San Francisco to Hawaii, with the fleet divided among four staggered starts on July 11, 12, 14, and 15. Here’s a report from July 21. Strong winds propelled Manouch Moshayedi’s super maxi Rio 100 across the Pacific to set a new Pacific Cup elapsed time record. Crossing the finish on July 20 at 13:51:13 local Hawaii time (15:51:13 PDT), Rio 100 posted an elapsed time of 5 days, 3 hours, 41 mins and 13 seconds, knocking two hours off the record set in 2004 by Robert Miller, whose 139-foot Mari Cha IV finished with an elapsed time of 5 days, 5 hours, 38 minutes and 10 seconds. Rio 100 sailed a course slightly above the rhumb line for the entire race, taking advantage of breezes fed by the well-behaved Pacific High as well as remnants of Hurricane Celia. Many of this year’s crew of 16, including navigator Christopher Branning, were also onboard for the 2015 Transpac when Rio won the prestigious Barn Door Trophy with an elapsed time of 7 days, 5 hours, 34 minutes, and 07 seconds. We’re watching tropical depression Darby which has not dissipated […]

Congratulations to Manouch Moshayedi and the crew of 19 aboard Rio 100, who set the monohull course record by completing the Vallarta Race course in 77.7 hours. Navigator Chris Branning checked in with SDYC prior to the race to make sure they knew what the record was, to set their strategy and make decisions to potentially eclipse the record. The previous record was set in 2010 by Bill Turpin’s Akela at 80.87 hours. Rio 100 managed to finish the race at 1900 local time, avoiding the Tuesday night light air that tends to set in on the approach to Banderas Bay. PV Race Results ” order_by=”sortorder” order_direction=”ASC” returns=”included” maximum_entity_count=”500″]