Sixteen boats hit the line for the first start of three in the 2025 Transpac. Next stop: Hawaii.

The 16 boats that crossed the starting line today in the 2025 Transpac are up against the challenge of a lifetime. As the smallest yachts in this year’s 53-strong fleet, they are about to endure the greatest number of difficult days at sea, but they also have the greatest—and longest— opportunity to enjoy the splendors of sailing across the Pacific.

After all, the more time one spends at sea, the more exposure one has to its moods and its majesty.

Four divisions began racing today at 1320, local time, on the waters off of Los Angeles’s Point Fermin. Organized by the Transpacific Yacht Club, the biennial event is considered one of the world’s premier ocean races. It uses three pursuit-style starts spread over five days (July 1, 3, and 5, 2025) to help all 53 boats finish within days of each other at Honolulu’s Diamond Head. With boats ranging from 35 to 88 feet, the staggered starts favor smaller vessels first so the fleet can make landfall in Hawaii around the same time.

The boats that started today may seem to saunter compared with the bigger steeds starting later this week. But, given that the event’s top prize—the King Kalakaua Trophy—is determined using the Offshore Racing Rule handicap system, the playing field is level on this 2,225 nautical mile course.

Just moments before today’s start, LA’s fireboat blasted a celebratory spray of Pacific brine, dousing the starting area amidst a 10-12 knot westerly that was gusting to 15+ by the first signal. A dragging leeward mark required a 20-minute postponement to ensure a proper line, but—come 1320—the starting gun fired in earnest, and the fleet set off on the adventure of a lifetime.

All 16 boats started cleanly and on starboard tack. At the time of this writing, a cluster of four frontrunners was forming: Mike Sudo’s Beneteau 47.7 Macondo, Michael Marion’s Dufour 525 Insoumise, Samantha Gebb’s Pacer 42 Zimmer and Andy Schwenk’s Custom 49 Sir Edmund.

The leaderboard is sure to evolve as the boats clear Catalina Island this evening and punch out into the open Pacific Ocean.

“Most of the boats will head off to the southwest, rather than higher courses that are closer to the rhumb line,” forecasted Chris Bedford, a professional yachting meteorologist and the co-creator of the Marine Weather University, in an interview call on Monday morning. “Once they get out of the bight, the usual northwesterly likely won’t be there, so there could be a bit of a light period on Wednesday that they have to work across until the northwesterly builds back in,” he said, referring to the California coastline between Point Conception to the northwest and San Diego to the southeast. “Once they get into that, the fleet will continue to see the wind increase and veer, and then when they get down to the trades, it looks like they could be a couple of knots stronger than normal this year,” he said.

Offshore, Bedford added, the seas have been running higher than usual this year.

Transpac 2025 – photo © Doug Gifford

The widespread availability of high-resolution weather models gave many of today’s starting teams much to consider as they made their final dock-out decisions.

Michael Rivlin, navigator aboard Zimmer, said the team debated bringing a light-air Code 0 to get past the dry spell. “That may be the only way we can get into the breeze the first day,” he said.

Similar considerations played out across the fleet.

Ahead of today’s start, Jennifer Hoag, racing in her first Transpac aboard Lodos, Tolga Cezik’s Seattle-based J/111, as trimmer, bow and occasional driver, said, “The big decision we’ve been thinking about is: do we bring two of our most popular kite, the A2?” Hoag described the A2 as the kite that keeps the boat driving ahead. “The thought is that if our workhorse explodes and we lose that, then we’d be at a significant disadvantage because the rest of our kites are much smaller,” she said. Like many of the crews setting off today, Hoag will be sailing with family aboard—her dad, who is one of Lodos’s watch captains and a primary driver.

While some teams and skippers meticulously studied the weather models and their inventory-related implications ahead of today’s start, others took a more compartmentalized view.

Regarding weather models, “I leave that up to my navigator—I don’t want to take any responsibility for bad decisions,” joked Mark Ashmore, skipper of Cal 40 Nalu V who is sailing his third Transpac and fifth transpacific race. “The boat’s great,” he continued. “The crew’s good. A couple of them are a little green, but they won’t be in a couple days.”

Transpac 2025 – photo © Sharon Green / ultimatesailing.com

Biennial baptism by Transpac is real for both veterans and the uninitiated.

“I don’t look forward to any of it,” Ashmore said of the race’s first few days. “Usually half the crew is seasick and I’m the only person cooking—and eating. Sleeping aboard is an adjustment. We tend to take the brunt of it at first.”

Once through the rough first couple of hundred miles, however, dividends await.

“The biggest thing I’m looking forward to is getting the spinnaker up and getting surfing,” Ashmore said. “That’s what it’s all about for us. When a Cal 40 is doing 16, 18 knots, you know it. It’s a thrill ride of noise and sensation.”

Transpac 2025 – photo © Doug Gifford

Nalu V wasn’t the only boat looking forward to its first spinnaker set.

Rivlin said that his team and their families and friends have a betting pool on when their first hoist will unfurl. “I wasn’t allowed to put it in a bet, because I get to make that decision,” he joked. But off the books, Rivlin predicted: “Probably late on the third, or early on the Fourth of July.”

So, while these smaller boats are getting ready to endure longer exposure to the rougher elements, it’s worth noting that these crews also get to bask a little longer in the “leaving it all behind” passage-making elements unique to this race.

“The whole rest of the world kind of fades away and it’s just you and your crew and the boat,” said Alli Bell, Rear Commodore of the Transpacific Yacht Club and the skipper of Cal 40 Restless. “Some nights, there can be a moon river and you’re surfing down the waves. Life becomes so simple.”

by Transpacific Yacht Club