E.T. goes to Hawaii Again
by Sportboat

 

Like a moth drawn to a bright light, the crew of the Antrim 27 "E.T." is leaving Wednesday for Hawaii. The Antrim 27 is the smallest boat in Division D of the Pacific Cup. They are the defending champions and have the "slowest" PCR rating of 85 for their division. This year they will have more planing sportboats to contend with and the overall Transpac winner Bull.

E.T.'s three person crew has some decent depth. Both Jim Antrim and Todd Hedin have made this trip multiple times on various boats with good results.

Liz Baylis is the #2 ranked match racing sailor in the World. Much of the trip will be tag team single-handing.

 

Some additions to a standard Antrim 27 include

  • Dodger - minimize the spray while beating out the gate
  • Bow foot rails - offshore requirement
  • Small two cycle generator - power for electronics
  • SSB and ground plane - stay in touch
  • Laptop computer - weather fax, navigation software
  • Running backs and checkstays - E.T. still has one of the few original vulnerable Ballenger aluminum masts so these extra lines are needed to keep it up.
  • Outboard toilet - the crapper, mounted on to the outboard bracket
  • Emergency Rudder & Re-enforced gudgeon - Pac Cup requirement
  • Solar Panel - more power
  • Tomb like stacked berths on both quarterberths - to keep weight on the high side, the off watch crew sleep above each other
  • Raytheon ST4000 Tillerpilot
  • Spare sprit pole

Sail Inventory - E.T. did not buy any new sails for this race instead relying on an existing inventory

  • Pineapple Shy kite
  • North Running kite
  • Pineapple Class kite
  • Pineapple Class mainsail
  • Pineapple Class jib
  • Pineapple Small jib
  • Pineapple Storm jib

 

All this extra gear & additional sails pushes the boat to over 3,400#'s compared with 2,600#'s for a standard boat. This bumps the PCR up to 85.

Other race notes

*The calculated distance for the race has been shortened about 200 miles and the -180 raters are getting about 2 day jump on the rest of the fleet. This definitely favors the bigger and faster boats in each division.

07/09/2002