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| Portland Crew Wins Pacific Cup |
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| Joby Easton and Bill Huseby add to their trophy case in hometown Boat -- the Cascade 36 |
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 | | | Joby Easton and Bill Huseby show off their most recent award |
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By Peter Marsh
Portland sailors Joby Easton and Bill Huseby have added another Pacific Cup victory to Portland's already impressive record in Hawaii races. They raced Easton's Cascade 36' Raindrop the 2070 nautical miles from San Francisco to Kaneohe Bay in 12 days, 2 hours, 54 minutes, winning the double-handed division by almost a day. But that was just the first of four trophies that the local pair brought back to the Rose City!
Their superb performance in a 60-boat fleet netted them all the top awards for the race: first in division, first in fleet (the actual "Pacific Cup"), Navigator's Award for overcoming a very challenging light-air start, and the Latitude 38 Performance Trophy for the most decisive win over their fleet. The class and fleet placings were decided on handicap, but the start is also staggered to give the slower boats a chance to arrive first, and to cap off their success, Raindrop was also first-to-finish, having started five days before the fastest division consisting of ultralight racers up to 73' in length.
None of these downwind sleds, including the 70' Rage from Portland skippered by Steve Rander with a time of 8 days, 11 hours, 32 mins., were able to overcome their rating, and the closest yacht to Raindrop at the finish line was the Santa Cruz 50 Hula Girl skippered by America's Cup helmsman Paul Cayard, arriving 19 minutes later. Another double-handed team, Philippe Kahn and Richard Clarke, also won big in the super-fast Open 50 Pegasus OP-50, finishing in a time of 7 days, 15 hours, 7 minutes and 50 minutes and shattering the old double-handed elapsed time record.
Remarkably, this is Easton and Huseby's second victory in the double-handed division. The first was 20 years ago on Huseby's fast Soverel 33 Sting--and the Raindrop also had a previous win thirty years ago in the Vic-Maui race.
This is just the latest of Portland's victories in class and overall in the Pacific Cup, and considering last year's overall victory by the local J-125 Reinrag2 in the Transpac from Los Angeles to Hawaii, no one should doubt that our "freshwater" sailors have what it takes to win in long-distance saltwater races.
Like the local crew who won the Pacific Cup in a Westsail 32 named Saraband, twenty years ago, Easton and Huseby have demonstrated once again that a well-prepared and well-sailed old boat can excel under the modified PHRF handicap system used by the Pacific Cup Y.C.
Easton began planning for the race in the winter of 2006, Huseby explained, and decided that the Cascade 36, which displaces a hefty 13,000 lbs, would give them the best chance to repeat their 1988 victory.
As many long-time Columbia River sailors will know, the Cascade series was designed by Portland naval architect Robert Smith in the late 60s as an all-round cruiser-racer. At that time, fin keels were still viewed with some suspicion and spade rudders were downright revolutionary!
The Cascades (29', 36' and 42') were hand-laminated in solid fiberglass for many years by the company of the same name at their yard in North Portland. The Cascades were well-known for their bullet-proof hulls, and are still easily recognized by their short bowsprit and massive aluminum toerails. They completed many circumnavigations and long ocean passages. (The molds have been purchased and moved to the Seaside area, where production is scheduled to begin again soon.)
Raindrop (hull #33) was built in 1970 and fitted with a mast three feet taller than normal. A short stern scoop had been added to slightly increase the waterline. Easton removed large amounts of fixed cruising equipment and spare gear and fitted new rigging and sails.
This was Huseby's sixth crossing to Hawaii and Easton's fourth, and they had also sailed many offshore miles together, so the only major training in the boat was the trip to San Francisco. Despite Portland's amazing record in this race, the Raindrop was not considered a favorite even in its class--until it was the first boat under the Golden Gate bridge and out into the Pacific, flying the Royal Rose City YC burgee.
Taking a sharp southern route down the coast, they pulled ahead of their rivals and were able to hoist their spinnaker after 46 hours on the wind.
Their goal was to keep the boat moving at hull speed--7.5-8 knots--as much as possible and the 15-18 knot breezes that prevailed suited the boat perfectly, and gave them many day's runs of close to 200 miles.
However, it was not strong enough to give the modern lightweights the chance to do much surfing. and Raindrop held onto its leading position as the faster boats began to catch them. In fact, they were soon doing so well that Huseby said they chose to avoid the higher winds in the squalls towards the finish to preserve their gear. They ate tuna fish sandwiches for lunch and freeze-dried meals for dinner, he recalled, and after 12 days were looking forward to some real food on shore.
They had an uneventful race, concentrating on keeping the boat plugging along. This simple strategy overcame the challenge of many superbly-equipped and crewed boats that had more favorable weather for their starts, and gave the Portland duo an unprecedented sweep at the awards dinner. "It was a perfectly-prepared boat and crew, and a perfect strategy," said Steve Rander.
Easton and Huseby flew home from Hawaii and Rich Jones and Edie Felix sailed Raindrop back to Portland.
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