For the majority of people, the most exciting part of a Hawaiian vacation is watching fire jugglers and hula dancers at a luau. But Squamish businessmen Owen Carney and Greg Gardner aren't typical vacationers. The duo will be joining a crew of 18 men for the world famous Biennial Transpacific Yacht Race. Beginning in L.A. and finishing in Honolulu, the race takes yachts of all sizes more than 2,225 nautical miles. Carney and Gardner will be part of Renegade's crew, this year's only Canadian competitor, and the only Canadian yacht ever to win the elite race.
"It'll be very exciting," said Carney. "We'll be right in the trade winds racing every wave."
As featured in National Geographic magazine, the Renegade is a 73-foot yacht with a 100-foot mast and 6,000 square feet of sail. With a capacity of 30 knots, the Renegade is by far the fastest yacht in Canada, according to skipper Dan Sinclair.
Sinclair accepted Carney and Gardner onto his crew only after they proved their merit. Carney and Sinclair got to know each other as Weasel workers in Whistler, and Carney became part of the racing crew when an opportunity arose to race from Victoria to Maui.
"I knew he was super fit," said Sinclair. "And we won that race."
Carney then talked Sinclair into giving his friend Gardner a chance, and after a three-day training session, Gardner was in.
"He loved it," said Sinclair. "He's a wonderful man and he fit right in."
The crew will work four hours on, four hours off, 24-hours a day for eight days to earn the coveted "barn door", a three and a half by four-foot plaque of hand-carved Hawaiian koa wood bearing the words "first to finish".
The Renegade will be challenged by 80-foot mega-yachts manned by expert crews from all over the world and financed by billionaires - perhaps most famous is regular racer Roy Disney, Walt's nephew. But Sinclair isn't deterred. Determination runs in his blood; his father Jim Sinclair is a well-known climber with many first ascents to his credit.
"We've got a really good contingent," said Sinclair. "We've got pros from England and Greg's a neophyte but he's got the personality and eagerness to get the job done. And Owen. It's amazing just how hard that man works."
The Transpacific Yacht Race from Los Angeles to Hawaii is one of the most popular and enduring long-distance ocean races in the world.
In 1906 Clarence MacFarlane of Honolulu invited several sailors in San Francisco and Los Angeles to race to the islands. The race was scheduled to start in the early summer of 1906, but when MacFarlane sailed his 48-foot schooner into San Francisco Bay he realized there would have to be a change of plans. The city lay in ruins following the great earthquake 27 days earlier. So MacFarlane changed the starting point to L.A., and except for one nostalgic return to San Francisco for the start in 1939, the 2,225 nautical mile race has started from the L.A. area ever since.
The Renegade will launch on July 17 and return eight days later to an army of more than 300 volunteers on 20 committees meeting each member of the fleet with the warmest welcome in sailing. Traditionally, an assigned group of 5 to 20 hosts, depending on the size of the crew, greets each finisher at Ala Wai Yacht Harbor in Waikiki with full Hawaiian hospitality of food, drink, music and sometimes hula girls, no matter what time of day or night it arrives.
"What I'm most looking forward to," laughs Carney, " is getting there and having a Mai Tai."
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