Pyewacket

Pyewacket, the 86-foot boat owned by Roy Disney, repeated Friday's finish, coming in first place overall in the second day of racing in the First Team Real Estate Invitational Regatta. Magnitude 80 took second place, beating out Genuine Risk, a 90-foot boat that's less than a year old. Light winds made for slow going on the water Saturday, and the Race Committee postponed the second of the day's races in hopes that today's winds will permit three races.

Rick Devereux The wind picked up enough to have two races Sunday on the final day of the First Team Real Estate invitational regatta off Newport Beach pier. Plagued with light conditions Saturday that cut short the races, Sunday ended with 6- to 10-knot winds. Genuine Risk won both races in Class 1, but it was not enough to overthrow Pyewacket as the class winner. Pyewacket, owned by Roy Disney, finished first Friday and Saturday and second in both races Sunday for six points.

With Roy Disney's donation of a $7-million racing vessel, Pyewacket, Orange Coast College's School of Sailing and Seamanship officially has left the shallow end behind and is now in deep water. Not that the renowned program wasn't already pretty close or pretty well prepared to set sail for bigger adventures. In the past few years, the school has been the beneficiary, through the fundraising Orange Coast College Foundation, of several notable gifts.

HONOLULU — A flying finish almost made the first half of the 44th Transpacific Yacht Race to Hawaii forgettable as Pyewacket's bid for the record fell 9 hours, 7 minutes 44 seconds short Sunday. Roy Pat Disney, co-skipper with Gregg Hedrick, described the race in brief as "frustrating and exhilarating … and sad." Frustrating in the first 600 miles of light wind struggling, exhilarating in the final days to the finish that saw them blowing past the landmark finish line off the Diamond Head volcano at 26 knots, and sad that his dad, Roy E. Disney, wasn't along for the ride.

His retirement from sailing marked the opening of a new opportunity for Orange Coast College students. When Roy E. Disney handed over his 86-foot yacht, the Pyewacket, as a donation to OCC’s Sailing and Seamanship program in April 2006, he gave new sailors a chance to raise their skill level, others a shot at the most complex boat around, and some an opportunity they’d never have again. “There’s just many, many techniques to sailing a big powerful boat like that correctly,” said Brad Avery, director of OCC’s marine programs.

Rick Devereux Despite an early start that required the boat to lose valuable time and turn around, the Roy Disney-owned boat Pyewacket finished second in both of Sunday's races to claim the overall Class 1 victory in the inaugural First Team Real Estate invitational regatta. "It's a great feeling [to win]," said Robbie Haines, Pyewacket's race program manager. "We were quite happy with how the crew performed this weekend." Pyewacket jumped the gun, along with fellow Class 1 boat Magnitute 80, in the second race Sunday, which gave Genuine Risk an advantage on its competitors.

Excitement abounds on Orange Coast College's campus. In recent months, the college has been the beneficiary of two unprecedented and spectacular gifts valued at more than $8 million. In May, the college's renowned School of Sailing and Seamanship was given Kialoa III, the legendary 80-foot maxi yacht that dominated offshore racing in the 1970s. The boat was donated to the college by its owner, John B. "Jim" Kilroy of Marina del Rey. Kialoa III is valued at $1 million.

LONG BEACH — At last. It's here, the day Roy E. Disney has been waiting for since July 22, 2005, when Hasso Plattner's Morning Glory trounced his record in the Transpacific Yacht Race. OK, it's not quite here. Today marks the first day of the 44th Transpac, one of oldest and longest ocean races in the world, which runs from Los Angeles to Honolulu. However, Disney and his boat, Pyewacket, won't leave Rainbow Harbor until Sunday, when the biggest, fastest boats entered in the regatta begin their trips.

ABOARD THE ALASKA EAGLE, off South Georgia Island — With 30 knots of wind behind us, Alaska Eagle was flying along at 11 knots. Suddenly we found ourselves in fog with 200 feet of visibility. "Up for ice!" Peter called from the mast. As we quickly turned toward the wind, a golf cart-sized chunk of glacier slid by to starboard. In clear weather, the ice is easy to spot by our four lookouts, but the fog now demands more attention; hitting a ton or two of a bit of iceberg can do serious damage.

Roy Edward Disney, who for decades toiled in the shadow of his famous uncle but put his own stamp on the Walt Disney Co., died Wednesday in Newport Beach. He was 79. He died at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian after a yearlong fight with stomach cancer, Disney Co. officials said in a news release. The Burbank resident was a seafaring icon who sailed the waters off Newport Beach, and was a member of the Newport Harbor Yacht Club. Born Jan. 10, 1930, in Los Angeles, he was the only child of Edna and Roy O. Disney, co-founder of Disney Studios.

His retirement from sailing marked the opening of a new opportunity for Orange Coast College students. When Roy E. Disney handed over his 86-foot yacht, the Pyewacket, as a donation to OCC’s Sailing and Seamanship program in April 2006, he gave new sailors a chance to raise their skill level, others a shot at the most complex boat around, and some an opportunity they’d never have again. “There’s just many, many techniques to sailing a big powerful boat like that correctly,” said Brad Avery, director of OCC’s marine programs.

To see Stark Raving Mad finish first in every race and to listen to Pyewacket II’s people talk after the last race Sunday, it was difficult to guess which boat won the third biennial Invitational Regatta for the Hoag Cup. Robbie Haines, the Pyewacket II tactician, said, “Today everything went wrong on our boat.” But just enough went right for the 18-year-old Santa Cruz 70 to hold off its rivals — Ed McDowell’s defending champion Grand Illusion, also an SC 70 — by one point, and Jim Madden’s free-running three-year-old TP52 by three.

No one could blame Gary Weisman for being left with the same attitude as the name of his upgraded Transpac 52 class boat Saturday. It’s called Stark Raving Mad. However, Weisman was anything but, even after he had learned the Jim Madden-owned boat was seemingly in a class of its own, yet still could not out-class Pyewacket III. Stark Raving Mad appeared as if it could be in position to win the Invitational Regatta for the Hoag Cup...

The start of the third biennial Invitational Regatta for the Hoag Cup loomed as a gray and lazy day with overcast skies and breeze so fluky to frustrate the best of sailors. But, as often occurs, that didn’t prevent high-class talent from creating some classic competition — notably, the boat-for-boat battle between Pyewacket III, driven by Roy Pat Disney, son of Roy E., and Stark Raving Mad, with North Sails president Gary Weisman at the helm. In south winds wallowing between four and, briefly, eight knots, Stark Raving Mad, an upgraded TP52, beat Pyewacket III, an elderly Santa Cruz 70, to the finish line in both races, once by only five seconds.

HONOLULU — A flying finish almost made the first half of the 44th Transpacific Yacht Race to Hawaii forgettable as Pyewacket's bid for the record fell 9 hours, 7 minutes 44 seconds short Sunday. Roy Pat Disney, co-skipper with Gregg Hedrick, described the race in brief as "frustrating and exhilarating … and sad." Frustrating in the first 600 miles of light wind struggling, exhilarating in the final days to the finish that saw them blowing past the landmark finish line off the Diamond Head volcano at 26 knots, and sad that his dad, Roy E. Disney, wasn't along for the ride.

LONG BEACH — At last. It's here, the day Roy E. Disney has been waiting for since July 22, 2005, when Hasso Plattner's Morning Glory trounced his record in the Transpacific Yacht Race. OK, it's not quite here. Today marks the first day of the 44th Transpac, one of oldest and longest ocean races in the world, which runs from Los Angeles to Honolulu. However, Disney and his boat, Pyewacket, won't leave Rainbow Harbor until Sunday, when the biggest, fastest boats entered in the regatta begin their trips.

After less than a year in Newport Harbor, the celebrated racing yacht Pyewacket may have seen the last of these waters. Roy Disney, who donated the boat to the Orange Coast College School of Sailing and Seamanship last summer, is chartering the boat to race in the 2007 Transpac race from Los Angeles to Hawaii. To ready it for the race, Disney will pay for a renovation that will make the boat more competitive — but the modifications will leave the boat with a keel too deep to fit in Newport Harbor.