Anomaly is a Santa Cruz 50 that participated in the Pacific Cup race to Hawaii from San Francisco.
It was entered in this race because the owner, Bill Elmer, decided it would be more competitive, even though he had to make the delivery from Seattle to San Francisco, instead of racing the Victoria to Maui Race with the Royal Victoria Yacht Club.
In this phote you can see her Peterson Keel, part of the reason for his decision. Doug Peterson designed this special keel to help the boat's upwind capability - why did this owner buy a downwind super star, and then try to make it weatherly? You'd have to ask him :) And
Anomaly is not the first name for this yacht, and Bill is not the first owner.
Anomaly at Shilshole getting prepped.
Anomaly going to weather - she was fast, like all Santa Cruz 50s. So for the Pacific Cup in the year 2000, the owner needed a way to get the boat back from Kane'ohe Bay to Seattle, and hired a delivery skipper. I volunteered to help get the boat home. It took us 15 days, the first five days we close reached to the north at an average speed of 9 knots. We were jumping off waves and making good time, but not in the direction of Seattle :(
But it wasn't all bad, because once we got up to the 40th Parallel, we saw a Japanese fishing float, and picked it up. We even saw a Great White shark, a little one 7 - 9 feet, depending upon who you asked :) There were also schools of Sun Fish, or maybe Moon Fish, that lay on the surface on the water on their side, waving their pectoral fins in the air. I was an albatross land next to one and peck it, whereupon it dove. But we did run out of food, even with most of us fasting during the blast reach north (I know I did). So I found some fishing gear, and drug a lure behind the boat. Even motoring during the calms, we did 9 knots, and we caught tuna, so we didn't starve. We had saved one last container of fuel, and used it to motor into Neah Bay and buy a tank of fuel.
So Bill decided to do it again in 2002, and asked me to skipper Anomaly home. It had been a few years, just enough time for me to forget how miserable the night watches were! So I said OK, and we did another delivery.
This is the race crew after they finished and moored in Kane'ohe Bay near the yacht club. They look like they had a good time.
But that is a tough class. 220 miles a day under spinnaker! That is fast.
This trip (2002) fast one day faster because we were only in the trades for about 3 days, then we picked up the rhumb line, 43 degrees on the compass.
Ross Balcombe drives
Anomaly in this photo, whilst I make jokes, apparently. This photo was taken by my son-in-law, Steve Vick.
This is Steve having a shower. Anomaly had a water maker, so we would fill up containers for bathing.
Steve relaxing while we cruise along on a starboard reach.
Sunsets were pretty neat. And I will say that driving that boat at night was scary. All you can do is watch the compass or if the sky is clear, pick out a star and place a part of the rigging next to it. Our watches were 2 hours on, 3 hours off, all night long. But we made it.
This is us at Shilshole Bay Marina at 6:30 AM feeling tired and very glad it was over. As time goes on, it didn't seem so bad, but I ain't gonna do that again, ever!
