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Show Part-time Par kite Nick Frazee wins Transpacific Yacht Race by DAVID HAMPSHIRE Record contributing writer The bad news is that Park City resident John Landon didn't win the Transpacific Yacht Race between California and Hawaii. But locals can take some consolation consola-tion from the knowledge that a part-time Park City resident did. Nick Frazee, who lives most of the year in San Diego, Calif, but has a condominium in Deer Valley, finished finish-ed Monday with the fastest overall time among the 75 boats entered in this year's Transpac race. Frazee's 68-foot boat, Swiftsure III, arrived in Hawaii about 5 :30 a.m. Monday, July 15, almost 11 days after it left Los Angeles. His time gave him first place among the Class A (the largest) boats and the fastest time overall before handicaps were computed. Landon, sailing the 70-foot Kath- mandu with "Park City, Utah" painted on the stem, finished sixth in Class A. The winning time came nowhere close to the record time of eight days, 11 hours set by the 67-foot Merlin in 1977. A spokesman for the Transpac headquarters in Newport, Calif, blamed the slow times on the lack of wind. "About the first four days they didn't do anything," he said. Landon said his boat was leading the race for about the first three days. "Then some of the boats went farther south looking for wind. And they found some." Although the winds increased as the boats approached Hawaii, Landon said there was never anything to write home about. "It was a slow race," he said. "There was never much wind at all.. .But that's sailboat racing." Kathmandu completed the race about six hours behind the first boat, he said. "We finished in just about 11 days exactly." The eventual winner of the race, when handicaps were computed, was the Class D sailboat, Montgomery Street. "It was one of the smallest boats in the fleet." Landon said the winds started to pick up while some of the smaller, slower boats were still on the course. "Proportionately they sailed in stronger winds longer than we did." Montgomery Street finished the race in about 15 days. Landon said he will keep his boat in Hawaii until September, when it will be returned to San Francisco to compete in the Big Boat Series. He said the competition there will include many of the large ultra-light boats from the Transpac Race. "That's when we can get revenge," he laughed. |