Hasso Plattner’s Morning Glory led a five-boat rampage on the 24-hour distance record for the Transpacific Yacht Race to Hawaii Tuesday, sailing 393 nautical miles on the big boats’ first full day of the centennial event.

The former record was 356 miles by Philippe Kahn’s Pegasus 77 in 2003. Roy Disney’s Pyewacket, with 385; Randall Pittman’s Genuine Risk, 381; Doug Baker’s Magnitude 80, 372, and Doug DeVos’s Windquest, 361, also left it in their wakes, validating pre-race expectations that these are the fastest monohulls ever to sail one of the world’s great ocean races.

Morning Glory was listed at 1,640 miles from the finish, Pyewacket at 1,661 and Genuine Risk at 1,669, their tracks separated by only 10 miles with the German leader now north of its rivals after leading them south a day earlier.

Morning Glory’s time was logged between the initial Monday morning and Tuesday morning position reports from the fleet—the basis for a Transpac 24-hour record. There was no immediate information how far Morning Glory or any other boat may have sailed in a 24-hour period unrelated to the check-in reports. As recognized by the World Speed Sailing Record Council, that record is 530.19 n.m. by MoviStar, a Volvo 70, last April.

Tuesday’s reports made the day for John Reichel and Jim Pugh, who designed Morning Glory and Pyewacket, as well Roger Sturgeon’s Rosebud from San Francisco, which turned 312 miles to assume first place overall on projected corrected handicap time for the 75-boat fleet.

Rosebud was built in 2001. Another TP 52, Kahn’s new Pegasus, posted the best day in Division II with 322 miles and rated fifth overall, behind Rosebud, Ragtime—yes, that Ragtime—Morning Glory and Scout Spirit, in that order.

“It will be tough for Rosebud to beat the new boats,” Pugh said, “but downwind it’ll go pretty fast.”

And downwind is where the leaders are going now, riding what the communications vessel described as “weak NE trades in the 12-15-knot range.” Several boats had less than 1,000 miles to go, led by the 68-year-old yawl Odyssey at 913.

The fastest boat gets the Barn Door trophy; the winner overall on handicap time gets the King Kalakaua trophy.

Ragtime, the legendary Spencer 66 now owned by an Orange County, Calif. syndicate, made a big blast from the past with a 271-mile day in its 13th Transpac, a record it shares with fellow competitor Merlin. The sleek wooden beauty was first to finish in 1973 and ‘75.

Scout Spirit, another R/P design, is the former Zephyrus V chartered from the Newport Sea Base by Bill Turpin of Newport Beach, Calif., who won the Kalakaua in 2003 sailing a TP 52, Alta Vita.

Morning Glory and Pyewacket are the race’s scratch boats for handicap purposes. Both are maxZ86s with canting keel technology. Genuine Risk, a Dubois 90, is a 90-footer with canting keel but powered down to meet the rating limit—and, in fact, will get all of 23 seconds from the other two for the race. The race’s third maxZ86, Windquest, is water ballasted.

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Abandoned Derelict Spotted on Transpac Route

Rick Gorman’s Swan 53, Incredible, from Long Beach reported sighting an abandoned 40-foot sailboat at 25-54N 134-35W Monday. It had been dismasted and the word “derelict” spray-painted on the topsides.

Alaska Eagle wrote: “We subsequently discovered an article in the current edition of Latitude 38 noting that the vessel was a Newporter 40 named Kamera abandoned by her skipper, William Peterson, after she was dismasted 800 miles SW of San Diego on June 10. The skipper was recovered by the USS Chun Hoon out of Pearl Harbor. Kamera appears to be on her way slowly to the South Pacific.”

Meanwhile, boats that started two days ahead of the Morning Glory gang indicated they had gone as far south as necessary to avoid the Pacific High and were headed straight for the finish.

Mike Dawley, watch captain on Norm and Rosemary Dawley’s Custom 48, Pursuit, from Maryland, reported: “We actually got our first brief glimpses of blue sky today (alternating with a foggy heavy mist) which was a nice change from the plain gray we have had since the start. The big strategy change of the day was the decision to start heading directly for Hawaii instead of looping around to the south along the traditional route.

“Based on various illegible weather faxes, notoriously inaccurate ‘grib’ files and radio weather reports that think we have totally different winds than we have, we have come to the conclusion that the High is too far to the northwest to trap us in the doldrums.”

Dan Doyle reported from Two Guys On the Edge that “we are pointing directly at Diamond Head Buoy. We had 20 minutes of sun today and a lot of squalls.”

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