SAILING : Race Sloop Loses Mast to the Wind

HONOLULU — One boat’s mast was broken, other boats paid a lesser price, and some benefited Monday from the strong winds that had been missing for the first half of the 38th Transpacific Yacht Race.

Hatsu, a 66 1/2-foot sloop owned by Masonori Kusaka of Newport Beach, with America’s Cup skipper Makoto Namba as navigator, reported it was proceeding slowly under a jury rig after most of its mast broke away when the fleet encountered trade winds of more than 20 knots the last few days.

The same winds blew out four spinnakers on Rich DeVos’ Windquest, which is competing with Hal Ward’s front-running Cheval ’95 and Larry Ellison’s new Sayonara to be the first monohull to finish, probably by this evening.

Cheval ’95 maintained its 19-mile lead over Windquest on Monday as Sayonara, with Paul Cayard aboard, moved into position to challenge for second place.

Transpac veteran Dennis Durgan, aboard Windquest, said, “We are finding our current position in the race south of all of the fleet to be a little slower. Our race against Cheval and Sayonara is going to be close.

“There could be many boats finishing within sight of each other.”

None will break the race record of 8 1/2 days, but Steve Fossett’s trimaran Lakota was on pace to break the Los Angeles-to-Honolulu record of just under seven days for a multihull.