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2008 Pacific Cup Yacht Race
More Than an Adventure for
19-year-old Marine Intern

Race to finish at Kāne'ohe Bay, where love of ocean had spawned

HONOLULU, HAWAI'I — July 25, 2008 — When the yacht Hula Girl crosses the finish line tomorrow afternoon in Kāne'ohe Bay, completing the 15th biennial Pacific Cup race from San Francisco, it will be a homecoming of sorts for crewmember Mark Towill. 

Kāne'ohe Bay is where the 19-year-old Towill grew up and learned to sail. It’s also where he has been working this summer as a marine intern for The Nature Conservancy, restoring fishponds, removing alien algae and otherwise helping to restore the body of water that spawned his love of the ocean.

“Finishing the Pacific Cup race in Kāne'ohe Bay holds special significance for me,” Towill said before departing for San Francisco earlier this month. “I grew up enjoying the bay but never really knew what was happening under the water. Working with The Nature Conservancy has made me realize that we need to take responsibility for caring for it.”

Sailing in the Pacific Cup has only strengthened that conviction. Towill is one of eight crew members aboard the Hula Girl, a Santa Cruz 50 skippered by Daniel Cayard and owned by his father, Paul, a seven-time sailing world champion and five-time America’s Cup veteran. The elder Cayard is the boat’s navigator.

Since starting the race from San Francisco on July 17, Hula Girl has been leading the Pacific Cup’s “E” division and is projected to be the winner when it arrives at the Kāne'ohe Bay Yacht Club tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon around 4:15 p.m.

“I must say, for a boat well beyond its day, the Hula Girl flies!” Towill wrote in the ship’s blog earlier this week. “With such a long and narrow hull the boat likes to sail low and fast. At the moment we have 19 knots of wind and are surfing down waves at a comfortable 14.5 knots. It's just incredible how responsive the boat is, especially as the breeze increases. Not bad for a boat that's almost 10 years older than me.”

The 2,070-mile Pacific Cup is not Towill’s first Pacific crossing – he sailed in the Transpac last summer – but this time he is seeing the ocean with a new awareness. During an offshore training session on July 12, five days prior to race’s start, he wrote that the highlights included “spotting whales seven different times, having a pack of 10-foot sharks circle our boat the first night, and having pods of dolphins play in our bow wake more than a few times.”

On July 21, four days into the race, he sent a more somber note: “I think in the 80 sum hours that we have been out here, I have already seen three nets and a variety of floating trash. More and more, I'm realizing how important it is for us to take care of the ocean, and how hard of a task that has become in today's world.”

Towill noted that it has been a pleasant trip for the most part, but that the weather was bleak during the early days of the voyage. “The first night was very windy, wet and cold,” he said. “We had between 20 and 30 knots of wind with solid 10 foot waves, sometimes larger…just about everything down below got soaked.

“Today with the lighter winds and shift the boat has flattened out and things are beginning to dry. I took a shower and changed my shirt for the first time this afternoon. We have quite the spa on board: baby wipes, a bucket of salt water and some Joy dish soap! Ironically we haven't been able to enjoy the sunshine or full moon yet, we have had 100% cloud cover since the start… It sounds weird but I feel very comfortable and at home out here. Describing the exact feeling is like trying to describe a color, I just can't put it into words.”

When Towill posted his last blog this past Thursday, conditions had improved considerably. "I just came off watch from the best night of sailing we have experienced yet. The clouds have finally cleared and the stars couldn't be brighter. With a blazing half moon all of our headlights have remained down below,” he said.

“This afternoon we were greeted by a few birds, our first sign of land,” he added. “The breeze has been steadily increasing and shifting east, sure indications that we are quickly approaching Hawai‘i. This is very much a race, and we are pushing the boat hard to arrive at the finish as quickly as possible. But at the same time I am enjoying living in the moment and am not excited for it to end. I think often it's so easy to be focused on the goal that we forget to take a deep breath and enjoy the journey itself.”

Before embarking on his Pacific Cup adventure, Towill told friends and family he was very excited “to spend more time strengthening my relationship and understanding of the ocean. The fact that the finish line is in Kāne'ohe Bay where I grew up just makes it that much more special.”

The Nature Conservancy is a leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 15 million acres in the United States and have helped preserve more than 102 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. Visit The Nature Conservancy on the Web at www.nature.org.