The boats have gotten bigger, faster and downright futuristic, at least the ones that have a shot at taking home the big trophy.

But one thing hasn’t changed in the more than 100 years since the Transpacific Race to Hawaii started—the grueling course. It’s approximately 2,225 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean, where the closest piece of land is straight down and big waves, big winds and big trouble are a constant threat.

On July 2, a crew of eight mostly middle-aged guys from the Seattle area will climb aboard a middle-aged racing boat named Artemis with every intention of pushing it as hard and fast as it can go.

Are they crazy?

Absolutely not, says owner and skipper Louis Bianco. This is the third Transpac for the lifelong sailor, who spends his life ashore as an executive vice president at the Seattle-based biotech company Cell Therapeutics.

“If you like distance racing, it is the race to do,” Bianco said. “It’s just being out there, being offshore, getting away from all the pressures of the job and just focusing on winning.”

Granddaddy of races

The Transpac is considered the granddaddy of open ocean sailboat racing, and Artemis is the only Puget Sound boat participating this year. Started in 1906 as a way to improve ties between Hawaii and the mainland, it is among the oldest ocean sailing races in the world, not to mention the longest. The course runs from Long Beach, Calif., to Hawaii’s Molokai Channel.

“The neat thing about Transpac compared with other ocean races is the history and its 2,225-mile course,” said Lynn Fitzpatrick, a race spokesperson. ”If you put the other major ocean races together, their combined distances don’t even add up to the Transpac.”

This year, 50 boats, including entries from Japan and Peru, will compete in seven classes. The boats range from slowpoke cruising boats to ultra-light “sleds” designed to sail fast enough downwind to water ski behind.

In fact, many expect Alpha Romeo II, a professionally crewed, 100-foot speed demon from New Zealand, to beat the record time of six days, 16 hours, four minutes and 11 seconds.

Against such firepower, Artemis is a long shot. But the boat is anything but slow. The Alan Andrews-designed 53-footer can hit speeds of 22.5 knots downwind—and maybe faster if the crew manages to catch a wave just right.

Bianco figures the crew has a good shot at edging out the boats in its class. In the 2005 Transpac, Artemis took fourth place, a showing that Bianco blames not on the boat’s performance, but on misjudging a crucial turn to catch a favorable wind to Hawaii.

This time, Bianco has a few more years at the helm of the boat and a crew that has the experience and drive to deliver.

“The key is knowing how far you can take the boat and what sails to use to get the most speed out of it,” he said. “The crew is important too. You have to have a crew who knows the boat and knows how to get every knot of speed out of it. Over the course of a long race, that will make all the difference.”

Serious sailors

Bianco is proud of the crew of seven he has assembled for the race. They may not be considered professional racers, but are definitely serious sailors. The crew list includes watch captains Scott Anderson and Christopher Butler (the third generation of his family to take part in the Transpac), foredeck expert Andrew Hall and crew members Ian Beswick, Steve Roberts, Robert Arney and Nigel Barron.

The Artemis crew has honed its teamwork over the past three years by racing in most of the Northwest’s major sailing contests, including the notorious Swiftsure. Bianco pronounced them ready.

“If I had my way, I’d make sure I had the least amount of experience on the boat,” Bianco said. “You just want to surround yourself with good hands.”

Barron has been the caretaker of Artemis for three years. He has spent countless hours in recent months overseeing the myriad details needed to get Artemisready for the Transpac.

He also led the delivery trip from Seattle to Long Beach, which included a storm off the coast of Northern California that forced the boat to duck into the relative shelter of San Francisco Bay for two days.

“That will go down as one of the hardest nights of driving I’ve had,” Barron said in an email. “The winds were a steady 24 to 28 knots all night. The seas were horribly confused … and it was pitch black, except for the foaming glow of the dark crests of the waves.”

It was a vivid reminder of how rough it can get on the ocean. But in the Transpac, there is nowhere to hide.

Taking on the pros

Artemis isn’t the only Northwest boat competing this year. Other entries include the boats OEX from Roche Harbor, Narrow Escape from Nanaimo, Tachyon III and Reinrag2 from Portland, Cazador from Idaho and Yakutat, Alaska’s Free Range Chicken.

Bianco bought his boat in 2004 after completing his first Transpac race in a J/120. It was an experience that whetted his appetite for a bigger, faster boat. The boat has undergone an extensive refit to keep it competitive with the newer generation of super fast boats.

Like any good racing boat, Artemis is not full of creature comforts. The interior is spartan by design, with little more than a galley, a few berths and a head. But it has what it needs to race, and race fast.

And that’s all anyone on the boat could want. Win or lose, it is about pushing yourself and the boat to new levels.

“There is no other sport where amateurs like us can compete with professionals in the field,” Bianco said. “You can’t do that in baseball, you can’t do it in football or basketball. To get the caliber of people in a race like this and to see how you measure against them, that’s great. You just can’t do that in any other sport.”

You can follow Artemis every step of the way during the Transpac race right here on Three Sheets Northwest. We will feature an interactive chart with regular reports from the crew via satellite phone and an updated log of the boat’s progress. You can also learn more about the race, the boat and the crew on the Artemis homepage.