I guess I’m showing my age, but I can remember when the Transpac race was big news and created quite a buzz in Honolulu. Today, it’s barely treated as news at all.
I recall when both newspapers routinely provided the set-up for the race, reviewing in advance the expected leaders with interviews and photos, then covering the race from start to finish. The expected arrival times of the leading yachts were widely publicized, and race watchers lined up along Diamond Head Road to watch as the leaders crossed the finish line. It was quite a spectacle.
I can recall going with my father to watch several late night arrivals as the leading yachts under full sail finished the race in the glare of searchlights, with news crews capturing the excitement and waiting at the Ala Wai for interviews. Photographs would fill the news for days.
Now, not so much. I noticed the Star-Advertiser even relied on an AP report out of Los Angeles to announce the arrival of the first-to-finish in Honolulu. In some parts of the world, yacht racing is big news and bigger business. But it seems that we would now rather ignore the whole thing.
What’s up with that?
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I remember helping at the Hawaii Yacht Club. The lack of coverage by local media is shameful!have the piers been fixed at the harbor?
Maybe features on the foibles of the super elite are no longer interesting to the hoi polloi.
Growing up a sailor, I’ve noticed that the coverage of yacht racing has dwindled to the vestigial. I’m not sure it’s a “class” thing as Manoa Kahuna suggests but maybe that IS the perception.
I associate the Transpac race and open ocean sailing, generally, with history, adventure, exploration, risk, all of that. So, the article in the S-A Sunday about the race, featuring the nearly 90 year old wooden vessel, Dorade, was especially appreciated.
Long ago the publisher(s) of the paper may have been yachties.
When I was growing up (long time ago, and I may have mentioned this previously here) there was ALWAYS a front page photo of the night blooming cereus when the very first blooms appeared along the rock walls surrounding the Punahou campus.
Dude: It’s just rich white guys racing expensive sailboats.
The Honolulu rag, however, is owned by somebody who owns a big sailboat.
It’s not a spectator sport. It’s a rich person’s sport. We can’t watch the whole event like a horse or car race. We used to permit unhindered boozing down at the docks. We tired of those Diamond Head photos of spinnakers. It’s time was then and not now.
One of my first photo assignments at the paper was the Transpac. We were flown a hundred miles out by the Coast Guard to get the images.
Find good coverage of the TRANSPAC @:
http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2013/07/25/photos-transpac-race-2013/
Maybe the ladies in the Features section will tell us what delightful foodie crap the race participants dined on, or whether their designer togs were locally sourced.
Snarky, very snarky.
(That’s a comment for ‘Nancy,’ by the way.)