Two Santa Rosa men part of sailboat crew in race to Hawaii

If all goes well, Mark Warren and Robb Daer will catch enough wind today to speed a 35-foot sailboat west in a race from Long Beach to Honolulu, a year after raging seas injured Daer and forced their four-man team to scuttle efforts in a similar competition.

Warren, a Santa Rosa commercial roofing contractor, and Daer, a partner in a Santa Rosa insurance agency, are spending the Fourth of July with two more teammates aboard the French-made racing vessel Mirthmaker. The four men are sailing toward Diamond Head in the Transpacific Yacht Race, or Transpac 2017, the 49th running of a contest from the mainland to Hawaii.

For the four teammates, the dream of reaching Oahu remains alive after Daer’s injury caused them to turn back a year ago during the 2016 Pacific Cup, a similar race from San Francisco to Honolulu. Daer suffered two broken ribs, but race doctors urged his return home to make sure he didn’t have any worse injuries, possibly even a lacerated spleen.

If anything, Warren seems even more determined to go the roughly 2,500-mile distance after an exhilarating night watch on deck during last year’s race. There, he said, waves and spray repeatedly broke over the top of the Mirthmaker, and the sailboat was “just flying” with winds blowing 25 knots.

“That was magic,” Warren recalled Monday morning, speaking by cellphone as the sailboat motored out of a Long Beach harbor and past the moored Queen Mary, en route to the race starting point. “I’ll never forget that moment for the rest of my life.”

The boat’s team, whose members include Kirk Denebeim of San Francisco and Roark Smith of Moraga, seek to reach Oahu in about 12 days.

For Warren, 53, this adventure began about four years ago when he was invited to sail San Francisco Bay with Daer, a partner in the George Peterson Insurance Agency. Daer and Denebeim jointly own the Mirthmaker, thought to be the only Archambault 35 sailboat berthed in the continental U.S.

Warren, the owner of Warren Construction and Roofing, said sailing led to racing in the bay and later to a series of offshore races. Part of the allure is what happens when he sets out to sea.

“It’s you and the boat,” he said. “There’s always something else to learn about sailing, about racing, about navigating.”

In last year’s race, the team faced ocean conditions stirred up by two distant hurricanes.

The result, said Warren, was strong winds and “really large waves” coming from two directions. Within 24 hours, Daer was thrown across the vessel’s cabin and into its stove. He still took his next watch, but soon was confined to his bunk due to the pain from the broken ribs.

After consulting with the race’s medical team, the crew turned the sailboat for home.

A year later, the immediate worry isn’t a stiff wind but a dying breeze. The team’s onshore weather expert recommended on Monday afternoon that the Mirthmaker speed straight for Catalina Island south of Long Beach. The afternoon winds would make for good sailing, but the breeze was expected to settle down by nightfall.

“It could be a 12- to 14-hour advantage to get to Catalina Island quickly,” Warren said.

The team is competing in a division against three other sailboats, part of nine divisions and 55 vessels taking part in this year’s race.

Warren acknowledged feeling disappointment after turning back last year. But on Monday he and his teammates were looking forward to the competition before them.

“We do not want to cruise,” he said. “We want to race.”

You can reach Staff Writer Robert Digitale at 521-5285 or robert.digitale@pressdemocrat.com.