Celebrating The TransPac Race at the Los Angeles Yacht Club

What the hell is the TransPac? you ask?  It is a major sailing event wherein the boats leave from a specific buoy at Point Fermin, San Pedro, and race full out across the Pacific" to Diamond Head, Hawaii, a distance of 2,225 nautical miles or 2,560 regular miles.  This takes awhile.  In 2017 the winning time was:  4 days, (!) 6 hours, 32 minutes and 30 seconds.

You will remember that there are no Mickey D's out in the Pacific.  The crew has to pack very carefully.  Military mess kits are popular as well as frozen foods and cans and cans of such as (am assuming here) Dinty Moor Beef Stew, tuna and as much frozen food as can be stored.  Drinking water is distilled on each boat.  That's a lot of food you might think for four or five days.  Not so.  That was the wining boat.  There's only one winner per boat class.  Some poor bastards take up to 10 or 15 full days.  And win in their class!

Still and all, Clarence MacFarlane who proposed this race in 1906 must be pleased at how well it has lasted barring a few wars.  Stateside, racers are hosted at the Los Angeles Yacht Club.

And that fact brings us to the unlikely treat five of us had last night.  Jan, a fellow Thurs. Writer has just joined the LAYC and she invited us to join her at the regular Friday night dinner which coincidentally was celebrating several local race winners and losers in their class.  Several of them addressed us in the dining room after dinner.

Speaking of dinner - here is the bill of fare :
Fresh mango salsa (very good) with fried WonTon chips - very good use of them
Fried rice (very sticky, probably meant to be that way)
Hawaiian-style macaroni and cheese.  This was a big cauldron of bubbling hot mac and cheese with bright pink bits of what I assumed was Spam, a major comestible in Hawaii.  I passed
But went back for seconds of cole slaw with a big bowl of oil and vinegar dressing beside it so hat you could dress your own portion.  This is a nice idea and the dressing was very good.
Kalua pork chunks, apparently the taker pulled it themselves back at their table.
Pineapple and Shrimp Skewers which were a bitch to get off of the skewer - the usual method of upending the skewer and, using the tines of your fork, slide the meat down onto the plate.  Chunks of pineapple weren't on the skewers but the shrimp must have been marinated in pineapple juice or crushed pineapple.
Huli Huli Cauliflower bites  which appeared to have been grilled as their tops were somewhat charred.
Dessert was individual dishes of sherbet and a couple of kinds of cookies - sugar and chocolate chip.

The food was good, certainly plentiful and I wasn't the only one at our table to go back for seconds.  Even though we had not spent the afternoon out on the invigorating ocean yanking sails around.