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Merlin (yacht)

Merlin is the iconic Bill Lee designed Ultra Light Displacement racing yacht that has won numerous offshore yacht races including the Transpac in 1977 with a course record that stood for 20 years. She is a 68 foot long by 12 foot wide monohull weighing in at 25,000 pounds. Merlin is currently owned and raced by William F. “Chip” Merlin, founder of Merlin Law Group, for his team Merlin Yacht Racing.

Original:

Designer, Builder and First owner: Bill Lee Launch - February 1977

Sail number 8955

Current Owner: William F. “Chip” Merlin

The Origin of Merlin

In 1977 the sport of sailing was changed forever by a different way of thinking about how a boat should be designed and how the sailing crew was meant to behave. Many felt the sport was long overdue for some change, but that does not mean that it wasn’t met with some skepticism. One man’s idea created a sailing ship that broke nearly every West Coast ocean racing record that the 1970s and 1980s had to offer. All it took was a wizard hat, a cape, and a degree in applied physics and engineering to be the fastest. The man that possessed this unique skill set was Bill Lee and he used his knowledge and unique point of view to christen a magical new sailing design named Merlin.

Bill Lee wanted to go fast and this is where his philosophy of “Fast is Fun” was born. As Lee has said, “I sailed on Quasar in ’71 and Panache in ’73 and ’75. I figured there was a party for each boat when she finished and by sailing on a 40-footer I missed all of the parties before my finish. The only way to attend all of the parties was to get there first.” While racing Panache in ‘73 Lee saw the Spencer 53 Ragtime, a narrow, hard-chined sloop that won line honors in the TransPac earlier that year and he liked the Idea of getting thin and rounding off the bottom. The Santa Cruz philosophy was to take conventional sailboats and make them longer and lighter. And so the Merlin concept was born.

With the first to finish goal and the boat concept in mind, Lee pioneered the ultra light displacement boat design. Despised by yachting traditionalists who were roiled by Lee’s refusal to create hull distortions that were demanded by some yachting rules, his designs were not created on a whim, but were crafted and then materialized all with Lee’s skill and zest for fun, as well as with his limitations in mind.

For example, Lee revealed how he not so magically came to use a 12’ beam for the skinny sled. “That was the widest beam that we could have in order to be able to turn the hull over in the building, in Santa Cruz. I purchased a 24’ spinnaker pole and built the boat around it,” joked the Wizard. The building, a 200-foot long converted chicken coop in the Soquel Hills a few miles east of the Santa Cruz harbor, was the birthplace of the now world famous yacht.

Construction of the boat was not exotic. Both hull and deck are balsa cored and covered with E-glass and woven roving with some unidirectional glass in high-stress areas. Lee used Bruynzeel plywood for the interior structures, which include a raised main settee over the water tanks, a total of 10 berths strung along the hull, a navigation station and galley and a head jammed way up in the bow.

Merlin is a prototype, a one-of-a-kind. This makes the boat even more of a mystery. Her narrow beam and cut-off transom, the straight slicing edge of her bow, and the long gracefulness of her hull all seem to add to the magic of Merlin.

Although much of the competitive sailing world fretted over complying with the ever-shifting International Offshore Rule (IOR), Lee simply focused on makingMerlin fast enough to break not just Windward Passage’sexisting monohull TransPac record of 9 days, 9 hours, but also the muitihull record of 8 days, 13 hours set by France’s Eric Tabarly in 1969. He relied on the numbers his engineering background provided him, but he also drew on his and other’s intuition to get the boat just right. “I’d go over after work,” says insurance agent and TransPac veteran Harvey Kilpatrick, “and Bill had the keel on a dolly under the boat, moving it back and forth to where it looked right.” By February 23, 1977, Merlin was ready to hit the water.

Named after a combination of the Arthurian legend, the P-51 aircraft engine and a small falcon hawk, Merlin surprised even those who expected her to be fast. Kilpatrick came along for the initial sails, including the first time they hoisted a spinnaker. In anticipation of this crucial moment, Lee wondered aloud if he should drive or let his insurance man have the helm. He opted for the latter, went below and sipped on a soda as the sail went up. “We were going 12 knots under the main alone,” recalls Kilpatrick, “and with the kite up we jumped to 17, Everyone was whooping and hollering. It was really something.”

Weighing half as much as contemporary 68-footers, Merlin presented Lee and his crew with a whole new world of sailing. “It was like riding a motorboat without the engine,”

says Dave Wahle. Merlin was so active in a seaway that Wahle recalls he had to rip his paperback copy of the novel Shogun In half In order to focus on the print!

With so little beam, Merlin was never expected to go upwind with any speed. Off the wind, however, she created tremendous apparent wind. In flat water she would sail with the pole on the forestay while the true wind was well aft of the beam. “For those of us used to heavier boats, this was totally unique,” says Steve Taft, an early crewmember and the boat’s sailmaker for many years. “If the true wind died, we’d experience these incredible apparent wind crashes.”

They learned how to sail when the boat ran over one wave and down into the next, covering the foredeck with a couple feet of water. ”We were all pretty scared at first,” recalls Vandenberg. “The bow would be three feet underwater but the boat didn’t slow down or load up and the speedometer didn’t go down. After awhile, we’d just shrug our shoulders and keep going.” Once Vandenberg was on the bow dropping the blooper when a wave came along and washed him down the forward hatch along with several hundred gallons of water. Left hanging upside down and from his safety harness, Vandenberg dubbed this experience “the Cosmic Flush.”

Many credit the popularity of ultralight sailing to the fact that Bill generously opened the boat to anyone who wanted to come aboard for a ride. On Santa Cruz’s summertime Wednesday night races, she would be loaded to the gills with men, women and children who would ‘oohh’ and ‘ahhh’ as she slithered through the sparking seas. Niels Kisling, who’s done the lion’s share of deliveries for Campion since 1983, says the boat always draws a crowd. When coming up the coast from Mexico or Southern California, he tries to schedule a Thursday night stopover at Morro Bay Yacht Club during happy hour. “We always get 30 or 40 people onboard for cocktails,” he says. “It’s always been open house on M erlin.”

Currently for sale, Merlin retains both her mystique and, as was shown in the ‘95 TransPac, her ability to go fast. “Merlin showed us that you could blow away the big, powerful maxi boats by going light and simple,” says yacht designer Carl Schumacher.

“Sleds don’t load up like heavy boats. They’re easier to jibe and they take fewer people to sail. M erlin is certainly a boat that had a major impact on the sailing world.”

Dem Smith, charterer for 1983 TransPac: “Merlin is the most incredible ride I’ve ever had. Sometimes I think of her as 67 feet of sheer terror. My job was jibing the pole and the first time I did it I found myself underwater with the wire guys dragging across the face. I immediately thought there had to be a better way to do it. I shortened the tether on my harness to three feet and fastened it to a deadbolt on the foredeck so I wouldn’t get swept away every time she dove. I literally did every jibe during that race underwater.”

Skip Allan, crewmember: “M erlin has always been a ‘people boat’ and the more the merrier. A Wednesday night crew in Santa Cruz of 35 to 45 was not uncommon, and if Bill didn’t cast off promptly at 5:30 p.m., more would have climbed aboard. Bill would sip brandy in the cabin and watch the action through the windows. One of the favorite activities for guests was to climb into the narrow bow of the boat and position their backs on one side of the hull and their knees on the other. Going to weather, the bow would flex and pant, squeezing you gently in a fetal hug.”

Merlin is the most famous boat to ever call Santa Cruz her home port.

About sailing Merlin fast in the dark, Harvey Kilpatrick, one of the ‘original eight’ who sailed Merlin in her first Transpac in 1977, once said, “it was like driving down 101 at night, in the middle of a rain storm, with no windshield and no headlights.”

In July 2016, Sailing Magazine declared Merlin “the most noteworthy racing boat of the last 50 years.”

Transpac 1977

(The race vs Drifter in the 1977 Transpac See YouTube story by Bill Lee and the warnings of traditional makers that Merlin was a dangerous design)

The 1977 Transpac was a dramatic race. There were five potential contenders for the overall win: Windward Passage and Kialoa III were the two old-school heavyweights, and Harry Moloshco’s 69-ft Drifter, Ragtime, and Merlin were the newer lightweights. Merlin was the favorite going in, but Drifter, a Southern California boat, built after Merlin and perhaps just as an enlarged copy, actually led the race for six out of the eight days.

Merlin went north and began to leg out on Drifter as the pair reached Oahu. In the last two full days Merlin logged 305 miles each day—a Transpac record at that time.

As Lee remembers it, they weren’t sure who was ahead as the duo sped toward the finish line. A C-135 military aircraft with a photographer on board spotted Merlin on her final approach to Molokai Channel. “The wind was about 20 knots, sky overcast, and the photo showed Merlin half submerged as the bow dipped and a wave swept the foredeck, with whitewater rolling back over the cabin top,” said Don Snyder. “We watched the C-135 (head east) and then sighted Drifter about five miles back.

When the crew realized that they must be ahead of Drifter, “It was a sobering moment,” said Lee. “All we had to do was finish the race and not goof up.”

“For our final jibe at Molokai, we dropped the chute, jibed the main and raised a new chute on the other side. Drifter tried it with their kite up and put the spreaders in the water,” Lee said. In the end, Merlin crossed 17 minutes ahead after 2,200 miles of racing. Her elapsed time of 8 days, 11 hours and 1 minute. Merlin finished at 21:01:45 HST, and Drifter finished at 21:19:26 HST.

When Merlin set a new race record in 1977, she not only beat it, she smashed it by over 22 hours, defeating the previous record of 9d:08hr:06m:48s set by Windward Passage in 1971. So remarkable was this boat that this record stood for 20 years before being beaten by Roy Disney’s Pyewacket in 1997. So, Lee and the rest of the ‘original eight’ Merlin sailors-- Don Snyder, Phil Vandenburg, Dave Wahle, Bobbo Larsen, Jack Halterman, Harvey Kilpatrick and Rob Wade--were the first to the party on Transpac Row and Lee wore his signature Merlin the Magician costume consisting of a star-covered magician's robe and hat. Many have crowded onto Merlin to celebrate over the years regardless of what her berth has been on Transpac Row.

** photographer recorded Merlin’s ‘Das Boot’ imitation. When the plane finally peeled off and headed behind them**

Significant Victories, Matches and Legacy

The Transpacific Yacht Race or “Transpac” is 2,225 nautical miles from Los Angeles to Hawaii, is sailed in odd-numbered years as the oldest and

longest enduring ocean race in the world. Originally, Hawaii’s King Kalakaua envisioned it as a way to build ties between Hawaii and the mainland He did not live to see his dream come true when, in 1906, Clarence MacFarlane organized the first race. In the more than 100 years since its inception, Transpac has become synonymous with challenge, adventure, teamwork and excellence. In her first Transpac outing in 1977, Merlin won the first-to-finish trophy called “Barn Door” with an elapsed time of 8d:11hr:1m:45s. This record held for 20 years.

In 1981, under charter to Nick Frazee, Merlin won the Barn Door for her second time with wind conditions just as good as they were for Merlin’s inaugural win in 1977. Merlin missed breaking her own 1977 record by just 46 seconds. In this race, she was ‘penalized’ by the rating committee sailing the race with hundreds of extra pounds of lead attached to her toe rail and a smaller mainsail on a shorter boom. Merlin’s third Barn Door and third first-to-finish victory in a decade came in 1987 when Skip Stevely chartered her from Donn Campion.

In 1983, after 20 years of Transpac fleets trying to best Merlin’s course record to no avail, the Transpac Yacht Club committee decided to make a change. Fearing that Lee’s success would prompt a rash of Merlin copies that lacked her structural integrity, they capped the race entries with a 70.0 IOR rating. In 1995, as technology seemed to pass Merlin by, it won the King Kalakaua Perpetual and the Governor of Hawaii take-home trophies for best overall corrected time.Merlin’s Transpac spell was broken in 1997

when Roy Disney’s Pyewacket, a 70’ sled designed and built by Bill Lee with a turbo job, crossed the finish line at Diamond Head in 7:15:24:40.

In 2004, to give boats of all sizes, an equal chance for first place overall on corrected handicap time, Transpac directors voted to stretch the rating distance of the race to 2,300 nautical miles. The actual distance remained 2,225 from the Palos Verdes Peninsula south of Los Angeles to the Diamond Head lighthouse at Waikiki. The longer rated course is intended to give the smaller boats with their higher handicaps more track to eat away at the faster boats' times.

Besides the longer course rating, the new formula will also consider updated Velocity Prediction Programs (VPPs) for all boats that include the "Pacific Swell" factor, taking into account the fact that, as entry chairman Bill Lee said, in a predominantly downwind race "some boats surf [the waves] better than others." The basic VPP used was developed mostly in flat water.

Designer Alan Andrews elaborated, "The Pacific Swell factor has the potential to really help the bulk of the fleet---moderate to non-surfing boats---considerably, as well as the shorter surfing boats that still don't fit the wave length as well as longer boats."

The Transpac directors also refined the new rating limit. It will be based on the rating certificate of the designated base boat, Roy Disney's new maxZ86, Pyewacket, in its fastest configuration.

No boat may be configured to rate faster, although larger and faster boats such as the new 90-footers emerging on the world scene may power down with smaller sails or other changes to meet the standard.

In 2017 Merlin competed in her 13th Transpac Race. Ragtime, the Spencer 66 from Los Angeles has the record for the most Transpac Races at 15. Between Pacific Cup, Victoria to Maui, and Transpac, Merlin will has twenty Pacific Ocean crossings in her wake.

Course Records:


 * ●  Transpac, Los Angeles to Honolulu July 1977
 * ●  San Diego to Manzanillo, Mexico February 1978 This was the first San Diego to Manzanillo Race Merlin participated in and she finished first, set the course record, and held that record for years to come. This was done without a professional crew—just good friends and great sailors from Santa Cruz, sailing in the Fast is Fun style.
 * ●  Victoria BC to Maui, Hawaii July 1978 Merlin finished first and set a new course record. The Victoria-to-Maui Race is run every two years from picturesque, stately and very British Victoria on Vancouver Island to picturesque, casual and very American-Polynesian Lahaina on the island of Maui in the Hawaiian chain. For handicap purposes, the Maui Race is 2,310 miles long. However, most of the yachts sail somewhat farther as the handicap distance is based upon the great circle route, which would commonly take one through, or uncomfortably close to, the calms associated with the North Pacific high. Aboard Merlin Stephen Crary, Doug Fryer, Ron Pemberton, Breck Adams, Jim Williams, Bill Nelson, Gary Wood and Bob Spanfelner knocked two days, 17 minutes off the old record and beat Drifter in what some described as the

world's longest match race. She then repeated that feat 14 years later by once again finishing first and setting a new course record in the 1992 Victoria to Maui Race.


 * ●  Pacific Cup, San Francisco to Hawaii July 1980 In 1980, Merlin sailed her first Pacific Cup and was first to finish and set a new course record. Merlin had an incredible finish. Sue Rowley, writing in the August 1980 issue of Latitude 38, told the story. “The chartered fishing boats full of welcomers couldn’t keep up with Merlin as she screamed across the finish line at 15 knots. Her finish, 10 days, 4 hours, 5 minutes, and 52 seconds was not a mainland to Hawaii record, but she was almost 4 days and 700 miles ahead of the second boat in, the Santa Cruz 50, Secret Love from Marina del Rey.” After that finish Merlin’s crew “donated their magnificent sculptured crystal trophy as a perpetual. Merlin then dominated the race for six years as first to finish and setting new course records in 1982, 1984 and 1986. Her most impressive Pacific Cup finish came in 1986 when, after a steering failure, she sailed the last 500 miles under reduced sail and emergency steering. Merlin still finished first and set the new course record.
 * ●  Windjammer, San Francisco to Santa Cruz (the oldest continuously-run yacht race on the west coast) September 1983 she sailed the 68 miles in just 17 seconds under 6 hours (a record that still stands today for mono hulls)
 * ●  Transpac, Los Angeles to Honolulu 1987 Merlin was once again first to finish. Although she missed her still-standing 1977 record by only 64 minutes. Skip Stevely chartered the boat for that race and Donn Campion went along too. The crew was awarded the Steve Newmark Seamanship Trophy for performing a man overboard rescue on one of their own during the race.
 * ●  Transpac, Los Angeles to Honolulu 1995 After correcting out first in fleet, Bill Lee declared that Merlin had just ‘set boat design back 20 years.’ Several 70-raters, designed purposefully to break Merlin’s 1977 record, showed up for the race only to be beaten by Merlin as she corrected out first in fleet. Some of these new sleds were worth a million dollars and featured famous

sailors like Roy Disney, Larry Ellison, Nolan Bushnell, Stan Honey and Vickie Lawrence, while Merlin probably cost less than $50,000 to build in Bill Lee’s chicken coop two decades earlier.

Transpac’s The Merlin Trophy

In 2009, Trisha Steele, a fourth-generation Transpac racer and herself a former owner of Merlin, dedicated a new trophy, The Merlin Trophy, for the fastest elapsed time for the unlimited class of yachts competing in the Transpac Race. The trophy was built by Ken Gardiner and is a scale model of Merlin itself. Complimenting Merlin creator Bill Lee, Steele said, “He has been a great innovator in Transpac yachting and has been a member of the Transpacific Yacht Club for years. This trophy is to commemorate his contribution over the years.”

The Merlin Trophy is for RSS 51 and 52 waiver yachts (exempt from the Racing Rules of Sailing limitations on moveable ballast and/or stored power) up to 100 feet with the shortest elapsed time. These boats are ineligible for the Barn Door Trophy. “This opens up the Barn Door to boats that are fully compliant with RRS 51 and 52,” explained a delighted Lee whose Santa Cruz 50, 52 and 70 designs are now well represented in the current Transpac fleets.

** Do you want me to explain what the Barn Door trophy means and the Koa wood slab trophy story?**

Merlin (Ultra Light Displacement Boat)

Merlin is an Ultra Light Displacement Boat (ULDB), nicknamed a “sled”, which was designed and built in 1977 by Bill Lee in Santa Cruz, California. This new design put Santa Cruz on the ocean-racing map with some of the first ULDB designs. These long, narrow, and lightweight boats are built with the purpose of taking advantage of the downwind surfing conditions in races such as the Transpac Race from California to Hawaii.

Lee conceptually changed the direction of offshore yacht design by keeping the boat long, narrow and purposefully lightweight to sail with great effectiveness in the offwind races of the West Coast of the United States, yet to also be at the current International Offshore Rule or “IOR” Rating of 70.0 feet, the defined Maxi yacht rating limit at the time the boat was created. The design has been likened to a “one hulled catamaran” which slices through the water with impressive speed and power.

Other conventional or IOR Maxis were commonly referred to as “lead mines” because of the large and heavy keels they needed to keep their stability with their massive sails and 80-foot lengths. The conventional Maxis of this era were designed to perform well relative to their rating in all points of sail, whereas Merlin excelled solely in one direction--downwind.

It was this design feature that then prompted a new generation of ULDB designs to not necessarily rate well and win on corrected time, but to be first to finish. Trying to

beat the record of nine days, nine hours, and six minutes, would take a different way of thinking. Lee’s key to this came in two parts--boat design and sailing philosophy. The first was with Lee’s revolutionary boat design--the ultra-light-displacement boat or ULDB.

In 1970, 26-year-old Bill Lee had the idea that a fast boat for racing out of Santa Cruz would be a 30-foot version of a 505 dinghy. So he designed and built Magic. The boat was locally successful and Bill received a commission for a 35-footer named Witchcraft. This was a sistership to a boat Bill Lee designed and built for himself, a 40-footer named Panache. Bill entered the boat in the Transpac but was beaten by another boat he had designed,Chutzpah, a 35-footer. While he had sailed on many boats and designed a few before Merlin,

Bill “The Wizard” Lee pushed into the area of extreme light-displacement, off-the-wind boats almost entirely on his own.

Bill’s secret was to keep the boats small and as light as possible so they would plane. But Bill wanted to own the record for the Transpac and that would take a bigger boat. In 1976 Bill designed Merlin at 66 feet 6 inches LOA and 25,000 pounds, for a D/L of about 49.17. This was a purpose-built boat designed to excel off the wind on long races. As far as I recall, there was nothing like it at the time. The typical 66-foot IOR boat of the day would have weighed more than twice as much as Merlin and only under very favorable conditions could one expect the IOR boat to surf briefly. Merlin changed everything for downwind racing. The ULDB approach would become so dominant that today pretty much every race boat you can think of has ULDB-type numbers.

“In 1976 when Merlin was designed, there was no rating limit for Transpac,” Bill said. “She was designed as a Transpac first to finish boat and to the ‘Boatspeed per Dollar’ rule. So given a limited budget and the only objective being downwind speed, so back to basics, the solution was to form the materials and sail budget into a long, skinny, light boat. In 1977, she was out the door for $135,000. Race prep and doing the race were another $20,000. Nowadays it takes multimillions to try to break the Transpac course record. The IOR existed at the time, and was the rating rule for the race. Merlin only rated 70.5 in 1977, though that was unimportant at the time. It is interesting to note that for the 1977 race, the eleven light-displacement boats were split out into a separate division.”

Eventually the IOR powers established a rating of 70 for their top-rated boats. The Transpac Board adopted the IOR limit of 70. A typical IOR 70-rater of the time would have been an S&S design weighing 84,440 pounds. Bill took what he learned from Merlin and designed the Santa Cruz 70 to the IOR 70 rating limit. This involved adding beam and playing with the IOR measurement points to optimize the SC70’s rating. The SC70 would displace 25,000 pounds, with D/L around 49. Kialoa’s D/L would have been around 154.4 including 35,000 pounds of ballast! While Kialoa would have been an upwind freight train, the 70-rater

SC70 would blow it away off the wind. On a long downwind race there was no benefit to taking a rating hit for having upwind speed.

Merlin fact sheet

Only the hull is original:

2nd complete deck and deckhouse, painted hull blue:

These changes made it almost unrecognizable from the original

2nd interior 3rd keel 4th mast 4th engine 4th rudder

Keel changes:

Fixed keel replaced with canting keel in 1997 Canting keel replaced with fixed in 2016

2005 added a five-spreader cathedral and fitted her out with a new bulb and a canting keel

** Need to figure out how to lay out this section. I pulled the fact sheet from Bill Lee’s website, but I don’t know how current it is.**

Ownership

First: Bill Lee 1977–1983

Second: Don Campion 1983–2000

Third: Al Micalief 2000-2002 (Briefly changed name to “Merlin’s Reata”) Fourth: Orange Coast College School of Sailing and Seamanship 2002–2004

Fifth: Trisha Steele 2004—2007

Sixth: Bill Lee or Donn Campion 2007—2008

Seventh: Jere Sullivan 2008-2015 (?)

Eighth: Bill and Lu Lee 2015–2017

Ninth: William F. “Chip” Merlin 2017—Present

Second

Merlin spent 17 consecutive years (18 total) under the ownership and leadership of Donn Campion, member of the Santa Cruz Yacht Club, who chartered her to multiple individuals and syndicates. In July 6, 1994 Bill Lee Yachts Inc. filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy leaving 15 employees out of work and owed 2 weeks back pay. For the 1997 Transpac, Merlin’s last Transpac while Donn Campion owned her, a canting keel was installed for the Alliance Syndicate, hoping the new technology would give the then 20 year old yacht a fresh edge in an overly competitive fleet of modern race machines. Homer Lighthall and Matthew Coale installed this canting keel design and, inspired by all the questions while they were working in Harbor Marine, Homer and Matthew came up with the race t-shirt slogan that year that featured the quip, ‘Yes, we cant.’ The race committee limited the keel cant to 10 degrees and Merlin didn’t do so well. She tied the record at the time for 11 Transpac Races, along with the famous Southern California classic, Ragtime. Also under Donn’s ownership, Merlin was 2nd to finish the 1998 Pac Cup but the time penalty slid her way down the division and fleet results.

Third

In 2000 Merlin change hands for the 3rd time, and owner Al Micallef, a Ft. Worth, Texas restaurateur, gave her a complete makeover including a new deck and a blue painted hull. Micallef also changed her name to Merlin's Reata with colorful graphics created by Gary Miltimore that show the namesake legendary magician twirling a Reata, or lariat. He sailed her in the 2001 Transpac finishing 4th in the division and 13th in fleet.

Fourth

Merlin was donated by Al Micallef to Orange Coast College in 2002 and she languished for two years.

Fifth

Trisha Steele’s family “takes care of old boats,” and she purchased Merlin from Orange Coast College in 2004 to do just that. After losing the mast in the 2005 Cabo Race, Steele continued on campaign to do a major restoration and modernize Merlin by adding a five-spreader cathedral, fitting her out with a new bulb and a canting keel, a carbon spar built by

GMT Composites, and changing the yacht’s name: "[The name] Reata's going away," Steele said. "It's back to Merlin. The big guy's going to stay, and we're going to a rainbow type graphic." Miltimore redid his original artwork and was also part of the crew when Steele steered Merlin in the 2005 Transpac, finishing 10th in class and 27th in fleet.

Sixth

Don Campion took her reigns for 2007 but relinquished ownership in 2008.

Seventh

Milwaukee’s Jerome “Jerry” Sullivan of the Milwaukee Yacht Club took ownership in 2008 and relocated Merlin to the Great Lakes for 5 summers. Bill Lee found her stored in a warehouse while attending a conference in Wisconsin in 2014. After a year of negotiating, Merlin was loaded onto a trailer and brought back to her original home in Santa Cruz.

Eighth

Bill Lee and his wife Lu became the owners once again and gave Merlin a much needed overhaul in order to return her to her former simplicity. She underwent an immediate canting keel removal and fixed keel surgery. "We knew going in, it was going to be a big job, doable but a chore" Bill said. The original fixed keel weight remained the same, but the profile went from an 8.5' blade to a 10' fin and bulb, which added additional stability that Merlin did not have in her original configuration.

To celebrate Merlin’s 40th Anniversary in 2017, 200 plus friends, family, locals and sailors both young and old gathered in Santa Cruz Small Boat Harbor to celebrate the recommisioning of Lee’s historic craft. Adorned in flower leis, were 6 of the original 8 surviving members from Merlin's glorious 1977 Transpac: Bill Lee, Don Snyder, Bob Larson, Dave Wahle, Phil Vandenberg, and Jack Halterman. A proper lei placing at the bow and recommisioning speech by the wizard himself were highlights. Of the original 8, only Bill Lee and Jack Halterman were scheduled to race aboard Merlin on the 40th anniversary of her record run to Hawaii. In the 2017 Transpac, she crossed the finish line at Diamond Head 40 years after she did it the first time with an elapsed time of 8:02:34:09. It did not set any records, but it was still better than the elapsed time of 8:11:01:45 that she

set in her original configuration when Lee and his team raced her in a very windy 1977 Transpac, which was a testament to the upgrades made to the boat over her long and storied life.

Of the 2017 Transpac, Lee said, “We had no major failures or breakdowns, and this boat has had 7 keel changes, 4 mast changes, deck layout changes and countless sails through its life. Right now it is set up nicely. She sails better, easier and faster than the original boat, so much so its really a different boat and a pleasure to sail.”

Ninth

Chip Merlin has taken Merlin up a few knots.