American Sailing video
Interview with Kira Maixner | 2026 Pacific Cup Win aboard Dorado, ORR4 Division
July 31, 2026 · 35 min · 393 views
What this video covers
Kira Maixner, an American Sailing employee, won the ORR4 division (Gosling's Rum division) of the 2024 Pacific Cup aboard Dorado, an Express 37, sailing from San Francisco to Hawaii — roughly 2,100 miles.1:02 The five-person crew finished with an elapsed time of 11 days, 11 hours, 54 minutes, correcting out to 11 days, 10 hours, beating second-place Lightspeed by about two hours on corrected time.1:26 Skipper and owner Brendan Huffman and navigator Chris Walker each had 11 Pacific Cup or Transpac crossings; one crew member, Christian Sheehan, had never sailed more than 30 miles offshore before the race.9:45 The crew's winning margin came partly from sailing closer to the rhumb line — 100 miles less than competitors.0:55 A high-pressure expansion mid-race killed the wind for roughly five days, stalling the boat and dropping morale before the trade winds filled in during the final three days.2:49 Dorado also received a separate award tied to boat designer Carl Schoonmacher.15:11 Maixner discusses physical and mental preparation, provisioning for a light-air race with five crew, layering for 50°F San Francisco Bay temperatures, and the importance of redundancy for major gear failures — one boat in the fleet lost two rudders and had to install a spare mid-passage.25:35 She also covers Pacific Cup division structure, PHRF vs. ORR rating systems, double-handed vs. fully crewed classes, and how American Sailing certifications from ASA 101 through 106 build toward offshore passage-making.19:19
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