As for the rest of my lot, I'm off a dairy farm (yes, NZ has more than just many sheep, it has cows too) and am still getting use to the big smoke (cities). I've spent going on twenty years at school and working in the field of Structural Engineering. I've had numerous opportunities to test my metal with projects, and going forward see new areas within the industry to keep me interested.

As for the Transpac, like the Longpac, I'm wary of myself, as I do really see myself as the biggest concern out there. The concept of taking a boat downhill from a to b is theoretically straight forward, and the sailing community has had many successful passages by well-experienced and capable people. I'll be watching myself carefully during the race, thinking of the body and mind and its likely condition not today but, say, three days forward. Hence, I have been off coffee for some eight months now to not get so hyped up; a propensity that I have when I focus. I reckon she'll be easy to push hard and fall short of the line. As my learned philosophical and brilliant sister says, "don't wave to the crowd as you approach the finish line; nothing like falling flat on your face short of the line". She is also a proponent of "head down and chin up". The latter is a Moore tradition, which I bring to my sailing process.

As for the chronology for this event, I bought Moore Havoc in March 2003 with the intent of completing the single-handed Farallones race, a qualifying race for the Longpac, which in turn would permit one to do the 2004 Transpac. It was fun to sail around the Farallones with brisk winds and find myself surfing at 13 knots with #3 and an unreefable main. That being my third time out on this type of boat resulted in a rather focused learning experience.

Lastly, my strategy to sail well in the Transpac race; prepare well and bring lots of tenacity to the table, which hopefully will not permit Greg Morris to get too much of a head start at the bar on me.

Navigation: Two handheld GPS. Steering: Me + two ST4000's and one ST1000. Food: Gu, Bars, Homemade "Power Balls", Canned Chili (Courtesy of Colour Blind's inspiration), Dried Mash Potatoes (Plausibly made with cold water). Special thanks: First and foremost to Mike Maloney for intensely saying, as expressed with the eyes rolling up into his head, that there is a huge difference, an increase in challenge and complexity, between crewing and being in charge of a boat for the Pacific Cup. I, seeing that preparing the boat would result in the most learning and that with my sailing skill level that I could not take responsibility for anyone else, decided to do the Transpac. Race committee is well deserving of praise, all of you that volunteer and exemplify Buddhist mannerism by way of being patient with VHF users calling-in in a stupor at the finish line in the early hours of the morning for numerous races. For instance, my last finished at 2 am during the Spinnaker Cup went something like: "Race Committee, this is Moore Havoc and I see and smell seals, so I think I'm at the finish line and I need help finding the marina, over". Race Committee kindly responded "you're not quite there and once you are head to starboard and you'll see us guide you in with a spot light". Long story, but typical of how volunteers of race committee make the difference out there; thank you all. To Ted, Hawk, et al Shenanigan crew, Dirk, and Joe, Rich, John, Doug, Dave/Carlo, et al Mooreons, and those in my little world, thanks for the "lip", swapping of beer stories, and advise and gear. And of course there's the competition, George and Greg, who have loaned me gear and taught me how to sail faster and, more importantly, kept the stories up which kept me focused. Somehow single-handed sailing is quite the contrary to being a solo effort.