| Alan Hebert Wisdom Santana 30~30 Wisdom's web page |
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 Alan has had completing the Singlehanded TransPac as a
personal goal for fifteen years. As such, he probably holds
the record for the longest Singlehanded TransPac "wannabe"!Alan has been sailing with the SSS off and on since 1994, with a several year, no-boat hiatus from late 1996 to 2000. He sailed the course from San Francisco to Hanalei in 1996 but didn't do the race. He's back in 2004 to take care of that unfinished business. Alan says his goals are A. to finish, B. to have a great old time, C. to beat his 1996 time of 16 days, 23 hours and change, and D. to finish in the top half of his division. Navigation equipment aboard Wisdom consists of three handheld GPS's and a Davis Mark 25 sextant with reduction tables. "God forbid I have to take a noon sun sight, though. I'm really out of practice" he says. He'll be downloading weatherfax information on his SSB radio if he can figure out how to use the software in time. Self-steering consists of two Autohelm ST 2000 tiller pilots and a Navik windvane. He plans to rely heavily on the windvane during the reaching legs of the race and when he's not flying a spinnaker in the later stages. "My Navik worked great in '96, and steered my Ranger 29 essentially the whole way."
Alan is sailing the boat back from Kauai solo after the race and says he's looking forward to that passage almost as much as the race itself. "The symmetry of it appeals to me" he says. "Also, I really liked 2002 skipper Steve Wilson's description of bobbing around in the Pacific High as being like floating on top of a glass Christmas tree ornament."
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Food will be fresh fruits and raw veggies for the first 4-5
days, slowly degenerating into gulps of Mountain Dew and
unheated Dinty Moore stew by the time he hits the
tradewinds. There will be three bottles of Guinness aboard;
one for the day the wind finally goes far enough astern to
set the spinnaker, one for the halfway point, and one for
the first sighting of Kauai on the horizon.
