HAWAII VIA GLENMORE
Calgary sailor Chris Lemke relaxes on Glenmore Reservoir Monday before participating in the Transpac 2017 yacht race between California and Hawaii in early July.
After a lifetime of sailing experience, one of the highlights of being out at sea for Calgarian Christopher Lemke is “staring out at the blue.”
As he prepares to embark on a 4,140-kilometre journey from Long Beach, California to Honolulu, Hawaii — as part of the Transpacific Yacht Race — Lemke describes what he enjoys so much about the route.
“By the time you get down to the trade winds, you just get these beautiful, aquamarine, deep, deep, luminescent blue seas and beautiful winds from behind you and you sort of spend the whole day surfing down these big waves,” Lemke says.
“It’s kind of why everybody loves these races.”
Lemke will be the skipper and navigator of a boat he co-owns called Dark Star, in what he describes as the “granddaddy of all those Pacific races.” He’ll be joined by watch captain Brad Lawson from Denver, Alan Carley from Victoria and Andrew Nelson from Tacoma.
The Hobie 33 is the smallest boat in the competition, but the crew is well-accustomed to working together.
The group has raced together during the past decade on a boat out of Portland. They became friends at the Glenmore Sailing Club in Calgary.
Lemke moved to the city in 1992 to study architecture, and the sailing club proved to be “an integral part” of his family’s life for 20 years.
“Nobody thinks of Calgary as a hotbed of yacht racing, but we’ve actually produced Olympic sailors,” he says.
“Right now, besides myself, there’s a couple of guys that are off sailing around the world and a bunch of people that have done transatlantic races,” he says. “It’s an incredibly passionate community here in Calgary.”
Lemke’s 13-year-old son is following in his father’s footsteps after growing up sailing, and he just completed a race in San Francisco last week.
“He’s got it in his soul,” Lemke says.
The Transpac race will take the Calgary sailor and his crew between 11 and 15 days to complete.
He notes being isolated for two weeks, with no sight of land, is “a mental and physical test.” It’s also the reason he enjoys sailing so much.
“You’ve got to navigate by the stars if your electronics die on you, so ... it sort of feels like a Renaissance art,” he says.