The goal was to beat the record time to sail on the TransPac course from Los Angeles to Honolulu. The record, set in 2005, was four days, 19 hours and 31 minutes. When Lending Club 2 crossed the finish line at Diamond Head at 6:44 a.m. Sunday, it unofficially broke the record by 22 and a-half hours, finishing the crossing in three days, 18 hours.
“Honestly, it’s beyond what we expected,” said Lending Club 2 co-skipper Ryan Breymaier. “We certainly didn’t expect to get a day off of the record that exists. it’s just a shame that we couldn’t have started on race day to accomplish the same thing, to set a race record at the same time. That would have been incredible.”
Lending Club 2 was scheduled to start the race on Saturday, but it withdrew in order to leave last Wednesday to take advantage of the weather. Tropical cyclones that have been brewing in the eastern North Pacific brought the needed wind in its sails to break the record.