Author’s Note: This article originally appeared in the July 2014 edition of Freshwater News.  For what it’s worth, I’ve sailed on the ocean, and made any number of runs that my non-sailing friends think sound impressive.  Then I tell them the story of Jeff Duvall and Peter Guilfoyle sailing across the Pacific in a 24-foot, 2,000 pound Moore 24.  It puts to shame anything I’ve ever done.  Here’s their story.

 

There’s a 24 foot sailboat moored a few slips down from our boat, a somewhat non-descript craft sporting a Rogue Brewery license plate and a “Keep Portland Beered” bumper sticker.  To the casual observer, it probably looks like someone’s daysailer, a nice comfortable boat to take out for a few tacks on a sunny afternoon.  I suspect there are few people who see her and realize they’re looking at a true piece of west coast sailing history.  The boat, owned by Jeff Duvall, is a Moore 24, and in 2006 she did more than provide a ride for a nice day on the water.  She carried Duvall and sailing partner Peter Guilfoyle over 2,000 miles from San Francisco to Kaneohe Bay in the 2006 Pacific Cup Race.

I first met Jeff a few months before he and Peter were scheduled to be on the Pac Cup starting line, and my first thought, upon hearing what they were planning to do was, “That’s a really little boat!”  What’s more, having flown over the general course a few years earlier, I remembered the Pacific Ocean being, well, a really big piece of water.  A quick glance at the eligibility requirements for the Pac Cup indicated that a Moore 24 is at exactly the minimum length allowed for the race, and at a displacement of just over 2,000 pounds (1,025 of that ballast) and a beam of 7 feet, the Moore could be described as the definition of a small, very light downwind runner.

If you’re not familiar with the story, all of this might sound like just a couple of guys who decided to double hand a little boat across the Pacific.  Get further into the story however, and there’s more to whole affair.

It began for Jeff in 2000 during a trip to Hawaii.  A friend, Eric Simonson, had just sailed his Moore 24 into Kaneohe, and it got Jeff to thinking that he’d like to try the Pacific Cup crossing on that little boat.  He began thinking and planning what it might take to pull this off.  Four years later, on a return trip from the Oregon Offshore, Jeff got to talking with Peter about actually doing it.  They met up with Eric, looked over his Moore, pooled their collective bank accounts and bought the boat.  So far, so good.

Next came fairly intensive sailing just to get to know the boat, figuring out what she was going to need for something like a Pacific crossing, not to mention figuring out just how much all of this was going to cost.  A lot to think about, but not terribly unusual.

And then things got interesting.

During all of this, Peter’s daughter Keeli was born prematurely, and Peter got very familiar with the March of Dimes and their work with preemies.  March of Dimes proved to be a big help, and six weeks later, Keeli left the hospital and came home.  Suddenly, Jeff and Peter came up with an idea that transformed a “simple” Pacific Cup crossing into something much more significant.  Why not use the race as a platform to raise funds and awareness for the MOD?  And the whole program took off after that.

Jeff and Peter developed a program name Project Lifesail, got help developing a website and blog, told their story and began raising those aforementioned funds and awareness.  They displayed the boat, now named Keeli Quinn after Peter’s daughter, at the Portland Boat Show as well as the annual March of Dimes Walkathon, selling raffle tickets and raising money for the program.  All while working and refitting the Moore to get her ready for their afternoon sail across the Pacific.  They competed in the 2005 Bridge to Bridge Race down to Yaquina Bay; sailed her down there for the summer; and then brought her home for final work before heading to San Francisco and the 2006 start.

“The hardest part for us wasn’t the actual ocean sailing,” Jeff recalls. “It was all of the prep work.  The logistics of getting the boat ready for the trip were really overwhelming at times.”

In early July of 2006, Jeff and Peter trailered Keeli Quinn down to SFO Bay, launched her and made a number of practice runs just to make sure everything was a go.  Race day finally rolled around along with, no doubt, some adrenalin and butterflies.  Jeff and Peter headed out for what turned into a light start, but once past the Golden Gate, their breeze kicked in and the Moore took off.  They spent the first couple of days in wet, rough conditions, but as the weather and their routine settled in, they were able to set their chute, which calmed the boat and allowed them to dry out.

Being a Moore 24, there wasn’t a lot of room down below but it was, in Jeff’s words, “manageable.”  Which sort of sounds like a nice way of saying “cramped.”  They lived on freeze-dried foods with regular energy-maintaining snacks, plus a lot of tunes from their iPods, while they kept watch for debris and whatever else one might find in the middle of the world’s largest body of water.

There were the usual expected gear failures, including a few parted spinnaker halyards that, I assume, required one of them to go aloft, but they managed to recover them and keep moving.  And there was Jeff’s description of one 24 hour period that probably made the whole trip worthwhile.

“One particular day, we were really flying along and as the sun set, we were blasting off the tops of waves.  At that point, we decided to downsize to our ‘chicken chute’.  That kept the boat speeds manageable.  It was a crazy night, with waves crashing around us and glowing phosphorescence all around.  Absolutely spectacular!”

15 days into the crossing, they spotted the first islands of Hawaii, and soon after that, they crossed the finish line off Kaneohe Bay.  As they were escorted in, they first saw Peter’s family and friends, and Jeff spotted his then-girlfriend Kimberly waiting on the docks.  A brief boat inspection completed, they accepted their first (and presumably not their last) post-race Mai Tai’s, and Jeff chose that moment to propose to Kimberly.  Since we all know her now as Kimberly Duvall, I’ll leave it to you to guess her answer.

Oh, and let’s not forget to mention one other snippet: Project Lifesail raised over $18,000 for the March of Dimes, and earned Jeff and Peter the MOD Volunteer of the Year award.

Not bad.  I guess that Moore 24 isn’t such a little boat after all.