Stan Honey\u2019s career is unrivalled: from breaking records on the water in some of the world’s toughest offshores, to technical innovations of it. Sean McNeill chats to the smartest man in yachting
\nStan Honey\u2019s first ever offshore race set the tone for his career. Then a lean and mean 14-year-old racing Lasers out of the Los Angeles Yacht Club, Honey already had an interest in all things technical.In 1969 Stan Honey had the opportunity to go yacht racing, and took on the dual roles of navigator and bowman on his offshore debut, not only earning his place on the boat, but taking a seat at the adults\u2019 table.
\n\u201cIt was an absolutely riveting experience,\u201d recalls Honey. \u201cThe thing I found most engaging was the ability to compete against \u2013 but mostly sail on a team with \u2013 grown-ups. There were boat owners such as George Griffith (who conceived the Cal 40 design) and Al Martin (a Los Angeles architect) who, if a kid wanted responsibility, let him have it. I expressed an interest in the bow and navigation, and they let me run with it.\u201d
\nMore than 50 years ago navigators didn\u2019t just hop aboard a boat, plug in the waypoints on the computer and let the routing algorithms take over. They needed to know how to use a sextant and dead-reckon. Navigation before the digital age wasn\u2019t easy. The young Stan Honey, however, embraced the challenge.
\nNavigating with a sextant in the early days of his career. Photo: Stan Honey
\n\u201cFor a kid, that was incredible. It\u2019s what committed me to the sport for life, that experience of responsibility and a set of skills respected by grown-ups,\u201d Honey says.
\nIn demand
\nNow aged 67, Stan Honey is one of ocean racing\u2019s most famed navigators and also a highly accomplished engineer. His achievements in both racing and technical fields have earned him multiple accolades, including a place in three US halls of fame \u2013 the National Sailing Hall of Fame, the National Inventors Hall of Fame and the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame.
\nHoney holds 30 patents (eight in navigational system design, and 22 in sports television enhancements). He has won the Troph\u00e9e Jules Verne, which earned him the Rolex Yachtsman of the Year in 2010, and the Volvo Ocean Race in 2005\/06. He navigated Comanche\u2019s record-smashing transatlantic in 2016 \u2013 famously hooking Jim Clark\u2019s 100-footer into a single weather system for the entire crossing to take 27 hours off the previous time. Comanche also set a 24-hour monohull record run of 618 nautical miles, which stands today. He\u2019s navigated 24 races from California to Hawaii and won class or line honours 12 times. Since 1992 he has navigated yachts to set 22 sailing records, several of which have been superseded\u2026 by him.
\nRecord setting with the mighty Comanche in 2015\/16. Photo: Onne van de Val
\n\u201cHe\u2019s really smart, it\u2019s why I enjoy working with him,\u201d said Ken Milnes, one of Honey\u2019s closest colleagues and friends, who\u2019s been by his side through many inventions over the past 40 years. \u201cIn college, I went to Berkeley and Stan went to Yale. I worked very hard at Berkeley, studied all the time. Stan told me that while he was at Yale, he was busy with the sailing team and would cram for finals and ace them every time. I thought, \u2018Damnit, that\u2019s not fair!\u2019 He really is a great man.\u201d
\nProblem solving
\nStan Honey graduated from Yale in 1978 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering and Applied Science, and later went on to earn his Master of Science in Electrical Engineering (MSEE) from Stanford. Honey applied his navigational and engineering skills to develop technological solutions, both for the public and more secretive projects.
\nFrom 1978 to 1983, Honey worked as a research engineer at the Stanford Research Institute. SRI was where clients such as the US military turned for help solving unsolvable problems. Honey led projects in over-the-horizon radar, underwater sensors, radio location systems, and others that are still classified.
\n\u201cI\u2019ve always had technical interests, whether in radio or electronics, and I\u2019m predisposed towards solving problems that are hard. That\u2019s what interested me in navigation as a kid, it was hard,\u201d Honey says.
\nAlong with Milnes and Alan Philips (another colleague met at SRI), the trio co-founded Etak, the company that developed the first in-car navigation system, with funding from Nolan Bushnell, who founded video game company Atari and also owned the 67ft sled Charley, which Honey navigated to line honours in the 1983 Transpac Race.
\nNavigating the 67ft sled Charley to win the 1983 Transpac Race. Photo: Phil Uhl
\n\u201cWhen we founded Etak we spent a month just deciding what to do,\u201d says Milnes. \u201cWe had three or four ideas, and finally decided that car navigation was the thing to try. We were young and fearless and dug in, solving one problem after another. Eventually we had a product that went to market.\u201d
\nThe system was launched to great acclaim in 1985. Its innovative \u2018heads up\u2019 display was based on principles used by ancient Polynesian sailors to navigate (Etak is a Polynesian term) but set a precedent for how navigation systems in cars and smartphones are used today.
\nAs well as technical success, a feature of Honey\u2019s engineering career is that he has worked with many of the same people over many different projects. \u201cStan has taught me to be honest and upfront with people, don\u2019t pass the buck. Solve the problem and you\u2019re in good graces,\u201d Milnes says. \u201cHonesty is really important to him. He\u2019s not going to BS you.\u201d
\nIn 1989 Etak was acquired by Rupert Murdoch\u2019s News Corp group for an estimated $35 million and Honey served as executive vice-president for technology (worldwide), reporting directly to Murdoch. There he conceived the controversial FoxTrax hockey puck, which helped television viewers follow the puck in fast moving ice hockey games by illuminating it on screen.
\nMilnes and Honey paired back up after Honey had founded Sportvision, which worked with professional sports leagues to develop more pioneering features for television, such as the yellow \u20181st down line\u2019 on NFL broadcasts and K-Zone graphics that track pitches in baseball. Later, Honey and Milnes famously developed the graphics system LiveLine, which was used in the 2013 America\u2019s Cup in San Francisco, and 2016 in Bermuda, which revolutionised the viewing experience by showing information such as course boundaries and laylines. Suddenly, non-sailors could understand who was ahead, regardless of the camera angle.
\nLiveLine for America\u2019s Cup, which won an Emmy award for sports broadcasting
\n\u201cWhen you look at it on screen, it\u2019s so understandable and simple that you think, \u2018Oh, that\u2019s easy.\u2019 But the technology behind it is immensely complicated. It\u2019s a quantum leap past anything the NFL does,\u201d America\u2019s Cup winner and commentator Gary Jobson said in 2013.
\nWinning partnership
\nBesides being a standout navigator on many of the world\u2019s most technically advanced boats, Honey and his wife Sally have also raced their Cal 40 Illusion to great success in both crewed and short-handed races.
\nThe couple first met when Stan Honey was at Yale and Sally was working for North Sails in Connecticut. By that point Sally was already a two-time US Yachtswoman of the Year for outstanding results in the high-performance 505 one-design, including back-to-back Bermuda Race Week wins, and 1st at the 1974 Canadian Olympic Regatta at Kingston.
\nIn 1977, however, Sally needed help repairing her car and heard from a mutual friend about Stan and his ability to fix just about anything. Sally had her car towed to Yale Corinthian Yacht Club, where Stan was living, and he fixed it for free. The two have been together since.
\n\u201cThat\u2019s how we met. We moved to California in the late \u201970s and started sailing 505s together, doing a bunch of Pacific Championships,\u201d says Sally.
\nStan crewing for Sally (blue hull) at the 505 World Championships in 1981. Photo: Stan Honey
\n\u201cStan\u2019s taught me a lot about how to get along with a crew in a boat. It takes a while, especially when you have a personal relationship and you\u2019re racing together. You have to treat the other person with respect and enjoy it without blaming the other when something goes wrong. And something always goes wrong.\u201d
\nThe Honeys bought Illusion in 1988 after more than a decade racing the \u2018five-oh\u2019, wanting something a little less physical. \u201cWe bought Illusion as a cruising boat. But somehow, we couldn\u2019t stop racing,\u201d says Sally.
\nThey found the Cal 40 at a boatyard in Santa Cruz, California, but it was in rough shape. It had been sitting in the yard for a number of years and had bullet holes in the hull. But two years after purchasing Illusion and going through a full re-fit, the Honeys set off on their first double-handed race to Hawaii, which resulted in a 2nd-place finish in class.
\nCommuter cruising
\nTheir racing career with Illusion is studded with victories, either single-, double-handed or crewed. Among the highlights are the 1994 Singlehanded Transpac Race (San Francisco to Hawaii), where Stan throttled the fleet, setting a new monohull race record of 11 days, 10 hours and 52 minutes across the 2,120-mile course.
\n\u201cUnderscoring this incredible accomplishment was the fact that more than 100 Cal 40 efforts have been mounted in various crewed Transpacs dating back to the 1960s, and Stan beat all of them\u2026 single-handed!\u201d noted author Robby Robinson in his history of the Singlehanded Transpac Race.
\nIllusion showing off its downwind performance. Photo: Stan Honey
\nThen there was the 1996 Pacific Cup, from San Francisco to Kaneohe, Hawaii. Racing double-handed, Stan Honey and Sally won class and overall honours with a corrected time of 6 days and 4 hours for the 2,070-mile course. \u201cWe sailed really hard in that race; I think we gybed 15 times one night. We pushed really hard and won overall. That was fun,\u201d says Sally.
\nThe Cal 40 is a legendary West Coast design that was first launched in 1963 (see page 134). One of the design features that made it stand out was the spade rudder separated from the keel. Legendary America\u2019s Cup designer Olin Stephens wouldn\u2019t incorporate that feature in his boats until Intrepid in 1967. As Stan points out, the Cal 40 has nice manners.
\n\u201cIt steers terrifically under autopilot,\u201d says Stan. \u201cThat results in part from the fact that the Cal 40 doesn\u2019t have a wide stern, and so doesn\u2019t try to turn whenever it heels or rolls. Cal 40s are legendary in their ability to carry sail downwind. In all of our Hawaii races, short-handed or crewed, we\u2019ve never had to douse the kite for control, and the autopilot could steer at any time with the kite up.\u201d
\nThe Honeys have also had an adventurous time cruising with Illusion. There were back-to-back summers in the Pacific Northwest, cruising Desolation Sound and around Glacier Bay. Racers at heart, they\u2019d dipped their toes in the cruising world and found it to their liking.
\nIn 2014 they finally committed to the cruising life. They sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge spanning the mouth of San Francisco Bay and turned left, heading south down the California coast, making some 15 stops on their way to San Diego, with friends everywhere to catch up with. They continued on to the Sea of Cortez and the Gold Coast of Mexico, where they wound up spending two years.
\nStan at work at the nav table. Photo: Onne van de Val
\n\u201cOne of my favourite places in the Sea of Cortez is Isla Isabel,\u201d says Sally. \u201cIt\u2019s called the Galapagos of Mexico. It has zillions of Blue-footed boobies, frigate birds and iguanas, so many that it\u2019s hard to walk around without stepping on them. They don\u2019t worry about you at all because there are no predators.\u201d
\nA year was spent cruising Central America to Panama, and another in the Western Caribbean including stops in Boco del Toro, the San Blas Islands, Providencia, Grand Cayman, Cuba and finally Key West. Stan refers to their cruising as \u2018commuter cruising\u2019; they\u2019d leave the boat wherever they landed and return home to racing or work commitments before resuming their cruising itinerary.
\n\u201cSally and I were not sure that we\u2019d enjoy cruising, but we\u2019ve had a terrific time,\u201d says Stan. \u201cPart of the reason is that cruising is stress-free in a boat that we\u2019ve raced so much double-handed. The cruising community that we\u2019ve run across thinks that we\u2019re nuts because we\u2019re delighted to sail in lots of breeze, even upwind.\u201d
\nFinally, it was up the East Coast of the US to Newport, Rhode Island, and a date with one more ocean race. \u201cWe were on our way to New England to resume old habits and race in the 2020 Newport Bermuda Race,\u201d he recalls.
\nArticle continues bellow\u2026<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWorld\u2019s coolest yachts: Cal40<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Cal40 has iconic status in the United States and was a game-changer in the 1960s as a true racer\/cruiser.\u2026<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tHow Comanche took more than a day off the transatlantic record<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNo sailing record has a more storied history, or is harder to beat, than the transatlantic record. At a time\u2026<\/p>\n
The final hurrah
\nAlthough the 2020 Bermuda Race was postponed due to the Covid pandemic, they based Illusion in Newport and spent two summers cruising the pine scents of Maine.
\nThe saying goes that you\u2019re only as good as your last race. In that regard, Stan and Sally Honey retire Illusion from competitive racing where Michael Jordan left basketball, on top of the sport. Although they\u2019ll dabble in racing when the opportunity is right, they are now committed to a new endeavour, motorboat cruising. \u201cWe\u2019re going to the dark side,\u201d jokes Sally.
\nStan and Sally on Illusion at the 2022 Newport Bermuda Race. Photo: Sean McNeill\/Newport Bermuda Race
\nThe Honeys won\u2019t have their beloved Cal 40 to cruise, but they won\u2019t be far away from George Griffith\u2019s breakthrough creation. Illusion has been sold to Stan\u2019s nephew, and, while Griffith passed away in 2012, the Honeys are talking with his daughter, Mary, about purchasing his custom powerboat, Sarissa. Measuring 48ft in length, 11ft in beam and weighing 5.4 tonnes, it\u2019s a fast, lightweight, trailerable cruiser, perfect for their desires to revisit old locations, such as Glacier Bay.
\nThe Honeys won their swansong event on Illusion, the 52nd Newport Bermuda Race, in June this year, taking 1st in not only their class but also the coveted St David\u2019s Lighthouse Trophy for racer\/cruisers. Illusion posted a decisive victory of more than 2 hours on corrected time. Sally Honey said it was the perfect ending to an illustrious, 33-year run with the boat.
\n\u201cThe conditions were perfect for our boat, and we had a pretty good navigator on board,\u201d says Sally. \u201cStan chose a really good course and the conditions were just what the boat loves, heavy-air reaching. A lot. Really, it was a dream trip, fabulous. I wouldn\u2019t change anything.\u201d
\nThe Honeys are noted for their ability to lure fantastic sailors into their crew and this year\u2019s Bermuda Race was no different. Racing with 1984 Olympic Gold medallist Carl Buchan, fellow Cal 40 owner Don Jesberg and Jonathan \u2018Bird\u2019 Livingston as bowman, their collective talent was on par with, if not dwarfing, the top professional crews in the race.
\nFor Buchan, the soft-spoken, intently focused helmsman, the Bermuda Race was his second offshore race and first major race with the Honeys. He\u2019d raced against them many times in the 505, but never with them. \u201cStan brings a lot to the table,\u201d says Buchan, \u201cbut watching Stan and Sally work the boat, the two of them, having sailed the boat as long as they have, are so in tune with it and what is needed. I could sit there and watch them sail the boat all day.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Stan Honey\u2019s career is unrivalled: from breaking records on the water in some of the world’s toughest offshores, to technical innovations of it. Sean McNeill chats to the smartest man in yachting Stan Honey\u2019s first ever offshore race set the … <\/p>\n