Boat babies in hunt

NEWPORT BEACH — Don’t be surprised if you see a few powdery flakes of Similac falling into the ocean as the spinnaker of Morning Light billows out for the boat to sail downwind.

Crew members of Morning Light are mere babies compared to the more experienced sea dogs in this year’s First Team Real Estate Invitational Regatta for the Hoag Cup. The 15 18-to-twenty-somethings are ripe for the set of MTV’s “Real World,” while the average age of a crew member on the other boats is at least 35 years old.

And none of Morning Light’s crew was even born when Ragtime, the oldest boat in the race, was built in 1965 in New Zealand. Unlike modern, lightweight carbon fiber boats, the classic Ragtime was crafted from wood.

The Morning Light crew was chosen from a field of about 300 sailors for a documentary being made by former Walt Disney company senior executive Roy E. Disney, the 2007 Hoag Cup Regatta’s honorary chairman. The film will chart the voyage of the youngest crew ever to sail the Transpacific Yacht Race, or Transpac, an eight-day regatta that starts off Point Fermin in San Pedro and finishes in Honolulu, Hawaii. Eleven crew members will race to Honolulu.

The team held its own on the first day of races for the Hoag Cup, finishing third after Grand Illusion and Holua, based on handicap time. The races continue today and end Sunday off the coast of Newport Beach.

“I’m pleased. Very, very pleased,” said sailing manager Robbie Haines, who helped select the crew. “I didn’t know what to expect. I knew they were going to have very good crew work, but I didn’t know about the boat speed or the handicap.”

The crew has been living and training together for the last five months in preparation for Transpac, which begins July 9, and as they headed back to their hotel in Long Beach, Haines tried to talk over the voices of nine giggling and yakking crew members.

“I have a 23- and 21-year-old, so now I have 17 kids,” Haines said, laughing.

There are other differences, besides age, which differentiate the Morning Light Crew from others in the regatta. Unlike most boats, which are driven by their owners, Morning Light’s skipper, Jeremy Wilmat, was selected rather democratically.

Wilmat, 21, is also the only non-American Morning Light crew member. He’s Australian and he has the most off-shore racing experience.

“He has the attitude and personality to be able to teach and be the skipper,” said Jennie Tulloch, one of two women on deck. “He is able to take someone who’s never trimmed before and make them a pro trimmer in three days without ever making them feel insecure about it, or being cocky. He’s like a teacher at heart. He’s got this ability to lead by example, but he’s also able to teach so that you can do the job next time perfectly without anyone’s assistance.”

Tulloch said Wilmat’s unanimous election was a no-brainer.

“From the bow to stern, he probably knows every person’s position better than they do,” Tulloch said.

Tulloch, 22, has been sailing since she was 6 years old, and racing since she was 9. Initially afraid to sail with anyone except her brother, Nathaniel, and her father, Brian, Tulloch now trims the main sail of Morning Light.

Her involvement in sailing, and subsequent success, prompted Brian, 67, to take up sailing after a 15-year ocean-racing hiatus so he could compete against his daughter in Transpac. Tulloch and Kate Theisen, who helps in the pit, sewer, and main caddy, are part of a crew so young that no one in it has crossed an ocean before. They’ve done trips from Newport Beach to Cabo, the Bahamas, and Puerto Vallarta, but Transpac is the longest trip they will take.

“There’s a huge, huge underdog mentality,” Tulloch said. “We’re young and we’re hungry, and we want to prove ourselves. We know that experience could reign in the end, but we’ve come a long way, and it’s really cool in that respect. We were horrible in January, and we were horrible February, and we were horrible in March. Then by April, we were like, OK, we’re starting to get it.”

SORAYA NADIA McDONALD may be reached at (714) 966-4613 or at soraya.mcdonald@latimes.com.