A crew on the family program

Brothers Tom and Tim Hogan of Newport Beach will embark on the Trans Pacific Yacht Race from Long Beach to Hawaii Sunday with a special team on board.

Instead of bringing professional mariners, the brothers are bringing their kids -- five of them, collectively. Tom’s son Jack, 30, and Tim’s sons Matt, 19, Scott, 25, Patrick, 28, and daughter Casey, 30, will comprise half of the vessel’s 11-person crew.

“It’s kind of like a lifetime dream [for us],” Tim says. “We recognized that we had a window of opportunity to do this before they all had kids [of their own] and couldn’t do it anymore.”

“Our whole attitude is just getting the kids on the boat,” Tom says. “Once you leave the dock, you forget about telephone and business and you really concentrate on the race and the challenge and it becomes relaxing. You’re not carrying all those other burdens.”

Matt, the youngest, is excited to get out on the water with his siblings and give the pros a real run for the title.

“We’re going to go out there and show everybody that you don’t need hired sailors to get there fast,” says Matt, a business major at USC. “We’re on the family program.”

Matt’s brothers will arrive today from the East Coast and they can’t wait to all join up. The family has scheduled a practice run tomorrow in Long Beach where the boat was moved earlier this week, Tim says.

“We’re infested with Hogans,” Tim says. “We’ve sailed together forever but not the TransPac before.”

Things will be hardest on board for sister Casey, the only girl brave enough to make the voyage, according to Matt.

“To go out with 10 other guys on a close-quarters boat takes a lot of guts,” Matt says.

But Casey says she’s excited.

“I don’t think this chance will ever get to happen again,” Casey says. “There’s always things that can go wrong, [but] everyone on board is very knowledgeable and experienced. I think we will work well together.”

Their boat, the Westerly, came in second at the First Team Real Estate Regatta for the Hoag Cup in June. They used the race as a chance to gear up for the huge family endeavor.

The Westerly, a Santa Cruz 70 vessel, will be one of eight boats carrying crews from Newport Beach in the race. The Hogans plan on hitting the shores of the Big Island in about nine days, if the wind holds.

“We won’t be first to finish but will be first in our class,” Tim says.

“With spinnaker up you’ll go over 20 knots and then it’s a spinnaker race all the way,” Matt says. “That’s why you go on the race, to go fast.”