Ragtime finished first in 1973 and again in 1975. In 1977, the yacht
Merlin, designed by
Bill Lee, set an elapsed time record of 8 days, 11 hours, 1 minute. This record would stand for 20 years. Ending ''Merlin's'' record, in the 1997 race a new
monohull elapsed time record of 7 days, 11 hours, 41 minutes, and 27 seconds was set by
Roy E. Disney's
Pyewacket, a Santa Cruz 70 ultralight also designed by Bill Lee. The record fell once again in 2005, with
Hasso Plattner's
Morning Glory, a maxZ86 from
Germany.
Morning Glory was the scratch boat when it led a five-boat assault on the record for monohulls. She finished the race in 6 days, 16 hours, 4 minutes, and 11 seconds to win "the Barn Door" trophy, a slab of carved
koa wood traditionally awarded to the monohull with the fastest elapsed time. In 1995, multihulls were invited to participate for the first time, but not eligible for the Barn Door trophy.
Steve Fosset set a new race record in 1995 on his 60' trimaran
Lakota, of 6 days 16 hours 7 minutes 16 seconds. Two years later in 1997, this record was broken by the 86' catamaran
Explorer with a time of 5 days 9 hours 18 minutes 26 seconds. 2017 saw Howard Enloe and his boat the Mighty Merloe smash the record by over 25 hours making the trip in just over 4 days. On July 7, 2009,
Alfa Romeo II beat the
Morning Glory record for best day's run set in the 2005 race, by sailing in 24 hours. The next two days she broke her own best-day record by sailing and . First to finish the 2009 Transpac,
Alfa Romeo II set a Transpac race elapsed-time record of 5 days, 14 hours, 36 minutes, 20 seconds. This represents a new race record for monohulls; the multihull record of 5 days, 9 hours, 18 minutes, set by Bruno Peyron in the 1997 race, remains. However, because she must use "stored power" (a diesel engine) to move,
Alfa Romeo II, sailing in the "unlimited" class, was not eligible for the traditional "Barn Door" trophy, but instead was the inaugural winner of a new trophy dedicated by Trisha Steele, called the "
Merlin Trophy". However from 2019 yachts eligible for this trophy must use manual power only In the double-handed division,
Pegasus 50, sailed by
Philippe Kahn and Mark Christensen, set a new record of 7 days, 19 hours, 38 minutes and 35 seconds. They pioneered use of an
iPhone, with
Fullpower-MotionX GPS technology. ==References in popular culture==