The first of 55 entrants in the 2017 Transpac Race sped past the finish line at Diamond Head on Monday, smashing the race record for multihull boats before arriving to a hero’s welcome at the Hawaii Yacht Club in Waikiki.

The ORMA 60 trimaran Mighty Merloe, owned and co-skippered by H.L. Enloe, completed the 2,225-mile course from Point Fermin in Long Beach, Calif., to Honolulu in 4 days, 6 hours, 33 minutes and 30 seconds, besting the 20-year-old record of 5:09:18:26 set by Bruno Peyron’s Explorer.

Two other multihull boats — the Phaedo 3 and Maserati — also competed in the biennial event. Multihull boats compete in their own division and are not eligible for the overall championship, which is awarded to monohull vessels.

As of late Monday the 100-foot Comanche, owned by Jim Clarke, had a commanding lead over the rest of the single-hull fleet and was less than 400 nautical miles from the finish. Traveling at 21 knots, the vessel was on track to break the monohull race record of 5:14:36:20 set in 2009 by Neville Crichton’s Alfa Romeo II. To do that, Comanche will have to cross the finish line before 12:36:20 a.m. Wednesday.

Transpacific Yacht Club Commodore Bo Wheeler said this year’s record-setting performances are made possible by a confluence of cutting-edge technology, highly skilled crews and ideal conditions.

“To win this race you need a great boat, great crew, great navigator and really good weather,” Wheeler said.

In particular, Wheeler said, Transpac is a navigator’s race, one in which experience and canny decision-making provide tangible tactical advantages.

For Mighty Merloe navigator Artie Means, Monday’s record-setting finish was sweet vindication after 12 previous attempts.

“This whole year was a little bit abnormal,” Means said. “We had a low system that broke up the normal Pacific high. We had one small high at the start and one small one at the finish, and we had to bridge the gap in between. Everything you learned over the years, you had to throw out the window and go at it with a whole new mindset.”

Like most of the fleet, the Mighty Merloe started the race heading slightly south of the rhumb line (the imaginary straightest path between two points) to take advantage of stronger winds before jibing back north in what co-skipper Jacques Vincent referred to as a “seagull wing” maneuver.

“This was very clean weather, though not 100 percent clean because we had to approach the north twice — two seagull wings instead of just one,” he said.

Still, the Mighty Merloe’s tactical jibes were enough to break away from Phaedo 3, with which the boat had traded leads over the previous two days.

Crew members said they felt confident that a record was possible given the generally favorable conditions but that they kept their focus on their primary goal.

“It’s a race, so the purpose is to finish ahead of the second,” said helmsman Loic Peyron. “If there is a chance for a record, which is linked to weather conditions only, it is the cherry on the cake, no more than that.”

Peyron’s brother Bruno was the skipper of the boat the held the previous multihull race record.

“He was the record holder up until a few minutes ago,” Peyron said, laughing.

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For live online tracking of the race, visit 808ne.ws/2v65Vrk.