Lending Club CEO Attempts Transpacific Sailing Record

Lending Club is backing Tritium Racing and its 73-foot offshore trimaran (now named after its sponsor) in the Transpacfic Yacht Race, which begins in July near Los Angeles and finishes in Honolulu. Its CEO, Renaud Laplanche, will be on the race crew.

The San Francisco tech company — which recently gained a vote of confidence from Google — said that Tritium will attempt to finish the 2,560-mile race in less than five days, nine hours,18 minutes and, to be exact, 26 seconds.

"We are very excited to compete in an event as prestigious as the Transpacific Yacht Race," said Laplanche, in a press release. In 1906, the first winner of the race took 12 days to complete the course, he said.