Roy E. Disney missed sailing with his winning Pyewacket crew in the 44th biennial Transpacific Yacht Race this week, but count on the sailing headliner and entertainment heir to be in the 2009 race.

Crew members yesterday dedicated Pyewacket's victory to the 77-year-old Disney — the vessel's original owner — who was a late scratch from this year's 2,560.5-mile Los Angeles-to-Honolulu voyage for personal and work reasons.

"That's what the whole race was about — to win it for him," said co-captain Gregg Hedrick, who has worked with Disney for 21 years. "He made a really tough decision."

Pyewacket crossed the finish line off Diamond Head in 7 days, 1 hour, 11 minutes, 56 seconds to win the Barn Door Trophy as the fastest finisher in the 73-boat fleet. The 94-foot sloop missed the race record by nine hours but earned its third Barn Door, having won in 1997 and 1999.

The Transpac is one of the most prestigious long-distance races in the world, and the popular Disney has been a face of the event for his last 15 races. His son, Roy Pat Disney, was co-captain on the boat.

"I'm sorry I missed this race," said the elder Disney, who "plans to come back again" to race in the 2009 Transpac, but perhaps not aboard the Pyewacket, which he donated to Orange Coast College School of Sailing and Seamanship. He chartered it for this year's race.

Disney said his comeback will be "maybe on a smaller, more sedate kind of boat."

"I would put my money on him coming back," Roy Pat Disney said of his father.

Last week, the elder Disney created a stir in the sailing world when he announced that he would not sail in this year's race. Crew members said they were notified a day before the July 15 start about Disney's decision to sit it out.

"I was just listening to my body, and it's getting a little older than it used to be, like we all do," Disney explained. "I just thought, 'I don't want to hurt myself, and I don't want to subject these guys to Roy having to be taken care of in some way."

Furthermore, Disney said, he needed time to work on his new Morning Light sailing movie, about a young crew aboard a yacht of the same name that is sailing in the Transpac.

"I was afraid of being away from that process for a long time," Disney said. "They're shooting some amazing footage out on the ocean. That will be part of the movie. I think it's likely to be something extraordinary."

Yesterday, Disney watched the last leg from a helicopter. He congratulated his crew minutes after the yacht docked at Aloha Tower, where the winners were greeted with lei, hula dancers and musicians.

"I would have loved to be on that boat for the last 30 miles," said Disney, who added that the yacht was humming along at 20-plus knots during that leg. "I was trying to get the helicopter guy to get me down on the deck."

Pyewacket had been poised to break the record of 6 days, 16 hours, 4 minutes, 11 seconds set by Morning Glory in 2005, but winds were light for the first 690 miles.

"We can't control what the winds do," Pyewacket sailing master Robbie Haines said. "We had light winds in the first half and strong winds in the second half. ... That's sailing."

Haines said Tropical Depression Cosme "didn't affect us one bit."

"It didn't rain; it didn't do anything," Haines said.

Reach Brandon Masuoka at bmasuoka@honoluluadvertiser.com.