October 2, 2000

By Grzegorz | October 2, 2000

Photo of the Day

Beaching Your Catamaran

October 2 – A Strange Beach

Proponents of cruising catamarans often claim that one of
the advantages cats have over cruising monohulls is that they
can be beached. Indeed this is often done, particularly by daysailers
who are familiar with the bottoms of the beaches they frequent.
On the other hand, the accompanying photo of a Venezia 42 cat
demonstrates that beaching on strange beaches doesn’t always
go so smoothly. And it might be a little hard on the rudderstocks,
too.

Photo Source Unknown

Weather Updates

October 2 – Pacific and Atlantic Oceans

Tropical Weather

There’s been some strange tropical storm activity in the Atlantic
this year, and none the stranger than Hurricane Joyce. As she
marched east across that Atlantic toward the islands of the Eastern
Caribbean, her winds built to 80 knots, and were expected to
go higher. But then she faded southwest – quite bizarre – in
the direction of Grenada and Trinidad, which are both considered
to be south of the normal hurricane zone. But as Joyce approached
them, she began to fall apart, and passed through the island
cresent with 25 to 35-knot winds – nothing more than a good squall.
Joyce may, however, reform in the Caribbean Sea as her remains
head toward Central America and the Caribbean side of Mexico.

Hurricane Keith, however, did just the opposite of Joyce. After
forming about 500 miles south of Havana, Keith slowly worked
toward the Yucatan and somewhat surprisingly developed 115 knot
winds – a Category 4 hurricane. Keith lost a lot of steam as
he passed over land, but has been rebuilding since passing back
over the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. He’s currently blowing
at 80 knots and headed toward Texas. For more on the Atlantic
hurricane season, go to http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atlantic/2000/index.html.

Hurricane Keith

Hurricane Joyce
Unisys Weather Graphics

San Francisco Bay Weather

To see what the winds are like on the Bay right now, check
out http://sfports.wr.usgs.gov/wind/.

California Coast Weather

Looking for current as well as recent wind and sea readings
from 17 buoys and stations between Pt. Arena and the Mexican border?
Here’s the place – which has further links to weather buoys and
stations all over the U.S.: www.ndbc.noaa.gov/stuff/southwest/swstmap.shtml.

Pacific Ocean Weather

You can view the new University of Hawaii Department of Meteorology
satellite picture by clicking
here.

Pacific Sea State

Seas are normal in the Eastern Pacific. Check out today’s sea
state at: http://www.mpc.ncep.noaa.gov/RSSA/PacRegSSA.html.

For another view, see http://www.oceanweather.com/data/global.html.

Eight Bells

October 2 – Tiburon

Jim Enzensperger of Tiburon passed away on Friday after a long
illness. Jim was a founder of the Sausalito YC, a crewmember in
the ’51 TransPac, and often sailed in the Windjammer, Colin Archer
and Mercury class races. Jim leaves behind three children, including
Steve, who is active in the Etchells class and did work on appendages
for several America’s Cup boats. Jim also leaves behind Annie
Sutter, his companion of many years. We personally know that Jim
was a great guy, as he was our neighbor for more than 20 years.
His obituary will appear in the Wednesday Chronicle.

Cruising

Fiji Regatta Week

October 2 – Musket Cove, Fiji

You can tell they’re not very politically correct in the Southern
Hemisphere, as they’re still holding wet T-shirt contests at
Fiji Regatta Week. In fact, as these three women demonstrate,
they even had special see-through shirts with provocative copy
made up for the occasion. But hey, anything is better than a
coup. More on the Fiji Sail Regatta in tomorrow’s ‘Lectronic.

Photo Courtesy Fiji Regatta Committee

Mexico-Only Crew List Party

October 2 – Alameda

The Mexico-Only Crew List and Ha-Ha Kick-Off and Reunion Party
is Tuesday (tomorrow) night at 1800 at the Encinal YC in Alameda.
It’s a great place for skippers to find crew and crew to find
skippers for cruises to and beyond Mexico. In addition, there
will be liferaft openings and a Coast Guard Air Sea Rescue demonstration.
That’s right, they’ll be pulling a ‘victim’ out of the water
onto a helicopter. The latter has to be done before it gets dark
so you can see, so be as punctual as you can (but not early,
as the doors won’t open til 6). In addition, ‘Profligate’, Latitude’s
63-foot catamaran – and once again mothership for the Ha-Ha –
will be available for boarding. If you play your cards right,
in a little less than a month you too will have sailed around
Cabo Falso and be heading around Los Arcos for Cabo San Lucas.
Isn’t it about time you did something good like this for yourself?

For more details on the Crew Party and directions, go to www.latitude38.com/crewlist/CrewParty/CrewParty.html

‘Profligate’ Near the Finish of the Baja Ha-Ha

Photo Courtesy ‘Profligate’

YOTREPS

October 2 – The Pacific Ocean and Cyberspace

Who is out making passages in the Pacific and what kind of
weather are they having? Check out YOTREPS – ‘yacht reports’ –
at www.bitwrangler.com/yotreps/

Racing

Olympic Update

October 2 – Sydney, Australia

The U.S. team of Mark Reynolds of San Diego and Magnus Liljedahl
of Miami pulled off a tremendous comeback to take honors in the
Star class at the Olympics. The #1 ranked team in the world going
in, Mark and Magnus had a terrible first half of the 11-race series,
often finishing in double digits in shifty conditions. Nonetheless,
they entered the final race on a 1-2-4-1 streak. Both they and
Brazil – the defending gold medalists and leaders of the event
at that point – were over the line early, but only Mark and Magnus
went back. The U.S. team then went right while everybody else
but Canada went left. The split proved to be as smart a move as
it was courageous, as Canada rounded the first mark in first place
with the U.S. in second. The U.S. team finished the race second
to take the gold – America’s first since Reynolds and Hal Haenel
took the gold in Barcelona in ’92. Great Britain took the silver
and Brazil the bronze.

In other Olympic sailing news, Russ Silvestri of San Francisco
finished sixth in the 25-boat Finn fleet. He had a shot at the
silver going into the last day, but finished with a 16th and a
third to put him out of the medals.

For details on all the Olympic sailing action, see the November
issue of Latitude
38.

Top

 / Index of Stories

/ Subscriptions

/ Classifieds

/ Home