Photos of the Day

May 14 - Musket Cove, Fiji

George Backhus' Deerfoot 62 Moonshadow was the first boat to finish the Auckland to Fiji Race, for which he received this great trophy. The other photo is of Nick, one of the crew, driving in fast conditions during the race.

Saved by a Nerf Football

May 14 - San Diego

"Okay, I finally finished the Baja Bash," reports Adam Sadeg of the Alameda-based Morgan 38 Blarney3, "but it wasn't easy. Some 178 miles south of San Diego, I was motorsailing - which is what you have to do to get upwind in waves - in about 18 knots on the nose, when the engine started to rev higher. I figured my prop must have fallen off, so I went in the engine compartment to see if I could see the shaft turning from forward momentum. To my surprise, I only found part of a prop shaft - and a whole bunch of water. It seems my prop shaft decided to break just north of the packing gland. Ouch! Then a whole bunch of water decided to pour into my boat. Ahhhhhhh! I ran all over the boat looking for something to cover the packing gland - maybe a piece of rubber or a bag that I could hose clamp to the packing to hold the water out. That's when I stumbled across the Nerf football! I took it to the galley, cut the end off, and then shoved it into the hole, wrapped a towel around the packing, and tied it all up with some 3/16" line. Take a Nerf football to Mexico, play with it on the beach, then use it to plug a hole in your boat. Nerf football, don't go cruising without one.

"Needless to say, it was a long 178-mile sail the rest of the way to San Diego, taking me two days. Mike and Lee Brown's Little Harbor 53 Wings was patient enough to hang around and make sure I didn't sink or end up on a lee shore. Now I'm at the San Diego YC, waiting for my next adventure. Chances are that it will probably end up being prepping the boat for a truck ride to San Francisco. Oh well, I'm glad to have the Bash out of the way. Man what a nasty coast during the spring. And it's a whole long way, without anyone or anything anywhere. It blows like stink every day this time of year, and fellow cruisers are stranded everywhere, wishing they were in San Diego."

Given this year's particularly nasty Bash conditions, perhaps a lot more Mexico cruisers will truck their boats home from San Carlos in the Sea of Cortez.

Rob of Sol Mates and Adam of Blarney3. The former lost the steering on his Pearson 36 coming north, the latter lost his prop shaft.
Photo Latitude/Richard

Maiden on Record Run - We Guess

May 14 - Atlantic Ocean

Tracy Edwards' maxi cat Maiden - ex-Club Med - is currently trying to set the Antigua to Newport, Rhode Island, course record. What record? This reminds us of Steve Fossett's Miami to New York 'record', over a virtually never-run course. It would be sort of like us saying we're setting the record for the Treasure Island to Richmond Bridge course.

In any event, Maiden covered half the distance in the first 36 hours after waiting a week for the best conditions. But now a high pressure system is giving them some trouble.

Gateway Race to Hawaii Postponed

May 14 - San Diego

Officials of the San Diego to Kauai Gateway to Hawaii Race have announced that the event, as expected, will not be run this year. They insist, however, that it will be held in 2004. They explain that this year's event was the victim of the 9/11 tragedy. Our feeling is that it may also be the victim of the fact that it would, at over 2,300 miles, be the longest race to Hawaii, made all the more difficult by the fact it might take a long time to get away from San Diego's light winds. We wish them the best of luck, but the course has some inherent shortcomings.

YOTREPS

May 14 - 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 http://www.bitwrangler.com/yotreps/

Weather Updates

May 14 - Pacific Ocean

San Francisco Bay Weather

To see what the winds are like on the Bay and just outside the Gate right now, check out http://sfports.wr.usgs.gov/wind/. The National Weather Service site for San Francisco Bay is at www.wrh.noaa.gov/Monterey/.

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 Winds and Pressure

The University of Hawaii Dept. of Meteorology page posts a daily map of the NE Pacific Ocean barometric pressure and winds.

Pacific Sea State

Check out the Pacific Ocean sea states at: http://www.mpc.ncep.noaa.gov/RSSA/PacRegSSA.html.
For another view, see http://www.oceanweather.com/data/global.html.