October 14, 2002

By Grzegorz | October 14, 2002

Photo of the Day

October 14 – San Blas Islands

Today’s Photo of the Day comes from the
folks on Wild Rover, who more recently have spent time
in Baltimore’s extremely filthy – according to them – harbor.

The interspecies face off in the photo, however, took place in
Panama’s San Blas Islands. The character on the left is Bonney,
one of Wild Rover’s cats. The hard case on the right was
an unknown species of crab “that sure was delicious.”

Photo Wild Rover

The South Pacific Has Nothing
on Half Moon Bay

October 14 – Half Moon Bay

“A while back you guys published a photo saying that the
greatest sunsets were to be seen in either the South Pacific
or Mexico, I can’t remember which,” writes Manon Belzile
of the Roberts 44 ketch Zubenubi. “But if you’re
in Half Moon Bay, you don’t even need to untie the docklines
– although it would be more fun – to see a great sunset. Here’s
one from last night at Pillar Point Harbor in Half Moon Bay.
We’ve been having great sunsets here for a couple of months.
Actually, we may have been having great sunsets all year long,
but the fog blocks them 90% of the time.”

The two best sunsets we’ve ever seen were from the Ala Wai Yacht
Harbor in Honolulu just after that volcano blew off in the Philippines,
and near Portofino, Italy. The key ingredient in both cases was
lots of yellow to go along with the orange, purple, and blues.
Too bad we didn’t have our camera either time.

Photo Manon Belzile

Two at the Top at the End of
Louis Vuitton Round Robin

October 14 – Auckland, NZ

Yesterday’s racing ended the first round-robin of the Louis Vuitton
Series to determine a challenger for the America’s Cup. It’s
become quite clear that Seattle’s OneWorld Challenge and the
Swiss Alinghi Challenge – with 8-0 and 7-1 records – are in a
class above the rest. Larry Ellison’s Oracle BMW Challenge started
strong with four straight victories, but they were over lesser
teams. When they came up against the top teams, they lost three
in a row before picking up a final victory over a Swedish boat
that lost the use of their jibs.

Observers report that Oracle BMW has a narrow ‘sweet spot’
and is only very good in winds above 17 knots. Thanks to lesser
sail area, which was traded off for increased draft, she’s clearly
slower downwind and off the pace in lighter winds. The big question
is whether Oracle’s other boat is better in a broader range of
conditions or if she or US 76 can be modified to make
her more competitive with the top two boats.

There’s now a short break before the beginning of the second
round-robin, which will determine the boat that’s eliminated,
which four boats go into the double elimination bracket, and
which four boats go into the single elimination bracket. That
OneWorld and Alinghi will proceed into the double
eliminations are no brainers. Oracle probably has a better
than average chance of being a third boat, with the fourth position
being battled for by GBR Challenge, Team Dennis Conner, Prada,
and Victory Challenge. Mascalzone Latino and Le Defi Areva will
duel each other only for the right to avoid early elimination.

After the first round-robin, here are the
standings:
8-0 OneWorld Challenge
7-1 Alinghi
5-3 Oracle BMW Racing
4-4 GBR Challenge
4-4 Team Dennis Conner
3-4 Prada
3-5 Victory Challenge
1-6 Mascalzone Latino
0-8 Le Defi Areva

OneWorld Challenge

Oracle BMW Challenge

Photos Bob Grieser

Blue Angels . . . A Foggy Blur

October 14 – San Francisco

John Pettitt was on the Bay yesterday for the Blue Angels’ performance
and took a couple of photos. He reports that it was pretty crazy
in that lots of folks didn’t have an adequate length rode to
keep a grip on the bottom, which sometimes caused boats to nearly
collide.

In other cases, small boats were packed with people, none of
whom were wearing PFDs. Be careful out there.

Photos CloudView.com
/John Pettitt

Around Alone Stays In Port

October 14 – Torbay, England

On account of the approach of gale force winds, the Around Alone
fleet – which includes Northern Californian Bruce Schwab on Ocean
Planet and former Southern Californian Brad Van Liew on Tommy
Hilfiger – has postponed the start of the second leg. It’s
not that the boats can’t take it, officials said, but they are
hard to tow to the start in such conditions.

YOTREPS

October 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

October 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/Maps/Southwest.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 views of sea states anywhere in the world,
see http://www.oceanweather.com/data/.

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