February 28, 2003

Photo of the Day

February 28 – San Francisco Bay Area

Today’s Photo of the Day is of the cover
of the March issue of Latitude
38, being distributed to most locations today. Happy
reading!

Photo Latitude/Annie

America’s Cup as Good as Gone to Europe

February 28 – Auckland, NZ

With the tumbling of Team New Zealand’s
mast on the second windward leg of the fourth race of the America’s
Cup, the Swiss Alinghi team took a nearly unbeatable 4-0 lead
in the best of nine series. This was the second time in four
races that the Kiwi boat was unable to finish, although both
times they were trailing Alinghi.

The dismasting happened shortly after a
25-knot squall had passed and Team New Zealand was plunging into
the third in a series of particularly large waves. The tip cup,
which connects the rigging from the second panel to the third
panel, broke at the top where the two rods go in from below.
The Kiwis will step the mast from their backup boat and be ready
for today’s fifth – and perhaps final – race of the 31st America’s
Cup.

It Didn’t Work the First Time, so Let’s
Try It Again

February 28 – Southern Ocean

The other recent famous dismasting was
of Ellen MacArthur’s maxi-cat Kingfisher2 in the Southern
Ocean while in pursuit of the Jules Verne Record. MacArthur’s
preparations have always been totally first rate, so we were
surprised to learn that the mast just lost was an exact duplicate
of the original JMV mast – which had failed just prior to MacArthur
taking delivery of the cat.

Speaking of masts, someone recently asked
Hasso Plattner if he would race his new 147-ft Baltic ‘fast cruiser’
in the race from New York to Germany this June. Plattner said
he wasn’t sure if he wanted to risk losing the 160-ft mast because
it would take 18 months to build a replacement. Maybe he’ll just
have to take his brand new R/P 86 Morning Glory, which
is perhaps the fastest monohull in the world. Such are the problems
of the very rich.

Last Call for Puddle Jumpers

February 28 – French Polynesia

If you’ll be Puddle Jumping from Mexico
to French Polynesia this spring, try not to miss this coming
Tuesday’s Pacific Puddle Jump Kick-Off Party at the new Vallarta
YC at Paradise Resort & Marina just north of P.V. Latitude
38 co-sponsors the event with Paradise Marina and the yacht
club. Latitude’s Andy Turpin will be there to make sure
all Puddle Jumpers get their 15 minutes of fame. The fun starts
at 3 pm on the 4th. Sorry, but this year’s Puddle Jumpers only!

By the way, we know that some of you Puddle
Jumpers are down in Zihua. We’ve got your photos and Andy will
be contacting you for further details.

The crew of Evolution
Photo Latitude/Richard

One such boat is Evolution, a Paine
65 sailed by Drs. Alan and Monica, and four (!) mostly young
children. There is no au pair on the Elfin Cove, Alaska-based
sloop, which is headed on a circumnavigation.

Looking for Sardines, but Finding Only
Sand

February 28 – Hidden Beach, Santa Cruz

Fatigue is not something that just affects
singlehanded sailors. The accompanying photos are of the Endeavor,
a 58-ft purse seiner that was driven ashore February 1 at
Hidden Beach, which is a few miles south of Santa Cruz.

Conditions couldn’t have been much better
for going way up: It was blowing 20 knots on shore, there were
big seas, and worst of all, it was an hour before a 6.1 high
tide, the biggest in a cycle. The Moss Landing-based vessel was
out looking for sardines with a skipper and three crew. The three
crew were reportedly asleep while the skipper searched his instruments
for signs of the little fish. The skipper apparently dozed off
and the next thing he knew it was 8 am and the vessel, worth
$1 million, was very high and dry.

Photos Courtesy Parker Diving

As is often the case, Parker Diving was
assigned the job of salvaging the boat. According to Tim Parker,
they couldn’t get the boat off until Tuesday the 3rd, when conditions
for the job couldn’t have been worse: “A sea so flat that
I could have water-skied to shore.” The boat was pulled
off by the tug American Eagle, which has a 46,000 hp engine
and was pulling on 1,500 feet of three-inch hawser rated at 159,000
pounds tensile strength. It was difficult getting the boat off
the beach, but she was finally towed up to Sausalito and hauled
at Anderson’s Boatyard. Total salvage bill? About $175,000 –
of which $42,000 went for the tow. Ouch – that’s a lot of sardines!
All the fuel was removed from the fishing vessel, so none was
spilled on the beach.

Parker’s next salvage job was about 400
feet longer – a ship aground in the Delta.

Scuttled?

February 28 – Atlantic Ocean

During last year’s Atlantic Rally for Cruisers,
the Hunter 450 F2, supposedly on the start of a circumnavigation,
lost her rudder 450 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands – or
about 1,600 miles upcurrent and upwind of the Eastern Caribbean.
After a replacement rudder fashioned by another boat also failed,
and brief efforts to create a jury-rigged steering system didn’t
work, the couple consulted with the insurance company. They ultimately
decided to scuttle an otherwise perfect boat. The couple declined
suggestions that they try to steer the boat with twin headsails.
There were only two of them, and at the time they were headed
in the direction of Venezuela, an area for which they had no
charts and where they feared there might be pirates. See the
March 2003 issue of Yachting World for the complete story.

Gary Jobson to Speak at Tiburon YC

February 28 – Paradise Cay, Tiburon

Tiburon Yacht Club is inviting the sailing
public to come hear Gary Jobson speak on Wednesday, March 12,
at 8 pm. Jobson is a world-class sailor, an author, and ESPN
commentator for the America’s Cup (which surely will be over
by then!) He also covered the 2000 Olympics for NBC. Jobson will
give his presentation at TYC’s beautiful new clubhouse at 400
Trinidad Drive, off Paradise Drive on the east side of the Tiburon
Peninsula. The cost is $10, and seats are limited, so we recommend
making reservations at www.tyc.org
or by calling Allen Dekelboum at (415) 883-7739.

Geronimo
Regains the Jules Verne Record Pace

February 28 – Cape Horn

Having fallen behind the maxi-cat Orange’s
record pace in the Jules Verne for a few days while rounding
Cape Horn in light winds, Olivier de Kersauson and the maxi-tri
Geronimo have pulled back in front again. It may only
be temporary, however, as light winds lay ahead.

Blair’s Wild Monohull Ride

February 28 – Marshall Islands

Blair Grinols has been sailing his 46-ft
Capricorn Cat from California to Mexico and into the Pacific
for the last nine years. She recently went aground on coral in
the Marshall Islands for a short time, and had to leave much
of her anchor gear. Blair made the 70-mile trip to retrieve the
gear on a 46-ft Beneteau, and it was his first time offshore
on a monohull. Here’s his reaction:

“Oh, I’ve got to tell you guys about
my first offshore voyage in a monohull. Ron, who took us up to
Aur, has a 46-ft Beneteau, and the minute we heeled over on our
side, I knew it wasn’t going to be fun. It turned out to be the
most wallowing wild ride I have ever had! Every time the bow
dove in, the boat would shoot off course to the opposite way
we were heeled. And she had a ton of weather helm. It was absolutely
impossible to keep it within 10 degrees of the desired course,
and we wandered all over the ocean. His autopilot was out, but
I could only drive for an hour at a time. It took us three hours
longer to cover the 60 miles than it did with my cat. But we
managed to retrieve my anchors, so I loved every minute of it.”

Capricorn Cat
is having repairs made to her daggerboards and rudders, and some
epoxy put on the spot on the bottom of the hull where foam was
exposed.

The Pope and the Sydney to Hobart Race

February 28 – Down Under

We just received the recent issue of Sailing
World magazine and got a kick out of two items. The first
was a somewhat dated quote from Chris Dickson, skipper of Oracle,
who, upon learning that the Vatican was sending envoys to investigate
the spiritual needs of America’s Cup sailors, made the comment:
“I hope they’re sending them here for a long time. They’ve
got some work to do.”

The other item was the result of a survey
they conducted asking readers which was the most prestigious
ocean race to win. The winner, getting 40% of the vote, was the
Sydney to Hobart Race, followed by the Fastnet with 23%, and
the Newport to Bermuda and TransPac. We’re puzzled by the results,
as the Sydney to Hobart is mostly a race for Aussies, while the
challenging Fastnet Race draws a much larger and diverse fleet
from all over Europe.

YOTREPS

February 28 – The Pacific Ocean and Cyberspace

Who is out making passages in the Pacific
and what kind of weather are they having? The YOTREPS daily yacht
tracking page has moved to www.bitwrangler.com/psn.

Weather Updates

February 28 – 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.