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Photos of the Day:
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Pacific SAIL EXPO Opens Today in Oakland!April 23 - Oakland |
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That's right, and it stays open in Jack London Square through Sunday. There will be scores of boats in the water for inspection, and hundreds of exhibitors on land, and seminars about every sailing topic you can imagine. This is the one and only really big boat show on the West Coast, so you don't want to miss it. In fact, many serious sailors stop by twice. The show runs from noon until 7 p.m. today, 10 a.m. until 7 p.m. through Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Don't miss the Latitude 38 booth, where Doña de Mallorca would like to meet you. In addition to Latitude T-shirts and jackets, she'll be selling Latitude caps plus hot-off-the-press Profligate T-shirts that feature a painting of Latitude's catamaran by the great nautical artist Jim DeWitt (see photo lower right). By the way, DeWitt will do shirts with original artwork of your boat also. If you're interested in the Baja Ha-Ha, on Friday from 4:45 to 5:30 the Wanderer will be giving a Ha-Ha seminar with lots of photos. The seminar will be followed by a Ha-Ha get-together with beverages provided by Latitude, plus 'Baja Ha-Ha Vet' badges (see artwork below) for the first 1,000 Ha-Ha vets who show up.  Graphic Latitude/Chris |
 Photo Courtesy Sail America  Photo Latitude/Annie |
What if They Gave a Week-Long Party and Hardly Anybody Came?April 23 - La Paz, BCS Over the last year or so there has been considerable animosity between the Club Cruceros de La Paz and the Paradise Found (for profit) Yacht Club, Restaurant and Bar in La Paz. The former wanted to continue running the 20-year-old Sea of Cortez Sailing Week out at the nearby islands, but seemed to have trouble achieving critical mass in organizing. Meanwhile, the more energetic folks at Paradise Found YC wanted to ramp up a much more wild and active event - sort of like Sea of Cortez Sailing Week had been in the early years. As is often the case when two people or organizations can't get along, everyone loses. Club Cruceros finally backed off by canceling their traditional Sea of Cortez Sailing Week for a minor event out of La Paz. As for Paradise Found YC, they went ahead with their event April 7 to 14. On paper it looked like it would be nonstop activity, but in reality they may have badly misread cruising community support, for apparently hardly anybody showed up. To date we haven't been able to get a report from Paradise Found, but David Crowe of the Morrelli-Choy 70 catamaran Humu Humu had this to say: "After we left P.V., we took Humu Humu to the Sea of Cortez for a few weeks. While there on April 7, we happened to anchor at Isla Partida, and noticed there were 17 boats anchored for the first night of Island Madness. We dove the Fang Ming wreck the next day, and liked it so much we decided to do it again later in the week. So we anchored in Partida again on Thursday night, April 10, counting just 16 other boats. Further, I estimate that maybe six dinks went ashore each evening for Island Madness. On the first two race days there were no more than four boats participating. The weather was not as conducive to sun 'n fun as one would prefer, but it was all right. We dove Fang Ming again on Friday, and split for overnight anchorage at Ballandra, where we had a good view of anyone transiting to Espiritu Santo. We noticed maybe another half dozen boats heading over to the island late Friday afternoon through noon Saturday, as well as few coming back to La Paz. My view of Island Madness? It wasn't happening. Part of the reason is that Loreto Fest has really taken hold, and the Puddle Jump crowd was absent because of the much more appealing doings at Paradise Marina." For what it's worth, in the early days of the Sea of Cortez Sailing Week it was not unusual for more than 200 boats to participate. If everyone worked together, maybe something like that could happen again, but it's going to take time. |
The Tommy Bahama Newport to Ensenada Race Is This FridayApril 23 - Newport Beach It's a shame too, as many industry members - such as ourselves - won't be able to make it because of commitments at Sail Expo in Oakland. Nonetheless, over 450 boats have already signed up for the 56th running of the 125-mile race - including Dennis Conner on his Cal 40. We hope everybody has a great time, and that the winds are as good as last year. |
Sailor's Ball at Treasure Island Is SaturdayApril 23 - Treasure Island As if there's not already enough going on this weekend, the first annual Sailor's Ball benefiting the Treasure Island Sailing Center takes place Saturday night. For details, visit www.sailorsball.org. |
Hasso Is not Doing the Transatlantic RaceApril 23 - NorCal and Europe |
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| Thanks to some bad info, in the last 'Lectronic we reported that Hasso Plattner was entering this June's Chrysler Transatlantic Race to Germany to take on Mill Valley's Bob NcNeil and his R/P 86 Zephyrus V. Plattner will not be entering. This is not to say that Hasso won't be doing some sailing. After all, he owns quite a fleet: two Farr 40s, one in Northern California and one in Italy; the R/P 81 Morning Glory (ex-Shockwave), which is for sale; the R/P 75 Morning Glory, an older maxi; a J/125 in Bermuda, name unknown; a new Baltic-built 147 Visione; a Baltic 70 Loftfari, in the Med; and a 505. Despite all these great boats, the founder of SAP software is also known to enjoy sailboarding at Coyote Point! |
 An artist's rendering of Visione Courtesy Baltic Yachts |
The Around Alone Fleet on Its Last LegApril 23 - Atlantic Ocean With the leaders less than 1,500 miles from the finish in the Northeast, the usual suspects are in the lead again. Swiss Bernard Stamm on Bobst Group Armor Lux, who has been sailing at a pace around the world almost equal to the Volvo 60s, leads Class 1, while Southern Californian Brad van Liew on Tommy Hilfiger continues to rule over Class 2. In fact, van Liew is only a few miles behind the only Northern California entry, Bruce Schwab of the Wylie 60 Ocean Planet. It's been a very tough event for the greatly underfunded Schwab, but we salute him for his perseverance, as most folks would have given up long ago. |
Grant Dalton Is the ManApril 23 - Auckland, NZ Grant Dalton - known for his great successes in the Whitbreads, Volvo, and The Race - has accepted the position of Managing Director of Team New Zealand. His goal is to bring the America's Cup back to his native country, where it has enormous economic impact. |
YOTREPSApril 23 - 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 UpdatesApril 23 - Pacific Ocean San Francisco Bay WeatherTo 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 WeatherLooking 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 PressureThe University of Hawaii Dept. of Meteorology page posts a daily map of the NE Pacific Ocean barometric pressure and winds. Pacific Sea StateCheck out the Pacific Ocean sea states
at: http://www.mpc.ncep.noaa.gov/RSSA/PacRegSSA.html.
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