March 15, 2004

Photos of the Day

March 15 – South Lake Tahoe

Today’s Photo of the Day is of Phil Williams,
who is soaking up the rays while reading a couple of issues of
Latitude 38 at South Lake Tahoe. He’s sitting next to
the Catalina 27 Moku Lani – a good Sierra Nevadan name
if there ever was one – which won’t need mooring lines to stay
in place for another month or so.

Photos Courtesy Phil Williams

If you look closely in the second photo,
you can see that Phil is reading the February issue of Latitude
inside of the March issue. “Isn’t there some kind of law
that says you can’t read the new Latitude until you’ve
finished the previous one?” he asks. That’s right, federal
code section 700.(i)cuiii(knuts)a.VIII sections B and C, right
after the one that forbids tearing labels off of mattresses:
“Anybody who reads Latitude out of order shall be
compelled to walk the plank.”

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy Regatta

March 15 – Pt. Richmond

Richmond YC’s 22nd Annual Big Daddy Regatta
attracted 107 boats this weekend, all rating 168 or lower. The
club served up their tried-and-true fare of buoy racing on Saturday,
a theme party on Saturday night, and the always-entertaining
either-way pursuit race around Alcatraz and Angel islands on
Sunday. The weather, as anyone who lives in the Bay Area already
knows, was simply splendid.

Sunday was a great day to bring the kids along.
This one’s sailing on Walt Logan’s Farr 40 Blue Chip.

The accompanying pictures are from Sunday’s
pursuit race – a real brain-teaser this year. Most boats opted
for a clockwise circumnavigation, including the overall winner,
Pat Nolan’s relatively new-to-him Farr 40 Javelin (ex-Endurance).
Nolan and crew (Norman Davant, Glenn Hansen, Ted Wilson, James
Tung, Hugh Loveless, Hunt Conrad, Billy Brandt and fitness advocate
Joe McCoy) traded the lead throughout Sunday with Rob Weed’s
red Farr 40 Wired, until Javelin went hard left
out of Raccoon Strait while Wired sliced off the fairway
to the right.

“We had a lot of laughs on Sunday,”
reported Nolan, the new co-owner of Sail California. “It
made up for Saturday. We went out with old sails and weren’t
prepared for all the wind. Three-quarters of the way up the first
beat, our jib exploded – which ended our day prematurely.”

Class winners of Saturday’s buoy racing
were Astra (Farr 40, Mary Coleman), Swiftsure (Schumacher
54, Sy Kleinman), Expeditious (Express 37, Bartz Schneider),
Tiburon (J/105, Steve Stroub), Max (Antrim 27,
Bryan Wade), Razzberries (Olson 34, Bruce and Lina Nesbit),
Dance Away (Santana 35, Doug Storkovich), Mr. McGregor
(Wylie Wabbit, Kim Desenberg), Light’N Up (Express 27,
Gary Clifford), Ixxis (Olson 911-S), Silkye (WylieCat
30, John Skinner) and El Gavilan (Hawkfarm, Jocelyn Nash).
See www.richmondyc.org
for full results.

Voodoo was the theme of the shoreside activities,
with swamp decor, voodoo dolls at every table, fog machines and
a T-shirt with ‘Big Bad Voodoo Daddy’ surrounding a photo of
the Governator attired as Conan the Barbarian.

The McClaine brothers had the barbecues going at 5:00am Saturday.
They cooked pig and chicken for more than 250 hungry sailors.
Torben & Judy Bentsen

Brilliant Repair for Cheyenne in
Southern Ocean

March 15 – Southern Pacific Ocean

Steve Fossett and his maxi-cat Cheyenne’s
record run around the globe was almost derailed yesterday when
a section of mast track ripped off 120 feet above the deck. Taking
advantage of temporarily light conditions, Justin Slattery and
Dave Scully went high on the mast for six hours to remove 13
screws that had sheared off. They also removed a similar section
from the third reef point. Meanwhile, Mike Beasley fabricated
a replacement third reef track from damaged and miscellaneous
spares.

Cheyenne
Photo Courtesy www.fossettchallenge.com

Prior to the fix, Cheyenne was limited
to sailing with two reefs in the main. While carrying out the
repairs, she still covered 346 miles, and is less than 800 miles
from Cape Horn and escaping the Southern Ocean. She remains about
2,000 miles ahead of the record pace.

The Power of ‘Lectronic Latitude

March 15 – Cyber Marketplace

We’ve never pushed it, but we’re still
surprised that more readers and businesses don’t take advantage
of ‘Lectronic Latitude as an advertising medium. Because it kicks
ass. For example, last Friday some folks decided they needed
to sell their Columbia Challenger – and right away! So they placed
an ad in Friday’s ‘Lectronic.
Katheleen Hester explains what happened: “Our ad came up
on ‘Lectronic Latitude Friday afternoon, and by Friday night
we’d sold the boat. The buyer had seen the ad in ‘Lectronic.”

Naturally, we can’t guarantee the same
results for everyone, but we can guarantee that lots of sailors
will see what you have to offer in a matter of just a few hours.
Ads in ‘Lectronic work very differently than those in Latitude
38, as almost all the response comes within the first eight
hours. In Latitude 38, the response is more evenly spread
out over a period of six weeks or more.

‘Lectronic ads are $60 for 40 words for one day. A photo – highly
recommended – is another $20. We’re going to limit the number
we have in a day to two. Send them to Mary.
Really serious about finding crew or a crew position? Try an
ad in ‘Lectronic, we think you’ll be knocked out by the results.

The New Gunboat 48

March 15 – Newport Beach

Peter Johnstone, the black sheep of the
J/Boat clan for having embraced performance cruising catamarans,
sent us this rendering of the new Gunboat 48, designed by Morrelli
& Melvin of Newport Beach.

Graphic Courtesy Peter Johnstone

Johnstone says that Gino and Pete’s velocity
prediction numbers will be similar to the much bigger Gunboat
62. The only downside of the high tech cats, which are to be
built in South Africa, is the price – in the $800,000 range.
Oh, the other downside, in our humble opinion, is the crazy forward
cockpit. Get Gino and Pete to draw a deck with the cockpit and
wheel steering aft . . . where God meant it to be.

Mike Harker Looking for Crew

March 15 – Hawaii

If you’ve followed Latitude
38 and ‘Lectronic Latitude, you know that Mike Harker
and his Hunter 466 Wanderlust have been cruising all over
the western world at a furious pace for the last two years or
so. And that a few months ago, Wanderlust had her rudder
break – not the mast as we mistakenly reported once – on the
way from the Tuamotus to Hawaii. Hunter made a new rudder, which,
like all the ones for the 466s after hull #6, is wrapped in Kevlar,
and sent it to Mike in the Tuamotus. Door-to-door shipping of
the rudder was $1,100 – which doesn’t seem all that bad. Anyway,
Mike and Fabio put the rudder on and sailed the boat to Hawaii.

Mike Harker and his new rudder

Photos Courtesy Wanderlust

Mike now has to get the boat back to San
Francisco Bay, because she’s going to be part of Hunter Marine’s
Discover Sailing program at Pacific SAIL EXPO in Oakland April 14-18.
That’s before he continues on to do a Baja Ha-Ha this fall,
and then goes on to finish his circumnavigation. Mike mentioned
that it currently looks as though he’ll be singlehanding because
he doesn’t have any crew. Thinking that some of you adventurous
readers might like to accompany this well-traveled skipper and
boat on such a trip, we snagged his email
and cell number (808) 989-6065. Give him a call.

YOTREPS

March 15 – 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 Links

March 15 – Pacific Ocean

San Francisco Bay Weather

Check out this guide to San Francisco Bay
Navigational Aids: http://sfports.wr.usgs.gov/sfports.html.

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

For a view of Pacific Ocean sea states,
check out: www.oceanweather.com/data/NPAC-Eastern/index.html.

For views of sea states anywhere in the
world, see www.oceanweather.com/data.