'Lectronic Index

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Photos of the Day

October 27 - Puerto Salina

Today's Photos of the Day are of the approximately 55-ft long ferro cement ketch Peer Gynt of San Diego, which went up on the beach 400 meters north of Puerto Salina, a new marina between the Mexican border and Ensenada, earlier this week. According to Les Sutton and Diane Grant of the Albin Nimbus 42, Gemini, people working on the boat told them that the owner, a fellow known as 'Marco', got the boat's anchor fouled while trying to anchor in a thick fog. The second photo shows the badly-wrapped prop. Les and Diane, who took the photos, think it's unlikely the boat can be refloated. The couple report there was another private boat in trouble, a trimaran that went up on the beach about a mile north of Peer Gynt. Her name and condition were unknown.

Photos Courtesy 'Gemini'

As Les and Diane, veteran cruisers who are about to take off on the Ha-Ha, can tell you, the biggest dangers a boat faces are when near shore. The entire length of Baja, for example, is strewn with fishing lines and lobster traps, and the charts on most navigation and GPS units are not accurate for Mexico. Indeed, in many places the charts are more than a mile off. So avoid the shore, and triple-check your navigation by also using radar and a fathometer. When in doubt, stay out. If it's foggy, stay way out.

- latitude / rs

Scenes from Vallejo 1-2

October 27 - Vallejo

The Singlehanded Sailing Society delayed their Vallejo 1-2 season closer by one week and got some bizarre sailing conditions as a result. Saturday's singlehanded race from the Berkeley Circle to the Vallejo YC was sailed in strong breeze, up to 20 knots, on a mostly one-tack beat! "We beat from the start in an east wind close hauled until the Brothers," said Jeff Berman of the Catalina 36 II Perseverance, "then tacked to the Strait and the final reach past the finish down the channel!" All racers were snuggled up in the raft-up by 3:00 pm. Sixty-six boats entered and a hundred diners sat down to a fabulous meal at the club on Saturday night.

10:00 a.m. on Sunday the 22nd, as competitors fight the flood tide to stay off the Mare Island Bridge while waiting for the start.
Photo Latitude/Chris

The Big Guy turned off the wind machine for Sunday's doublehanded return race. After a half-hour postponement, the racers headed downriver on a beat, turned right at the Strait for a spinnaker run to a parking lot/second starting line in San Pablo Bay. (Some crews really enjoyed this first leg, while some said that the Napa River "should be renamed the River Styx.")

Rob MacFarlane on the N/M 45 Tiger Beetle waits for wind.
Photo Jeff Berman

After milling about sweating buckets in the heat, the fleet finally got going again, as a gentle breeze filled in gradually from the south. It was a beat to the finish at Richmond YC.

Steen Moller singlehanding X-Dream
Photo Jonathan Gutoff

Top finishers in the Vallejo 1 were:
MULTIHULL: Bad Boy, Corsair F28, Gary Helms
PHRF 99 & UNDER: Jam Session, J/105, Adam Spiegel
PHRF 100-160: Bad Puddy Cat, C&C 37, Matt Siddens
PHRF 161 & OVER: Sea Witch, Yankee 30, Robert Boynton
NON-SPINNAKER: Svenska, Peterson 34, Fred Mining
SANTANA 22: Elaine, Pat Broderick
SPORTBOAT: Starbuck, Black Soo Mod., Greg Nelsen
WYLIECAT 30: Uno, Steve Wonner

Top finishers in the Vallejo 2 were:
MULTIHULL: Bad Boy, Corsair F28, Gary Helms
PHRF 99 & UNDER: Eurydice II, Ross 930, George Biery
PHRF 100-160: Animal Crackers, Olson 25, John Lymberg
PHRF 161 & OVER: Chesapeake, Merit 25, James Fair
NON-SPINNAKER: Sagitta, Islander 28, Walter George
SANTANA 22: Auggie, Sally Taylor
SPORTBOAT: Starbuck, Black Soo Mod., Greg Nelsen
WYLIECAT 30: No starters

For complete results, see www.sfbaysss.org.

- latitude / cw

The Olson 911S Borderline with the home stretch in sight
Photo Latitude/Chris

Allianz Cup Match Racing Brings America's Cup Skippers To The Bay

October 27 - San Francisco

San Francisco Bay has treated the Allianz Cup teams to unusually warm weather for the match racing competition in J/105s, but not much in the way of wind. Teams that spent a week or so prepping in winds almost always above 15 knots are now having to grapple with just five knots of true wind and strong currents.

The current leader in Group B, to determine who gets into the quarter finals that start this afternoon, is Paolo Cian of Italy, who is tied for 5th in the world match racing standings. The Match Racing Tour takes these sailors all over the world, from Malaysia to St. Moritz, to Brazil, to Croatia.

Larry Ellison leads Paolo Cian in Thursday's Group B flights.
Photo Courtesy AllianzCup / Bob Grieser photo

Larry Ellison (foreground) and Paolo Cian go head-to-head
in the dial-up of their Flight 1 pre-start.
Photo Courtesy AllianzCup / Paul Todd photo

Organizers have done all they can to make this event as spectator friendly as possible, so there is a grandstand set up next to the St. Francis YC, with announcers calling the races as they would a horse race. In addition, there are booths set up representing, among others, Oracle, the Treasure Island Sailing Center, Sebago and, yes, Latitude 38. There's also a café. It's so nice that even the cops are checking it out.

Photo Jonathan Gutoff

- latitude / rs

The Route du Rhum Starts This Weekend

October 27 - Saint-Malo, France

While the storm-lashed Velux singlehanded around-the-world race got a lot of publicity in the last couple of days, and rightly so, attention now turns to the much-larger 3,500-mile Route du Rhum Race, which starts this weekend from Saint-Malo, and heads toward Guadeloupe in the French West Indies. Eighty-six sailors, many of them the world's best, such as Ellen MacArthur and Brian Thompson, the latter who used to kick around Sausalito aboard Lakota, will be competing in eight divisions, three of them multihull, five of them monohull. The class that is taking the event - and much of Europe - by storm is the new 40-ft class, as it has 28 entries.

This is the biggest Route du Rhum ever by nearly 30 boats, and the competition is expected to be severe. One of the big story lines will be whether the extremely fast but fragile 60-ft trimarans can hold up. In 2002, the last time the race was held, you might remember that only three out of the 18 of the 60-foot tris could complete the race, and many of them were destroyed mid-ocean. Indeed, the multihull class winner Michel Desjoyeaux had to stop three times for repairs.

There is a great history to this mostly French event, and a terrific website at www.routedurhum.org. Check out some of the streaming video, and you'll see how a singlehander can cover the 3,500-mile course in less than 12 days.

Stève Ravussin of the ORMA Orange does a little speed testing with her big brother,
the 120-ft round-the-world record-holding maxi cat Orange.
Photo Courtesy Orange

- latitude / rs

The Ha-Ha Weather Report

October 27 - San Diego

The forecast calls for temperatures about 70 degrees with some clouds for both the Baja Ha-Ha Kick-Off Party on Sunday in San Diego, and the Ha-Ha start off Coronado Roads on Monday. Buoyweather.com is forecasting very light winds for the Monday start, but once boats get a little south of Ensenda, winds are expected to pick up to the mid-teens from the NNW. In other words, the conditions are looking pretty good.

The accompanying photos are of Randy Ramirez of the Stockton-based Flicka 20 Dulcinea, on his way to the San Diego start of the Ha-Ha, and some of his clear water friends.

Photos Courtesy Randy Ramirez

- latitude / rs