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It’s Boat Show Week

Sailors from all over the Bay Area and beyond are clearing their calendars this week in order to make the most of the annual Strictly Sail Pacific boat show (April 12-15) at Oakland’s Jack London Square. It is, of course, the largest all-sailboat show on the West Coast.

Precious cargo: An AC45 is lowered in to place at Jack London Square in advance of this week’s massive boat show.

© Mitch Perkins

Among the most eye-catching attractions will be an AC45 catamaran identical to those being raced in Naples, Italy, this week, and the 10 Clipper Round the World Race boats which recently arrived here after completing the 6,000-mile leg from Qingdao, China. They will depart the Oakland-Alameda Estuary Saturday about 11 a.m. for their next leg to New York via the Panama Canal.

There’ll be a treasure trove of gleaming sailing yachts, all open for inspection.

latitude/Andy
© Latitude 38 Media, LLC

The yacht basin at Jack London Square will be a veritable ‘sailor’s candy store’, as it will be chock full of new and late-model sailing yachts, all open for inspection. With a packed house of exhibitors, who’ll be selling and demonstrating everything from sailing dinghies to cutting-edge electronics, the show will offer an ideal opportunity to talk shop with experts and buy all sorts of gear at too-good-to-pass-up boat show prices. Throughout the show, dozens of free seminars will help you expand and refine your knowledge of a broad range of topics. In fact, we’ll be hosting a few of our own: ‘Baja Ha-Ha How-To’, 2:15 p.m. (both Friday and Saturday) in seminar room D; and ‘Cruising Tahiti and the Pacific Puddle Jump’, 3:30 p.m. Saturday in room D. And on Friday afternoon we’ll host a special two-hour gathering of West Coast Circumnavigators (wannabes welcome) with a panel of six speakers, each discussing going around from a different point of view. Also in room D.

Don’t forget to drop by the Latitude 38 booth to say hi, talk shop and perhaps pick up some official Latitude swag.

latitude/JR
© Latitude 38 Media, LLC

From free boat rides, to kids sailing instruction, to one-on-one chats with famous authors. . . you name it, this show has it all. Click here to get discounts on show tickets, and here to check out the full line-up of show activities. And don’t forget to drop by the Latitude 38 booth to say hello. See you then!

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Ka’iulani’s majestic presence won’t be felt on the Bay until next year. © 2012 Jim Rimmer It was clear, sunny and calm this Saturday when the Sausalito-based 86-ft gaff schooner Ka’iulani cast off her dock lines and headed for Tahiti.