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Photo of the DayFebruary 20 - Cap Lizard Wicked! This is what it looked like earlier this month when Bernard Stamm, a Swiss citizen and former lumberjack - along with Christophe Lebas, Jean Baptiste L'Ollivier and François Scheeck - crossed the finish line aboard Stamm's Open 60 'Armor Lux - Foie Gras Bizac' to set a new Transatlantic monohull sailing record of 8 days and 30 hours. In the process, Stamm set a new 24-hour monohull sailing record of 462 miles. This brilliant photograph was taken by Thierry Martinez. For more great shots of the finish - and other spectacular sailing photos - visit his Web site at http://64.23.31.78/. |
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February 20 - Mexico City and Baja California
Yesterday, we told you that Mary Shroyer of Marina de La Paz and Heidi Grossman of Marina San Carlos seemed to have conflicting ideas of when and how cruisers in Mexico were required to check out of a port. It turns out, neither one was wrong, as the current law is so vague that port captains are interpreting it differently. In La Paz, the port captain is saying that as long as you stay within his region of jurisdiction, you only have to check out over the radio. In Guaymas, however, the port captain is saying that everyone needs to check out just to leave the harbor proper. But trying to be a nice guy, he says he'll only require boats to get one despacho a month. To further complicate things, the law allows for marinas to become 'honorary delegates', which would allow them to check boats out for everywhere - except out of the country. Heidi Grossman is trying to get that status, and if she does, she'll do it for free, saving everyone the trouble of having to go to the port captain, the bank and immigration.
Despite the current flap over checking out procedures, Mexico wants more boats to come south from California. Tourism and Fonatur are pushing for it harder than any other agencies. In fact, it's already been announced that Fonatur will be creating a 'nautical stairs', or series of small ports with shelter and fuel along the Baja coast to encourage folks with small boats to come south. This idea has been around a long time, but apparently it is now being implemented. We'll have more details soon.
Today in La Paz, Terri Grossman, president of the Mexican Marina Owner's Association, will give a speech to Mexican President Vicente Fox, the Secretary of Tourism, the governors of the various Pacific Coast states and other officials. Grossman will tell the President that Mexico's efforts to attract more American boats - see above - will all be for nothing if they continue to require boat owners to go through 'the stations of the cross' in order to enjoy their boats. She will propose that the whole business of having to repeatedly stop at port captains and immigration be dropped in favor of something like a long term cruising permit.
Grossman will also be seeking encouragement and approval for a concept to more easily return boats from Mexico to California. Years ago, Ed and Terri Grossman spent their honeymoon trying to delivery a 65-ft Chris Craft from Acapulco to San Diego. While off the coast of Baja, the bow was split open by heavy seas and sank. Survivors Ed and Terri have since spent a lot of time trying to figure out ways of avoiding the notorious 'Baja Bash'. First, they came up with the idea of trucking boats back to the States from San Carlos, and have been doing that for years. But they'd always had this dream of trucking boats - with their masts up - from Bahia Los Angeles, across the Baja Peninsula, to Santa Rosalita on the Pacific side. They figure it would take three hours. From Santa Rosalita, the boats would almost be back in California. Heidi Grossman says this dream is closer than ever to becoming a reality.
In the BeginningFebruary 20 - The Delta After a file of photos fell off a shelf yesterday, we found this shot of the 41-ft Phil Rhodes designed Bounty II Flying Scud charging across Fisherman's Cut in the Delta one summer day about 25 years ago. The photo has sentimental value to us because the boat was both our first home and Latitude 38's office for the first nine months. Plus, we sanded the hull to prep her for her new LP paint job. Hint: Leave that job to the pros. |
 Photo Latitude/Richard |
February 20 - Pacific Ocean
Today's positions and standings won't be out until about noon,
but yesterday the boats were finally able to cover some ground.
Phillipe Kahn's Pegasus turned in 248 miles, easily the
best in fleet, nonetheless she's correcting out second behind
John MacLaurin's Pendragon 4 in AA. The Open 50 Etrange
covered 217 miles to lead Class A on both elapsed and corrected
time. For the latest results, check out www.dryc.org.
The Race UpdateFebruary 20 - Atlantic and Southern Oceans Ranking of 20 Feb 2001 15:00:00 GMT |
 Green Innovation Explorer Orange Team Adventure Yellow Warta Polpharma Magenta Team Legato  Graphics Courtesy Club Med www.catamaran.clubmed.fr/ |
February 20 - The Pacific Ocean and Cyberspace
Who is out making passages in the Pacific and what kind of weather are they having? Check out YOTREPS - 'yacht reports' - at www.bitwrangler.com/yotreps/
February 20 - Pacific Ocean
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/.
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/stuff/southwest/swstmap.shtml.
Seas are normal in the Pacific. But you
might check out the Pacific Ocean sea states at: http://www.mpc.ncep.noaa.gov/RSSA/PacRegSSA.html.
For another view, see http://www.oceanweather.com/data/global.html.
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