The Hot Rum Series

November 29 - San Diego

One of the biggest winter sailing events in Southern California is the Hot Rum Series out of San Diego. George Hody of Mission Bay YC was out during the last one aboard Omaha, a Capri 22 he rented on Harbor Island. He took a couple of shots we thought you might enjoy seeing.

George's lovely bundled up crew,
presumably with Hot Rum in the to-go cup

ARC Fleet Charges Southwest

November 29 - Atlantic Ocean

The 200+ ARC fleet continues to charge southwest toward St. Lucia in 20 knot winds, which have caused some entries to reduce sail. To date, the damage has been minor. The skipper of the Lindenberg 65 catamaran Star Chaser reported that there were some cracks in the hull, but said they were cosmetic. We briefly considered buying this cat about six years ago on the East Coast . . . until some cracks were noticed. We wonder if they are the same ones.

Transat Jacques Vabre

November 29 - Bahia, Brazil

While we were busy doing the Ha-Ha, one of the biggest and fastest ocean races was taking place on the Atlantic, the doublehanded Transat Jacques Vabre, for Open 60 multihulls, Open 60 monohulls, and Open 50 monohulls, from France to Brazil. It turned out to be a ding-dong race in the 14-boat multihull division, as Frank Cammas and Steve Ravussion on Groupama virtually match raced Alain Gautier and Ellen MacArthur aboard Foncia-Kingfisher for the last 2,000 miles. High speed match racing, as the boats averaged nearly 17 knots through the water for the entire race. On the last night of the dramatic race, Groupama was barely able to overtake Foncia-Kingfisher, which suffered from a broken bowsprit and some hydraulic problems, to win the 5,188 miles event in 14 days and nine hours. We'll have more on this event in future issues.

DaimlerChrysler North Atlantic Challenge

November 29 - New York

If the Jacques Vabre has whetted your appetite for a race across the Atlantic, be advised that DaimlerChrysler will be sponsoring a race from New York to Hamburg, Germany, starting on June 14, 2003. Boats can be any length over 40 feet for the 3,500-mile race. The event will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Hamburgischer Verein Seefahrt - although we have no idea what that is. No matter, we're glad to see another car company get into sailing.

December Issue of Latitude 38 Out Tomorrow

November 29 - Bay Area

The December issue of Latitude will hit the first locations tomorrow, Friday. Among other things, it will include a large article on the Ha-Ha. Here are some shots from Turtle Bay we wished we could have published in color.

YOTREPS

November 29 - 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 http://www.bitwrangler.com/yotreps/

Weather Updates

November 29 - Pacific Ocean

San Francisco Bay Weather

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/.

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/stuff/southwest/swstmap.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

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.