Santa Barbara-King Harbor Race

August 7 - Southern California

The 30th Santa Barbara-King Harbor Race attracted a great turnout - 118 boats - last Friday, August 2. The 81-mile downwind sprint was sailed in light to moderate winds and flat water, perfect conditions for Bill Gibbs' 52-ft cat Afterburner to set a new course record (for both multihulls and monohulls) of 6 hours, 41 minutes. That lowered the Andrews 70+ Magnitude's previous 1999 benchmark by 13 minutes. Magnitude finished the race in 8 hours, 24 minutes - the fastest elapsed time by a monohull this year.

Three Bay Area boats participated in the mellow race, including Nemesis, Paul Martson's Encinal YC-based Antrim 27, which topped ULDB-D and had the best monohull finish on corrected time. Other noteworthy finishes were turned in by Cita Litt's bright yellow Schock 40 Cita, which easily topped ULDB-A with Oracle Racing coach Dave Ullman aboard. Check www.sbyc.org or www.khyc.org for full results, and see the September issue of Latitude 38 for more.

Afterburner, after the light air start

Arana, driven by the bare-footed stogie-chomping John Carroll, was over early, came back to clear themselves, and took second in PHRF-A.

The Santa Cruz 50 Bay Wolf behind Anacapa
Island, where there was no lee for once.

Electra, a French-built Open 5.7, appears to be out of control, their rudder out of the water. Actually, they have twin rudders, and they blew by Stark Raving Mad like the big J was standing still.

Marinite Makes a Splash at the Worlds

August 7 - Weymouth, UK

Marin Catholic High School junior Morgan Gutenkunst took third place in the 2002 World Splash Championships held in Weymouth, England, last week. The 16-year-old Mill Valley resident's parents were there to watch him compete.

Gutenkunst was one of four young sailors representing the San Francisco Yacht Club in the Splash Championships. Sailing in the silver fleet were Myles Gutenkunst, Morgan's brother, Matt Spevak and Sean Kelly of San Francisco.

Photos Jill Mantz

Cover Controversy

August 7 - Mill Valley

The August issue of Latitude 38 hit the streets last Friday, and we've been getting an interesting array of comments about our cover.

Here's a sample:

"I just had to jot down a quick note to you guys to say how disappointed I was to see your August issue cover! It reminds me of the covers of all those power boater magazines. You don't need to resort to that."
A Concerned Reader
Berkeley, CA

"The cover of the August issue reminded me of a line penned long ago by Honore de Balzac. In the novel Old Goriot he wrote that there is no more beautiful sight than a frigate in full sail, a galloping horse, or a woman dancing. To have a beautiful woman dance across your sailboat while it is under full sail is then two out of three. Perhaps one of your readers was handed this issue by a messenger on horseback, who had just galloped up! Keep up the good work."
Anonymous
Alameda, CA

YOTREPS

August 7 - 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

August 7 - 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/. 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

Check out the Pacific Ocean sea states at: http://www.mpc.ncep.noaa.gov/RSSA/PacRegSSA.html.
For views of sea states anywhere in the world, see http://www.oceanweather.com/data/.