Photo of the Day

February 6 - Alameda

Today's Photo of the Day is a little out of date - it took place in late November of last year - but the lesson remains the same: pay attention when you're navigating. The 38-ft Bayliner went up on the rocks on the Alameda side of the Oakland Estuary about a half mile in. Parker Diving Service - which took the photo - did the salvage with a water borne crane.

Not An Ordinary Circumnavigation

February 6 - San Francisco

Congratulations to Bob and Jeannie Rowe of the San Francisco-based Brewer 35 Salacia on completing their circumnavigation, reports Lourae Kenoffel of Pizzaz. Consider some interesting numbers.

20 - the number of years the Rowes spent completing the circle.

44 - The number of days it took them to sail from Mexico to the Marquesas - during which time Bob did a valve job on the engine.

But the most impressive numbers are 81 and 74 - Bob and Jeannie's ages! We'll have more on this dynamic couple in the next Latitude.

Deep Down In The Southern Ocean

February 6 - Southern Ocean

The PR folks from the Volvo Around The World Race have had lots of great stuff to pass out. For example:

"Paul Cayard and the rest of the crew on Amer Sports One must have reached the highest levels of stress possible when just after a severe broach, they were faced with two massive icebergs. "The iceberg and growler count was growing by 10 per hour," wrote Cayard. "We were sailing with one reef and the smallest spinnaker we have, so we felt fairly prudent about that. However, while watching the radar and seeing nothing, we sailed just 100 feet away from a growler that was 10 feet out of water. It was an ominous realization. As there were only three of us capable of driving in these conditions, we decided to rotate every two hours. The first term went well with 36 knots being the top-speed and black darkness for just the last half hour. When I came up it was black dark and blowing 30-35 knots. Within 10 minutes of taking the helm, a squall hit us with 40 knots. Very intense in the pitch black, with huge, sloppy waves as you get down here. Then 15 minutes later I got a blast of 45 knots for three minutes. This was absolutely crazy. Hanging on until it passed, I told Grant [Dalton] that I could not do my full two hours of that intensity without serious chance of wiping out. I should have said that no one could, but I did not want to speak for the others. That was a mistake and not using my experience. So as the next helmsman prepared to come up, I got two more squalls of 45+. Southern Ocean 45+. With the temperature down here, it's the equivalent of 50+ everywhere else. I managed to hang on to this beast, which was hurtling through the pitch black of night, doing 30+ knots at one moment, running into large objects at random (waves that I could not see), as we caromed off these waves they would alter my course up to 15 degrees in a situation where degrees of course change can throw the whole boat out of balance. On top of all this, the growlers were still out there - we just didn't happen to hit any. What if we did at 30 knots of boat speed?

"All three of us Amer Sports One drivers have strong cases of tendonitis in our hands now. Three fingers of my left hand are tingling numb constantly. I have lost 50% of my grip strength in that hand. Yet on we went. We just wanted to get to daylight, when all would be much easier. We needed about another hour and a half. An hour and a half after I'd taken the wheel, I was so happy to give it up. I should have said, 'Let's slow this bus down, we are in great shape, our house is neat and dry, no damage, etc.', but I failed to say it. And nobody else spoke up.

"Thirty minutes in our next driver, we went on our side. The gyration was so violent, that downstairs where I was sitting recovering, the engine box-cover, which doubles as the companionway stairs, simply left its mount and landed on me. We got up on deck and found the kite was shredded. No sooner had we gotten the kite down and Roger [Nilson] yells up, two icebergs ahead, four miles. It was a blessing to have the kite down but the width of the two bergs forced us to sail between them.This is not recommended in any book. Needless to say we had a few tense moments there, but we got through it unscathed. We polled out a blast reacher and just chilled out for a few hours and took the 20-mile hit on the sked."

Another entry, News Corp, did hit a growler while sailing at 21 knots on Tuesday morning. The hull and crew came away unscathed, but they had to change course to tend to problems to the rig and sails.

Positions on February 6 at 0400 GMT: 1. illbruck, 3701 miles to finish; 2. Team Tyco, 55 miles behind leader; 3. Amer Sports One, 56 mbl; 4. Assa Abloy, 104 mbl; 5. djuice, 127 mbl; 6. Team SEB, 190 mbl; 7. News Corp, 191 mbl; 8. Amer Sports Too, 390 mbl.
For more, see www.volvooceanrace.com.

New Meaning Of Mega Yacht

February 6 - Vosper Thornycroft

Imagine, if you will, a privately owned sailboat whose hull is great for skateboarding. Whose hull can easily swallow a double-decker London bus. That's what's coming in the summer of 2003. But it won't be coming to San Francisco Bay . . . on account of the mast being 80 feet too tall to fit under the Golden Gate Bridge. If you read Latitude, you already know the story behind this boat.

YOTREPS

February 6 - 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

February 6 - 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 has moved to 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/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.