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Photos of the Day

March 15 - South Lake Tahoe

Today's Photo of the Day is of Phil Williams, who is soaking up the rays while reading a couple of issues of Latitude 38 at South Lake Tahoe. He's sitting next to the Catalina 27 Moku Lani - a good Sierra Nevadan name if there ever was one - which won't need mooring lines to stay in place for another month or so.


Photos Courtesy Phil Williams

If you look closely in the second photo, you can see that Phil is reading the February issue of Latitude inside of the March issue. "Isn't there some kind of law that says you can't read the new Latitude until you've finished the previous one?" he asks. That's right, federal code section 700.(i)cuiii(knuts)a.VIII sections B and C, right after the one that forbids tearing labels off of mattresses: "Anybody who reads Latitude out of order shall be compelled to walk the plank."


Big Bad Voodoo Daddy Regatta

March 15 - Pt. Richmond

Richmond YC's 22nd Annual Big Daddy Regatta attracted 107 boats this weekend, all rating 168 or lower. The club served up their tried-and-true fare of buoy racing on Saturday, a theme party on Saturday night, and the always-entertaining either-way pursuit race around Alcatraz and Angel islands on Sunday. The weather, as anyone who lives in the Bay Area already knows, was simply splendid.


Sunday was a great day to bring the kids along. This one's sailing on Walt Logan's Farr 40 Blue Chip.

The accompanying pictures are from Sunday's pursuit race - a real brain-teaser this year. Most boats opted for a clockwise circumnavigation, including the overall winner, Pat Nolan's relatively new-to-him Farr 40 Javelin (ex-Endurance). Nolan and crew (Norman Davant, Glenn Hansen, Ted Wilson, James Tung, Hugh Loveless, Hunt Conrad, Billy Brandt and fitness advocate Joe McCoy) traded the lead throughout Sunday with Rob Weed's red Farr 40 Wired, until Javelin went hard left out of Raccoon Strait while Wired sliced off the fairway to the right.

"We had a lot of laughs on Sunday," reported Nolan, the new co-owner of Sail California. "It made up for Saturday. We went out with old sails and weren't prepared for all the wind. Three-quarters of the way up the first beat, our jib exploded - which ended our day prematurely."

Class winners of Saturday's buoy racing were Astra (Farr 40, Mary Coleman), Swiftsure (Schumacher 54, Sy Kleinman), Expeditious (Express 37, Bartz Schneider), Tiburon (J/105, Steve Stroub), Max (Antrim 27, Bryan Wade), Razzberries (Olson 34, Bruce and Lina Nesbit), Dance Away (Santana 35, Doug Storkovich), Mr. McGregor (Wylie Wabbit, Kim Desenberg), Light'N Up (Express 27, Gary Clifford), Ixxis (Olson 911-S), Silkye (WylieCat 30, John Skinner) and El Gavilan (Hawkfarm, Jocelyn Nash). See www.richmondyc.org for full results.

Voodoo was the theme of the shoreside activities, with swamp decor, voodoo dolls at every table, fog machines and a T-shirt with 'Big Bad Voodoo Daddy' surrounding a photo of the Governator attired as Conan the Barbarian.


The McClaine brothers had the barbecues going at 5:00am Saturday. They cooked pig and chicken for more than 250 hungry sailors.
Torben & Judy Bentsen


Farr 40 start


Flashgirl's two-pole jibing system


Onboard the Schumacher 50 Morpheus in Raccoon Strait


Saturday's winning Wabbiteer Kim Desenberg took the helm of the Sierra 26 on Sunday.


Bill Moore's Express 27 Shenanigans about to finish - or not!

The fleet drifts through the day's last parking lot.
Photos Latitude/Rob except as noted

Brilliant Repair for Cheyenne in Southern Ocean

March 15 - Southern Pacific Ocean

Steve Fossett and his maxi-cat Cheyenne's record run around the globe was almost derailed yesterday when a section of mast track ripped off 120 feet above the deck. Taking advantage of temporarily light conditions, Justin Slattery and Dave Scully went high on the mast for six hours to remove 13 screws that had sheared off. They also removed a similar section from the third reef point. Meanwhile, Mike Beasley fabricated a replacement third reef track from damaged and miscellaneous spares.


Cheyenne
Photo Courtesy www.fossettchallenge.com

Prior to the fix, Cheyenne was limited to sailing with two reefs in the main. While carrying out the repairs, she still covered 346 miles, and is less than 800 miles from Cape Horn and escaping the Southern Ocean. She remains about 2,000 miles ahead of the record pace.


The Power of 'Lectronic Latitude

March 15 - Cyber Marketplace

We've never pushed it, but we're still surprised that more readers and businesses don't take advantage of 'Lectronic Latitude as an advertising medium. Because it kicks ass. For example, last Friday some folks decided they needed to sell their Columbia Challenger - and right away! So they placed an ad in Friday's 'Lectronic. Katheleen Hester explains what happened: "Our ad came up on 'Lectronic Latitude Friday afternoon, and by Friday night we'd sold the boat. The buyer had seen the ad in 'Lectronic."

Naturally, we can't guarantee the same results for everyone, but we can guarantee that lots of sailors will see what you have to offer in a matter of just a few hours. Ads in 'Lectronic work very differently than those in Latitude 38, as almost all the response comes within the first eight hours. In Latitude 38, the response is more evenly spread out over a period of six weeks or more.

'Lectronic ads are $60 for 40 words for one day. A photo - highly recommended - is another $20. We're going to limit the number we have in a day to two. Send them to Mary. Really serious about finding crew or a crew position? Try an ad in 'Lectronic, we think you'll be knocked out by the results.


The New Gunboat 48

March 15 - Newport Beach

Peter Johnstone, the black sheep of the J/Boat clan for having embraced performance cruising catamarans, sent us this rendering of the new Gunboat 48, designed by Morrelli & Melvin of Newport Beach.


Graphic Courtesy Peter Johnstone

Johnstone says that Gino and Pete's velocity prediction numbers will be similar to the much bigger Gunboat 62. The only downside of the high tech cats, which are to be built in South Africa, is the price - in the $800,000 range. Oh, the other downside, in our humble opinion, is the crazy forward cockpit. Get Gino and Pete to draw a deck with the cockpit and wheel steering aft . . . where God meant it to be.


Mike Harker Looking for Crew

March 15 - Hawaii

If you've followed Latitude 38 and 'Lectronic Latitude, you know that Mike Harker and his Hunter 466 Wanderlust have been cruising all over the western world at a furious pace for the last two years or so. And that a few months ago, Wanderlust had her rudder break - not the mast as we mistakenly reported once - on the way from the Tuamotus to Hawaii. Hunter made a new rudder, which, like all the ones for the 466s after hull #6, is wrapped in Kevlar, and sent it to Mike in the Tuamotus. Door-to-door shipping of the rudder was $1,100 - which doesn't seem all that bad. Anyway, Mike and Fabio put the rudder on and sailed the boat to Hawaii.


Mike Harker and his new rudder

Photos Courtesy Wanderlust

Mike now has to get the boat back to San Francisco Bay, because she's going to be part of Hunter Marine's Discover Sailing program at Pacific SAIL EXPO in Oakland April 14-18. That's before he continues on to do a Baja Ha-Ha this fall, and then goes on to finish his circumnavigation. Mike mentioned that it currently looks as though he'll be singlehanding because he doesn't have any crew. Thinking that some of you adventurous readers might like to accompany this well-traveled skipper and boat on such a trip, we snagged his email and cell number (808) 989-6065. Give him a call.


YOTREPS

March 15 - The Pacific Ocean and Cyberspace

Who is out making passages in the Pacific and what kind of weather are they having? The YOTREPS daily yacht tracking page has moved to www.bitwrangler.com/psn.


Weather Links

March 15 - Pacific Ocean

San Francisco Bay Weather

Check out this guide to San Francisco Bay Navigational Aids: http://sfports.wr.usgs.gov/sfports.html.

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

For a view of Pacific Ocean sea states, check out: www.oceanweather.com/data/NPAC-Eastern/index.html.

For views of sea states anywhere in the world, see www.oceanweather.com/data.


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