If you have a soft spot in your heart for antique boats with polished bronze hardware and gleaming varnish you won’t want to miss the annual Master Mariners Boat Show this Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Tiburon’s Corinthian YC. 

Dozens of vintage vessels will be on display, ranging from 23-ft Bear Boats to the Bay Area’s largest schooner, the meticulously restored 103-ft schooner Eros. You’ll be able to walk the docks and inspect them yourself, and learn about their histories from their dedicated owners. 

The newly restored sloop Freda will make a special appearance — first launched in 1885, she’s the oldest operational sailing yacht on the West Coast, and perhaps in the whole country. Timothy Mullins’ 52-ft S&S yawl Legend, which is new to the Bay, will be another standout. Yet another wooden beauty that you’ll want to have a look at is Bert Damner’s Concordia Yawl Encore.

It’s all great fun, and the $10 entry fee includes a detailed program of attending boats. Profits go to the Master Mariners Benevolent Fund, which provides funding for sail training scholarships, or the teaching of skills associated with restoring traditional sailing craft. There’ll be music all day by the San Francisco Feetwarmers jazz band. Lunch and drinks will be served on the deck, with a commanding view of the Central Bay.

According to the National Hurricane Center "a large area of disorganized showers and thunderstorms located several hundred miles S-SW of Acapulco, Mexico" may evolve into a tropical depression by early next week. Depressions, by definition, have maximum sustained winds of less then 34 knots (7 on the Beaufort scale). Higher winds (34-63 knots) would designate a low pressure system as a "tropical storm." At 64 knots it would officially become a (category 1) hurricane.

We hope that doesn’t happen, especially since Latitude 38‘s mothership, Profligate, is currently heading north to San Diego, as are a number of other boats that have been cruising Mexican waters. (Profligate is currently just south of Cabo.)

NOAA predicts this system has a 40% chance of forming into a tropical cyclone, or hurricane, within the next 48 hours, and an 80% chance within the next five days, which could be bad news for Cabo San Lucas, La Paz and other coastal towns. We encourage mariners and coastal dwellers to keep an eye on this disturbance, but we hope it will fizzle before coming ashore, as many such systems do.

(A shoutout from Profligate via satphone this morning to the Gulfstar 50 Talion: "Are you out there Patsy? We’ll be on 4 Alpha at 8 a.m. California time.")