Laurie and Sonia Haynes’ Australian Fountaine Pajot Bahia 46 Moana Roa makes landfall in French Polynesia.

Mighty Merloe crossed the PV Race finish line Tuesday morning at 8:30. © 2016 John Rogers HL Enloe’s ORMA 60 trimaran Mighty Merloe crossed the finish line of San Diego Yacht Club’s Puerto Vallarta Race at 8:30 Tuesday morning, for an elapsed time of 2 days, 19 hours, and 49 minutes. Their first 24 hours put them 480 miles down the course with an average VMG of 23 knots. After an epic 36-hour run from San Diego to Cabo, the second half of their journey was an exercise in getting through the lee of Cabo and building speed down the course, then beating at night to the finish in the light north and east winds wafting out of Banderas Bay. Mighty Merloe is the former Groupama II that finished off the once great ORMA 60 trimaran class by being so much lighter and faster than the rest, giving rise to the MOD70 one-design class.

Residents of Fiji are still reeling from Saturday’s pummeling by ferocious Tropical Cyclone Winston, the most powerful storm ever to hit the multi-island South Pacific nation — and probably the most destructive.  Winston struck a direct hit on the Fijian islands over the weekend — the most powereful cylone ever recorded in those islands.

Although the weather was perfect for a raft-up on Saturday, it wasn’t so keen for a Bay tour yacht race.

Unlike the original locks, the Third Lane will recycle much of the water it uses, and will have sliding gates that operate faster than those on the original Canal.

Subscribers to the YRA of S.F. Bay newsletter learned of changes to the organization’s biggest race of the year, the Great Vallejo Race, earlier this week.

Undeniably, the Bay Area has produced a boatload of world-class racing sailors, but one of the local marine community’s greatest treasures is the wealth of colorful waterfront characters who call these waters home.

Peter Krueger and his well-traveled Double Trouble team continued their adventuring winter ways last week by helping make history in Cuba.

Although they’ve since moved their sailing operations to Bermuda, in January Artemis Racing launched a second turbo development boat out of their base in Alameda’s former naval air station.

Anyone who’s spent a real winter on the water there can tell you that San Francisco’s South Bay can fetch up some nasty wave action in stormy weather.

Here on the West Coast, a great variety of high-volume smuggling attempts have been discovered — including open panga-style fishing boats with bales of pot piled higher than their gunwales and semi-submersible submarines carrying tons of cocaine.

The bigger the boat, the bigger the ground tackle, and the bigger the ground tackle the bigger the potential for environmental damage.

If it’s February it must be seminar season. Some events of interest to Bay Area sailors include the following.

Initially it looked fine to our untrained eye. But after talking to Jim Drake, we looked closer and saw the sides of the belt were glazed — and bits of debris from it ended up on the bottom of our Yanmar diesel.  latitude/Richard
©2016Latitude 38 Media, LLC While motoring our 63-ft cat Profligate from San Diego to Santa Barbara for the start of last September’s SoCal Ta-Ta, we noticed some black gooey stuff accumulating at the bottom of the port diesel and on the engine room sole.

Our Valentine to you: the February issue of Latitude 38. latitude/Annie
©Latitude 38 Media, LLC Sweet!

While up the mast, John was surprised to discover a couple of dolphins swimming beneath his and his wife Debbie’s Deerfoot 62.  John Rogers
©Latitude 38 Media, LLC Like most sailors, we at Latitude 38 don’t like the idea of dolphins being kept in cages or pens so humans can swim with them.