World Ocean Day Coming June 8 — Who Is Your Hero?
Sailors love the oceans and care about them deeply. That has us wondering what sailors should do to celebrate World Ocean Day, coming on June 8. Beyond taking a moment to recognize the day and the value the oceans bring to our lives, we wanted to ask readers what they’d like to do to recognize the day, or to recognize the people and organizations who are doing things large and small to protect and restore ocean health. In other words, who is your ‘Ocean Hero?’
We’re looking back at all the stories we’ve written, like the one above about Mary Crowley’s Ocean Voyages Institute, which has been working hard to clean up the plastics in the Pacific Gyre. We’ve written about Jim ‘Homer’ Holm’s The Clean Ocean Project, which is also working on plastic pollution and on converting plastics into fuel. We recently wrote about Scott Chowning’s project Trash Boats: 1 Ton in 2021 which is collecting plastic trash from our own Bay. As we look back it’s an almost endless list of Bay Area and West Coast sailors who are somehow engaged in restoring ocean health.
Most Bay Area community and youth sailing programs such as TISC or ACSC include environmental learning and sustainability as a critical component of their teaching.
Latitude 38 would like to join sailors everywhere in supporting ocean health, and we are now planning coverage in our June magazine, and throughout the month of June in our ‘Lectronic Latitude newsletter. So who is your ‘Ocean Hero?’ We’d appreciate your input, suggestions and nominations for inclusion or recognition. Drop them into the comments below, or send us an email here.
Happily, we know the list of worthy people and organizations is longer than we can possibly include, but the need is great. And despite the challenges, progress is being made by all who are engaged in this worthy effort.
Pacific Cup 2022 Activates Waiting List
Pacific Cup 2022
While our attention has been focused on the 2021 races to Hawaii, the ‘big’ Transpac and the smaller (but significant) one with the longer name, the Singlehanded Transpacific Yacht Race, the 2022 Pacific Cup has been filling up. In their Earth Day newsletter, the Pacific Cup Yacht Club’s commodore, Jim Quanci, announced that they’ve reached 90 entries and activated the waiting list.
“There’s nothing like pent-up demand. With the cancellation of the 2020 race due to COVID, a significant number of our entrants simply rolled their entries over to 2022. Add to that a healthy dose of new and returning racers from prior years, and we have a very complete entry line.
“A bit over a month ago, we had a flood of entries from the larger ‘sled-like’ boats. One can only assume that the rumor mill got churning among that crowd as they assumed — correctly — that we might be activating the waiting list. The sudden rise in the entrant count led us to activate the wait list.”
The number of entries is limited by the capacity at the destination harbor, Kaneohe Bay on Oahu’s east shore.
“There’s usually about a 30% dropout rate,” says Quanci. “We’ve always been able to start everyone who signs up.”
Save the dates: The Pacific Cup is planning a prep seminar for October 9, and a Safety at Sea weekend for November 20-21.
2021 Singlehanded Transpacific Yacht Race
By the way, in addition to serving as commodore of the PCYC, Jim Quanci has signed up his boat, the Cal 40 Green Buffalo, for the 2022 Pac Cup. But before that, he’ll make a repeat showing in the SHTP, which he won overall in 2012. Robb Walker recently entered his Cal 40, Nozomi, in the SHTP. Both boats sail out of Richmond Yacht Club, so that will be an interesting rivalry to watch. Robb is also signed up as navigator aboard Green Buffalo for the Pac Cup. Jim’s sons, Andrew and Stephen, are planning to crew. Got that?
The current entry list for the SHTP stands at 18; we believe that 16 of those solo sailors are still planning to race. If you were planning to enter, don’t procrastinate any longer. Registration closes at midnight on May 1. The race itself will start from in front of the Golden Gate YC in San Francisco on June 19 and finish in Hanalei Bay in Kauai.
2021 Transpac
The Transpac from Los Angeles to Honolulu is a big-boat race, with the smallest boat SSS member David Garman’s 1D35 Such Fast, based in Renton, Washington. The largest boat is Manouch Moshayedi’s 100-ft Bakewell-White Rio 100. Click here to view the current entry list.
On May 8, Stan Honey will present a Navigation & Strategy Seminar: Thinking Through the Transpac Race. Transpac YC will send registered skippers and crews a Zoom link for the webinar.
We’ll have full previews of and race reports from the 2021 races to Hawaii in the summer issues of Latitude 38.
Westwind Boat Detailing Offers Washing, Waxing and Varnishing
Serving the entire Bay Area for more than 30 years.
Max Ebb on Docking: Walk the Walk
In April’s Latitude 38, Max Ebb, Lee Helm, and a retired pilot discuss prop walk after Max gets some help docking a friend’s boat.
“Docking a big boat is all about confidence.” Those words came to mind as I maneuvered my friend’s boat toward its slip. It was twice the size and five times the weight of my own boat, and I had volunteered to move it back to its marina berth from the boatyard while the owner was out of town.
This was a single-finger berth, port-side-to, and there was some wind blowing away from the dock. A little bit of extra speed would be required on the final approach, to minimize the effect of the wind. “No problem,” I thought to myself. “I’ll hit reverse at the right time, and the prop walk will pull the stern to port.”
A voice in my head asked me to practice reverse thrust out in the fairway, but confidence overruled and the voice was ignored. I should have listened. The approach into the slip went exactly as planned, but when I applied power in reverse, the stern swung to starboard, not port, and the wind was blowing me against the neighbor to leeward, a large powerboat, with no room for backing and filling. Naturally, I had not put out any fenders to starboard.
Fortunately, the boat to starboard was a liveaboard, and the owner appeared on deck just in time to help me fend off. Other onlookers ran to help, and it wasn’t long before my friend’s big yacht was safely pulled up against the port-side finger.
“Must be a left-handed prop,” deduced the liveaboard skipper to starboard after I explained what had gone wrong with my docking attempt. “Sure felt like it,” I agreed. “I expected the prop walk to pull the stern to port, like it usually does.”
“Not with a lefty propeller,” he said. “It’s all about torque and P-factor. Ask any pilot.”
“I understand torque,” I said. “But what is this P-factor?”
“Ask any pilot,” he repeated. “And I just happen to have logged a couple of thousand hours.”
He didn’t wait for me to ask but launched into asymmetrical flight dynamics 101.
“P-factor is when one side of the propeller is producing more thrust than the other side,” he began. “Think of a powerful single-engine plane with a big propeller. Especially a taildragger. The plane starts the ground roll with a high angle of attack. The propeller shaft is nowhere near parallel to the incoming air flow, so the blades on the starboard side of the plane, going down and partly into the incoming flow, see more wind and more angle of attack than the blades on the port side of the plane going up. That puts more thrust on the right side than the left, so you have to push down hard on the right rudder pedal just to stay lined up with the runway. After liftoff, during climb, the angle of attack is still higher than in level flight, so you still have that unbalanced thrust trying to make the plane turn left, and you have to keep pressure on the right rudder.
Continue reading at Latitude38.com, or go pick up a magazine.
May Yacht Racing Preview
Yacht Racing Association
The YRA will continue their Shorthanded Sunday Series on May 2 (the Island Tour Regatta) and May 23 (the North South Regatta). Entries for the May 2 race close today, Wednesday, April 28!
The YRA’s Summer Series for full crew on short courses will continue on May 8.
The OYRA Series will resume on the 22nd, with the Duxship Race around the Duxbury Reef buoy (off Bolinas) and the Lightship.
NorCal Regattas
San Francisco Yacht Club’s Elite Keel invites J/105, Express 37, J/88, Melges 24, J/70, SF Bay IOD, Knarr and J/24 fleets to race on May 1-2.
“Shake off the dust, swab the decks, and brush up on your social skills. It’s time to emerge from isolation and go sailing,” writes Moore 24 secretary/treasurer Sarah Raymoure. The Moore 24 fleet will sail their Nationals at Santa Cruz May 7-9. Why? “Arms vaxxed, hulls waxed and ready to kick AXX!” says Sarah. Register here.
On May 8, Monterey Peninsula YC will host the Club Laser Champs.
The next race for the Singlehanded Sailing Society will be the Singlehanded Farallones Race on May 15. Also on that day, Sausalito YC will kick off their Classic Boat Invitational Series.
On May 15-16, St. Francis YC will welcome invited one-design dinghies to the Elvstrom/Zellerbach Regatta, then they’ll welcome invited classes, ORR and PHRF keelboats to the Stone Cup on May 21-23.
The Master Mariners Regatta for classic vessels is a go for the 29th, the Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend.
Also on Memorial Day Weekend is the Whiskeytown Sailing Association’s Memorial Weekend Regatta on Whiskeytown Lake.
SoCal Regattas
San Diego YC will host the Yachting Cup on May 1-2. That same weekend, Santa Barbara Sailing Club will put on their Cinco de Mayo Regatta.
Los Angeles YC’s Breakout Regatta Series will continue on May 8.
AllCal Regattas
California Offshore Race Week returns! It will start on May 29, with the Spinnaker Cup from San Francisco Bay to Monterey. On May 31, racers will depart Monterey for Santa Barbara in the Coastal Cup. The SoCal 300 will wrap up the series on June 3-5. Got a really, really fast boat, like a MOD70? The CA 500 is for you. Sail all the way from San Francisco to San Diego nonstop on June 3-5.
For info on all of the above, see www.offshoreraceweek.com.
High School Sailing
High school racing resumes this weekend for the first time since the pandemic struck. Encinal YC will host the NorCal Championships on May 1-2, while the US Sailing Center of Long Beach hosts the SoCal Championships. USSCLB will host the Gold Pacific Coast Championship on May 8-9. All of these regattas will be sailed in CFJs.
For many more regattas and events around the region, check our May Calendar, coming out in the May issue of Latitude 38 this Friday, April 30.
Stanford University Sailors March Against Funding Cuts
Stanford University students marched outside the school on Monday to protest planned funding cuts that will see the end of 11 varsity sports programs. According to KPIX 5, the changes, announced last July, will affect women’s and coed sailing along with lightweight rowing, men’s rowing, field hockey, squash, synchronized swimming, men’s and women’s fencing, men’s volleyball, and wrestling.
The university had explained its decision in a letter to its community that said that the athletic department was facing a “serious and growing financial challenge” exacerbated by the pandemic. Figures cited indicated the university was facing a shortfall of $12 million.
However, the protesting students do not believe the university needs to take the drastic action. Kyler Presho, who is part of the men’s volleyball team, told KPIX 5, “With a $29 billion endowment, there is no figure too large to save these 11 communities – these 11 sports – that have been cut.”
Students will now have to wait a few more weeks for the university to announce its final decision.