Hurricane Sam Makes Slow Progress in Atlantic
The 2021 hurricane season continues as the newly named Hurricane Sam takes a slow path toward the Caribbean. After being monitored by the National Hurricane Center (NHC) as a tropical storm, Sam was upgraded this morning, making it the 18th hurricane this season. The NHC described the hurricane’s current activity as “taking a momentary pause from intensification.” And while Sam doesn’t appear to be in any great hurry at the moment, its projected path could see the weather system crossing the Leeward Islands next week.
According to the latest NHC advisory, at 8:00 a.m. today Sam was situated near 11.8N, 43.7W.
The report continues. “Sam is moving just north of due west near 14 mph (22 km/h) and this motion is expected to continue through tonight. A decrease in forward speed and a motion toward the west-northwest are expected over the weekend. Maximum sustained winds remain near 75 mph (120 km/h) with higher gusts. Rapid intensification is forecast to resume over the next several days and Sam is likely to become a major hurricane on Saturday. Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 15 miles (30 km) from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 60 miles.”
Right now we don’t know what is in store for the Leeward Islands, or for any other of the Eastern Seaboard localities, but from the indicators on the current forecast map, there is potential for a couple of tense weeks for our friends in Hurricane Alley.
In the meantime — not to minimize the suffering and tragedy that can result from hurricanes — we did find this very cool image that illustrates the hurricane tracks in the Atlantic, 1851 to 2019.
Wing Sailors Catch Ship to Ride the Endless Summer
While shooting for the recent Rolex Big Boat Series, photographer Sharon Green caught a couple of shots of one of the latest ways wing sailors are riding California’s endless summer. The objective is to line up and snag the bow wave of incoming ship traffic and ride the wave as far as it takes you.
The wing gets you up on your foiling board, and once you are foilborne you can one-hand the wing and focus on surfing the wave. It doesn’t take much but practice and skill to stay on a wave and surf until the wave runs out. As with any California beach break, you may have to wait your turn to get into the lineup.
Then, when you’re done, you just wing your way back to the beach or the next ship coming in the Gate.
If you want to see more about wing sailing, see our earlier story about the exciting new sport that’s storming the Bay.
San Francisco on the Bay: “Trail Guide”
Dine, Drink, Smoke, Stay, Play and Shop. Discover San Francisco Bay and all that inspires those of us who live or visit here.
A Trip We Will Certainly Never Forget
In Latitude 38‘s September issue, Dave Bernard shared memorable moments of a sailing trip “back home” on the south shore of Massachusetts and the ripe summer cruising grounds of southern New England.
As the doldrums of winter 2020 slogged on, the reality of my recent sale of my Hunter Legend Soupy Twist II (don’t ask) set in. Newly boatless, I needed to book a sailing trip! Somehow, the scheduling gods at my employer blessed me with a couple of weeks off from late July into early August. This would be a great time for my wife Krista, my daughter Alyssa and me to visit “back home” — the south shore of Massachusetts and the ripe summer cruising grounds of southern New England.
Swift Yacht Charters has a great mix of privately owned yachts varying from about 32 to 50 feet in various marinas throughout southern Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. My biggest desires were modern electronics, a bimini/dodger and a dinghy, and all were met and my expectations exceeded when I booked Winona, a 2019 Jeanneau 419, for seven nights at an excellent price. Quahogs, oysters and lobstah rolls, here we come!
The months and weeks inched toward summer, and it looked as if the COVID debacle was firmly in the rear-view mirror. As we neared the charter date of July 25, Hurricane Elsa crept up the East Coast, dragging what seemed to be the entirety of the moisture in the USA behind her. Halfway through July, Massachusetts had rain nearly every day of the month. Surely with the wet start to the month, we were due for some blue skies! Or not …
The crew also included my sister Jess and brother-in-law Andy, and we were all in good spirits as we motored south along the Sakonnet River toward the Atlantic. Apprehension quickly started to mount as the chop grew larger and more frequent, and the wind fought the outbound current. I assured the crew that once we entered the ocean, we’d be making a 90-degree turn for Cuttyhunk, and the wind and waves would be mostly behind us, making for a “smoother” ride (which wasn’t really an outright lie). We made 7 knots with 20 knots apparent, but the six-foot-plus waves bashing the stern quarter turned the crew a darker shade of green. We toughed out the last 15 miles to Cuttyhunk, with Alyssa taking a motion sickness-induced nap.
Less than two hours later, we glided into Cuttyhunk, the harbor that’s been my desktop screensaver since I booked this trip back in March.
Please continue reading at Latitude 38.com.
If you want to charter close to home, i.e. right here on San Francisco Bay you can visit our charter page here.
A Sailing Photo Collage to Get You Ready for the Weekend
Here at Latitude 38, we consider ourselves to be in the best position as we get to see all the photos that sailors send us of their adventures on the high seas — or as is probably more often the case, on the Bay. But this week we realized it’s likely that many of our readers won’t see all the photos we publish. Why? Because we don’t always publish the same photos in ‘Lectronic or the magazine that we share on our social media feeds, and on our Sailagram page.
So we decided to do a little cross-posting and share with our readers some of the great photos that have, so far, only been shown on our Facebook, Instagram and Sailagram pages.
We have stacks more photos, but not enough time or space to share them all here. If you’re missing out on the full picture, go check out and follow us on Facebook and on Instagram — @latitude38magazine — for the latest and most up-to-date pics. And be sure to check out the monthly Sailagram photos.
To have your photos featured in Latitude 38, send them to [email protected], and include a little about where and why you were sailing that day, and with whom! And if you want to add your photos to October’s Sailagram, email them to [email protected], and again, add a little about the day!