Sail the Bay for Memorial Day, and Sailagram
One great thing about being a sailor on San Francisco Bay is that you don’t have to spend your Memorial Day weekend battling traffic and TSA lines to get away. Like tacking for clear air, you can drive toward the Bay to get away from it all. Sure, it’s supposed to be gray, but you probably own lots of fleece, so why not use it? If you plan to be in, on or around the water this weekend, we want to remind you to send some shots of your smiling crew for our monthly Sailagram. Sunny smiles will brighten any cloudy day. A sampling of photos from our April Sailagram appears below. Send in your May photos to [email protected] by Tuesday to make it into the May Sailagram pages.
For a low carbon footprint weekend, stay close to home and go sailing. If you head out tomorrow morning, you can watch the start of the Master Mariners Regatta off the St. Francis Yacht Club, starting at noon. California Offshore Race Week also starts tomorrow with the Spinnaker Cup to Monterey — the first warning gun is off the St. Francis Yacht Club at 10:25.
See you on the water!
Delta Doo Dah Summer Magic — Starting Now!
The Latitude38 Doodettes are here with the Delta Doo Dah updates you’ve been waiting for!
We’ve launched the 2023 Delta Doo Dah, and in just the first few days we had 20 sign-ups! We now have 30+ sign-ups, and the Magic 15 burgees are going in the mail shortly.
Start your Delta Doo Dah with the Delta Ditch Run next weekend! The Regatta Network reports, “This will be the 32nd running of the Delta Ditch Run. Get out the boat, round up the crew and be part of one of the most fun sailing events on the West Coast. It promises to be another great 65 nm downwind ride from the Richmond Yacht Club, up the bays and rivers, to the Stockton Sailing Club.”
Be sure to check out the NOR and other race documents for details.
We will be covering Delta sailing in the magazine and in ‘Lectronic Latitude with stories like this Delta Doo Dah magic highlight about Rik Williams and Brooke Weinstein of the Westsail 28 Irish Rose, Dennis Deisinger aboard the 1982 American Skier Lil’ Sumptin, and Craig and Ann Perez on their Express 34 Marrakesh. You’ll also be able to catch updates on our Facebook and Instagram pages. We don’t want you to miss a thing, so make sure you’re signed up to stay connected. There’s no time like the present — better get to it and sign up soon!
Did you catch wind of the Nautical Swap Meet coming up June 10? Hosted by Owl Harbor Marina, this is a great place to buy and sell. It’s a free outdoor event in Isleton! Bring your own table, chair or blanket to display your goods. This is a great time, with great finds, and a great way to get rid of those items you no longer need. Reserve your space now by emailing Owl Habor.
Thank you to everyone who has already signed up for the Delta Doo Dah! We love to see the community active and getting out on the water. The Delta provides great cruising grounds for practicing for offshore cruising, relaxing, and meeting other Bay Area sailors.
Who’s Hu in the Ha-Ha? Sailing Through the Baja Archives
As we look ahead to this year’s Baja Ha-Ha cruisers’ rally to Mexico, we also like to take a few peeks into the past and see who has Ha-Ha’d and what they thought about the experience. Recently we heard from Tim Dick, veteran of three out of the last four Ha-Ha’s, aboard his Lagoon 42 Malolo.
Tim sent us the link to a story about the actress Kelly Hu, who is also a Baja Ha-Ha veteran and joined Malolo for the 2022 southerly cruisers’ migration. But before we go into that story, here’s what Hu had to say about the voyage.
“What a ‘rowdy’ bunch,” Hu said of the 80-strong fleet in Latitude 38‘s December 2022 issue, “which is the highest compliment I can pay a group. A Ha-Ha virgin, I was impressed with the organization and super-impressed with how everybody pitched in to help people who had various issues. I would never want to go without a group like the Ha-Ha.” At the time, Hu, was playing a detective, alongside Snoop Dogg, on the television series Black Mafia Family.
Perhaps in keeping with some kind of “What goes on the Ha-Ha, stays on the Ha-Ha,” Hu shared only a little about her rally experience in a recent interview with Chilled magazine. When asked what she does in her downtime, Hu talked about Burning Man and a trip to Hawaii before revealing that she also “got certified for sailing, and sailed in a rally from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas called the Baja Ha-Ha.”
The story goes to show that the Ha-Ha really is for everyone. There’s no discrimination of any kind — just ’cause you’re famous on the screen, doesn’t mean you can’t go sailing!
Have you signed up yet? There’s still time, but with almost 70 boats and crews on the list, dock space in Cabo might be out. No one cares, though. Mexico is so chill that being at anchor is a blast. Check it out here and add your name to this year’s fleet.
Lifejacket Mania Buoys Sailors Through National Safe Boating Week
This time last week, a bunch of sailors were roaming about their workplaces wearing lifejackets. While that sounds like an odd thing to do, it was for a good reason. It was also good fun! We shared photos of our Latitude 38 crew wearing their lifejackets at work to help promote “Wear Your Lifejacket at Work Day,” which kicked off National Safe Boating Week (May 20–26).
The week-long safety campaign ends today, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to stop thinking about boating safely, and it certainly doesn’t mean we’re going to stop having fun. As we sail into the Memorial Day weekend, we’d like to share some of our favorite “lifejacket at work” photos from around the Bay.
By the way, did anyone win a prize from @boatingcampaign for their photo last Friday?
We’ll be observing Memorial Day on Monday, so we’ll see you all again on Wednesday. Have a safe, saily weekend!
‘Latitude 38’ Golden Ticket Winners Are Back!
Have you been wondering where all the Golden Ticket winners have gone? We were wondering, and just like that, we have two new winners. How does that even happen? We don’t fully know the science, or math, or whatever phenomenon decides when, and who, the next winners are, but we do get a kick out of hearing from the lucky sailors and then sending them the hat or T-shirt they have requested.
One of our most recent winners is John Callahan, who wrote us saying, “I found this in the April issue, which I picked up at Poppy Bank in Alameda across the street from Pineapple Sails. A royal blue cap would be great!”
John learned to sail with his dad on an El Toro on Lake Merritt in the mid-’60s and has been racing since day two! He told us he “terrorized the Oakland Estuary and the YRA in the ’70s on my dad‘s Coronado 25.”
Here are a few fun facts John sent us about himself:
“Employee #2 at Pineapple Sails in the ’70’s. Raced YRA and MORA in the ’70’s and ’80’s on everything. Won YRA Class Champ in Coronado 25, Ranger 23, and crewing on YRA Class Champ Cal 20 and Islander 36.
“Started windsurfing in 1983, won National Championship in 1990, third in World Championship in 1991 — Olympic Class Board — IMCO. Retired from windsurfing in 2000.
“Keelboat Bay and ocean racing all along. Finally did Transpac in 2015 on the schooner Martha.”
John, a member of the St. Francis YC, has been sailing the Bay for over 50 years. He’s owned many boats in that time, some of which may be known to readers — This Little Piggy, Good & Plenty, Chumley, Zaftig, Bazooka Joe, DJANGO, and Momentum. He started Friday night racing on the Estuary in 1972 aboard his dad’s “Crapadingle” 25 Kinship III, and is still racing on Friday nights, but now aboard Good & Plenty. In between, he’s been cruising aboard the J/120 DJANGO since 2000.
“But really,” John wrotes, “I think I said it all with ‘reading Latitude since the first issue, cover to cover.’ My wife Nancy can attest to that with a classic sailor’s spouse eye-roll.”
Our next recent winner is Rod Poindexter from Nevada, who enjoys cruising his 1978 Catalina 38 in San Diego Bay. Rod picked up his winning issue at West Marine in Henderson, NV.
We appreciate all our readers and hope we have a couple more winners in the coming June issue. Take a look at our distribution list so you know where to get your next Latitude 38.
We’ll leave you with a short video John Callahan sent us of his 2015 Transpac aboard Martha.
Summer Sailstice Celebration of Sailing Coming Soon
The Summer Sailstice celebration of sailing is coming on the weekend of June 24. Louis Benainous, Modern Sailing Academy, Freda B and Club Nautique have all got a pin on the map. Have you?