Oh, SNAFU! January Latitude 38 on the Docks Tomorrow
The January issue along with the 2025 YRA Calendar will hit the docks tomorrow, not today as planned. But you can check out the issue and the 2025 calendar online while you wait.
As we slide into the new year, we once again reflect on the past 12 months and think about what we are grateful for. Today, we are grateful (again) for all the crew who worked to produce the year’s 12 issues of Latitude 38. SNAFUs happen, and we’re grateful that we’ve managed to deliver 11 issues on the days we had scheduled. Today was to be the delivery day for issue #571. That day will now be tomorrow. Considering all the moving parts, we’re beyond stoked that this is a first. In the meantime, we bring you the Latitude 38 January 2025 issue, online to fill the gap until this time tomorrow. Here’s a preview.
Turkey Trot Offshore 2024
To go or not to go, that is the question. I often get calls from folks purchasing a vessel somewhere along the US West Coast where they don’t live, wondering how much it will be to deliver this vessel to the place where they do live. Usually, taking a boat to pieces, setting her onto a truck, and then putting her back together again is generally more expensive than “taking her on her own bottom” for the same journey. Of course, hours on the engine, wear and tear on sails and the like are to be considered, but strictly speaking, dollars and cents, usually leaving her afloat is less expensive.
Season Champions Part 2 — More One Designs Plus BAMA
The fleets celebrated in this second 2024 Season Champs feature range from tiny El Toros to substantial Express 37s to a 44-ft trimaran, with all sorts in between. We’ll start somewhere in the middle.
Rosie G — South to St. Somewhere
It’s been a little more than a year since Rosie G, with her crew (Jim Antrim, 72, Françoise Ramsey, 65, Samantha (Sam) Spanier, 74, and Barry Spanier, 77) sailed out the Gate with perfect light wind, reaching conditions, and a glorious sunrise while we went under the Golden Gate.
Here’s a peek at this month’s regular columns:
Letters: The Blue Flash Crash of Serendipity; Random Sightings of Sailors; The Moore the Merrier; Speaking of Wind-Powered Commercial Vessels, Have You Seen This?; plus many more letters from readers.
Sightings: SV Gallia — From B.C. to Santa Barbara; Bad News, Then Good, in the Oakland Estuary; US Sailing Opens 2028 Olympic Base in L.A.; Exploring Baja Surf on SV Sweetheart; and other stories.
Max Ebb: “Marks and Obstructions”
Racing Sheet: With racing from all over the hemisphere, we travel to the Pacific Northwest for Round the County, check in with California midwinters courtesy of Sausalito, San Diego, Golden Gate and Sequoia Yacht Clubs, head way down south for the Star South Americans, visit the Big Sail at StFYC, and wind up where we started, in the PNW. Box Scores slips out of its usual blue box this month.
Changes in Latitudes: With reports this month on Petrichor’s cruise to Alaska; Fairwyn’s return to the Ha-Ha; catching up with old friends in our annual Where Are They Now? feature; and an eclectic assortment of Cruise Notes.
All the latest in sailboats and sailboat gear for sale, Classy Classifieds.
We appreciate all readers and all our supporters — you keep Latitude 38 in print! Please show your appreciation by supporting the advertisers, who have made this issue possible.
The January issue with its companion 2025 Northern California Racing Calendar will hit the docks tomorrow — set your alarm and go visit your nearest distributor to pick up a copy. And while you’re there, share a New Year’s cheer!
McIntyre Mini Globe Race Qualifying Leg Is Underway
There are so many ways to race around the planet. On Saturday, December 28, a group of hopeful circumnavigators set off from southern Portugal in 19-ft homebuilt one-design plywood monohulls as part of the McIntyre Mini Globe Race. The initial leg from Portugal to Antigua serves as the qualifying event for competitors to race in the circumnavigation, starting and finishing in Antigua. With the successful completion of that leg, they will be accepted as entrants to the circumnavigation, which will sail westabout from Antigua through the Panama Canal and around the world via the classic trade-wind route.
One of the 15 competitors hoping to qualify by sailing to Antigua from the US is West Coast sailor and mountain climber Joshua Kali, from the Pacific Northwest. He’s built his 19-ft one-design Skookum for the race over the past two years and will be sailing his qualifying leg from the East Coast to Antigua. All the boats competing are built in plywood from the same one-design kit.
After finishing building Skookum in the PNW, Josh towed his boat across the country to his starting point in North Carolina along this route. We’ve written about boats named Skookum in the past, but hadn’t zeroed in on its meaning. Apparently it’s a Pacific Northwest term of Chinook jargon meaning strong, powerful, reliable and dependable. Those are all good characteristics for a 19-ft world sailer!
Once gathered in Antigua, the fleet will prepare for the start on Sunday, February 23, for what is expected to be an approximately 400-day circumnavigation sailed in four legs. We were reminded of the impending start by a comment from one of the race founders, Graham Cox, in our December 20 story about John Guzzwell. Also from the Pacific Northwest, Guzzwell inspired thousands of sailors after his circumnavigation aboard his 20-ft homebuilt boat Trekka. The McIntyre Mini Globe Challenge has recognized the recently deceased Guzzwell as the patron for the event.
The race will be a sharp contrast to the Vendée Globe with its 60-ft foiling IMOCAs going around the world below the southern capes. However, like the the Global Solo Challenge, where Cole Brauer took second place in her miraculous run around the planet, the Mini Globe Challenge will set a new group of adventurers on their way around the world in a dramatic challenge.
We took this screen grab of the race start posted on the Globe 5.80 Transat Facebook page. Make sure you have your volume on — the commentary is quite entertaining.
You can follow the McIntyre Mini Globe Challenge here.
For those following the Vendée Globe, after 50 days of racing, Charlie Dalin has retaken the lead from Yoann Richomme this morning, with just 12 miles currently separating the two. Follow along here.
Repower Made Easy with Beta Marine West
Jack van Ommen Makes the Deal on a New ‘Fleetwood’
Our much-loved friend Jack van Ommen is once again the owner of a new boat. You may recall the story of Jack’s Fleetwood III, the 30-ft Waarschip that required three summers of refit before she was seaworthy. In September Jack had finally completed the work and immediately posted the Waarschip for sale and set about finding another boat. Well, Fleetwood III is still for sale, but that hasn’t stopped Jack from closing the deal on his newest boat, a 1986 Elan 31.
“This is a lifechanging experience,” Jack writes on his blog, “to go from wood to polyester.” All three of Jack’s Fleetwoods were wooden boats. “She is not a spring chicken, but, just like myself, well maintained and well equipped. This boat has an Icom SSB radio and a Pactor modem, just like I had on Fleetwood I; if I can recall the complicated procedures, I would be able to update my blogs, text only, from anywhere again and send and receive emails.”
This new boat hails from Slovenia and will need new registration and a new name. Another Fleetwood, perhaps? “I carry a set of identical decals of my previous two Fleetwoods. But that might be dishonest and a bad omen. I’m considering ‘WreckJack.’ Any other suggestions?” Clearly, Jack has not lost his sense of humor.
However, it sounds as if Jack isn’t 100 percent set on keeping this latest vessel. “I’m keeping the decals, just in case I find a proper wooden boat on the east side of the Atlantic. My new boat will be easier to sell in Europe where this model is better known and it is set up for 220 volt AC.”
Whatever he decides, we’re happy that Jack is continuing his quest to keep sailing the world and wish him all the best for his new boat and the new year.
You can read more about Jack’s sailing life in our previous stories and on his blog.
Time To Turn the Sailing Calendar Page to 2025
Happy New Year! We’re looking at three different calendars today as we get ready to turn the page over to 2025. They’re all about sailing, and all will help inspire and plan your sailing year ahead. Last week we received our new Ultimate Sailing Calendar from Sharon Green and also found a new Master Mariners calendar in our mailbox. To add to our surprise, on the MMBA calendar, we discovered four of the photos were from shots we’d taken during the Master Mariners Regatta in May. The whole calendar is full of great shots for your year ahead.
One date to note in your new calendar is Summer Sailstice on June 21. Summer Sailstice will be drawing a winner from pins put on the Summer Sailstice map by this Friday and awarding a new 2025 Summer Sailstice burgee and a new Master Mariners calendar. Add your pin here and you might be a winner.
Sharon Green calls Santa Barbara her homeport but has traveled the world for decades to capture colorful, powerful photos of grand prix racing. The 2025 calendar is looking as dramatic and stunning as ever.
The other calendar you’ll be able to pick up tomorrow when you go out to your favorite Northern California Latitude 38 magazine pickup joint is the 2025 Northern California Sailing Calendar. Our delivery drivers somehow dodged all the rain and will be out delivering both the January issue and Latitude 38‘s 2025 YRA Sailing Calendar. Pick it up to start planning your 2025 racing season. We’ve joined 113 other boats that have already signed up for the January 25 Three Bridge Fiasco.
You can order your copy of the 2025 Master Mariners Calendar online here and Sharon Green’s Ultimate Sailing Calendar here.