Baja Ha-Ha XXXI Casts Off for Mexico
This is it folks: Today is the day the 31st Baja Ha-Ha fleet throws off the dock lines and heads south to Mexico. The launch was preceded by Sunday’s Ha-Ha Kick-Off Costume Party and BBQ in the West Marine parking lot, co-hosted by West Marine. One hundred thirty-seven boats signed up for this year’s Ha-Ha; add the crews aboard each boat, and you end up with a lot of sailors gathering for one big party! And judging by the look of the costumes, these crews are heading into 10 days of fun!
This year, Latitude 38 sales and marketing manager Nicki Bennett has joined the fleet aboard the Ha-Ha mothership, Profligate.
Nicki has now cast off and is making her way south, but not before sending us a stack of photos from the annual Baja Ha-Ha Kick-Off Party.
Latitude 38 publisher John Arndt is also in San Diego, though waving from the dock, not the deck.
Here are a few of the photos Nicki and John sent us this morning. Tap on the image to view the gallery.
California Photographers Vie for Pantaenius Yacht Racing Image Award
Richmond Yacht Club sailor and photographer Jan Pehrson wrote to let us know she’s a contender in the Pantaenius Yacht Racing Image Award (previously known as the Mirabaud Yacht Racing Image Award). Jan’s photograph of the 37th America’s Cup winners Team New Zealand in Barcelona, Spain, last year is a stunning capture. She’s one of just a few Americans, out of a group of 126 photographers from 28 different countries, whose images have been included in the public-voting round of 80 images selected by a seven-member international jury.
This is the sixth America’s Cup Jan has photographed, among many other local and global sailing events.
Another West Coast photographer whose image is among the top 80 is Santa Barbara photographer Sharon Green. Sharon was on the start and finish lines of the 2025 Transpac, looking for those magic shots. As always, she found some.
Two prizes will be awarded to the winners: the Pantaenius Yacht Racing Image Award (main prize), selected by the international jury, and the Public Award, based on the number of public votes online. You can vote for as many photos as you like, but you can vote for each image only once. Place your votes here, or click on each of the photos above to vote for that image.
The top 20 images will be exhibited at the maritime industry trade fair, Metstrade Amsterdam, on November 18–20. The awards ceremony will take place on November 21 at the Yacht Racing Forum, the leading annual conference for the business of sailing and yacht racing.
Jan signed off her email to us with, “Land was created so boats would have a place to visit.”
Public voting closes on November 14. View the gallery here.
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‘Classy Classifieds’ Print Deadline November 15
Ahoy, all you boat lovers! We know that every so often someone says goodbye to their boat. Supposedly it’s one of the best days in a sailor’s life, though we’re not so sure about that. We feel the sadness when saying farewell to a boat, even when we’re replacing it with a bigger, better, sturdier, more suitable … insert whatever you like here … model. With that in mind, we try to make the process as painless as possible with Classy Classifieds — your one-stop boat swap shop.
Of course, we realize not everyone will be trading out of one boat and into another, but either way, when you list your boat for sale in the Classy Classifieds, you’re reaching a community of sailors, many of whom like to browse the lists regularly, just waiting for “that boat” they’ve been thinking about. Yours could be the boat they’re looking for!
The Classy Classifieds print deadline is always 5 p.m. on the 15th, and this month is no different. But we’re on a very tight deadline for the December issue, so when we say, “Submit your ad by 5 p.m. on November 15,” we mean just that. We’ll be snapping up the submitted ads and pasting them to the pages before you can say, “Don’t miss the boat!”
So to be sure your boat will appear in Latitude 38’s December issue, log in and list your boat now. Maybe your boat will be another sailor’s Christmas gift!
Commemorating Jack London’s 150th Birthday
The famous writer Jack London was known for his global adventures. His training ground and lifelong love was San Francisco Bay. When a friend suggested he move to Los Angeles at 27 years old, Jack replied, “Nay, nay, I am wedded to ‘Frisco Bay.”
To commemorate the 150th anniversary of Jack London’s birth on January 12, 1876, here is a look at the six boats he sailed on the Bay. In 1889, at age 13, Jack bought a splintered dinghy for $2 that he rowed around the Oakland Estuary. At 14, he bought a cobbled-together centerboard skiff that he used to deliver beer to boats and gather unwanted gear from vessels to sell to the junkman. He also sailed out to Yerba Buena Island to fish for rock cod.
Throughout the second half of his 15th year, his skiff gathered barnacles while he worked 70 hours a week at an Oakland fruit cannery. He wrote in his memoir, John Barleycorn, “I remembered the wind that blew every day on the Bay, the sunrises and sunsets I never saw; the bite of the salt air in my nostrils, the bite of the salt water on my flesh when I plunged overside. There was only one way to escape my deadening toil … I must earn my bread on the water.”
His chance came when a Bay pirate announced he was selling the Razzle Dazzle. Jack borrowed $300 from his Black foster mother, Jennie Prentiss, to buy it. He quit the cannery and joined a rough crowd of pirates who poached oysters from private beds when the Bay supported a robust and lucrative exotic oyster industry. Even though he was on the wrong side of the law, he was back on his beloved Bay. In a novel he later wrote about Bay pirates, The Cruise of the ‘Dazzler’, he recreated a scene from firsthand impressions: “The sky was clear, and the air had the snap and vigor of early morning about it. The rippling water was laughing in the rays of the sun just shouldering above the eastern skyline. To the south lay Alcatraz Island, and from its gun-crowned heights a flourish of trumpets saluted the day. In the west, the Golden Gate yawned between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay.”
Within a few months, the mainsail of the Razzle Dazzle caught fire during a raid of Chinese shrimpers. Jack sold his boat for scrap and joined another teen pirate, Scratch Nelson, on the Reindeer. While a petty thief and a wharf rat, Jack picked up sailing skills from Scratch. “We strained her open and sailed her open and sailed her open continually,” he said.
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