San Diego YC Hosts First Hot Rum Series Event
On Saturday, Nov. 8, the San Diego Yacht Club hosted the first of three events in this year’s Hot Rum Series. The series runs through November and December, with the second and third races scheduled for Nov. 22 and Dec. 6. Eight fleets took to the water for the first event, with 110 boats competing. Of these, only 46 finished within the time limit, with the other 64 being scored as TLE [time limit expired].
Fleet 1 was won by Jim Madden’s Swan 601 Stark Raving Mad VII, with Roy Disney’s Andrews 68 Pyewacket finishing second. The two Fleet 1 boats finished first and third in the overall combined scoring, with Shampain and Plant’s Melges 30 Still 2 Crazy taking second overall and the Fleet 5 win.
Rudolph Hasl’s J/145 Palaemon, placed ninth in the overall scoring, and first in Fleet 2. The Fleet 3 winner was Steve Howe’s Melges 32 Warpath, which finished fifth overall. The overall fourth-place finisher was another Fleet 1 boat, James Nicholas’s Cookson 50 Arcturus.
Michael Hatch’s J/105 J Almighty won Fleet 4 and finished 14th overall. The aforementioned Still 2 Crazy won Fleet 5. Dan Merino’s Express 37 Juno won Fleet 6 and finished 12th overall.
Fleet 7 winner and 10th overall finisher was the J/70 Boondoggle, owned by Steve Wyman. The eighth and final fleet was won by Pog Mo Thoin, a Star skippered by Ken Henehan.
The second day of SDYC’s Hot Rum Series is scheduled for this coming Saturday, Nov. 22, with the third and final race scheduled for Dec. 6.
Good Jibes #218: Tamara Sokolov and Simran Phojanakong on the San Francisco Sea Scouts
Join us this week as we chat with Tamara Sokolov and Simran Phojanakong from the San Francisco Sea Scouts about the incredible program shaping lives on the water. Tamara is the executive director and has been involved with the Sea Scouts for nearly 30 years, and Simran is the boatswain, aka youth president.
Tune in as Tamara and Simran chat with Good Jibes host Moe Roddy about the history of the San Francisco Sea Scouts, their rigorous and rewarding weekly schedule, stories from their all-girls SSS Viking crew, what the Sea Scouts has taught them about leadership and confidence, and how they create a safe, empowering space for young women, and young men, on the water.
Here’s a sample of what you’ll hear in this episode:
- Starting the junior program in 2019 and thriving through COVID
- The power of youth mentorship
- From East Coast to discovering Sea Scouts in 1997
- The all-volunteer leadership model
- Expanding girls-only programs around the Bay
Learn more about the San Francisco Sea Scouts, and donate and/or volunteer at SFSeaScouts.org.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots — follow and leave a 5-star review if you’re feeling the Good Jibes!
Spaulding Marine Center, Full-Service Boat Yard and Education Center
Harbor Island West Marina Sends Off Ha-Ha Participants Prior to Rebuild
Some people think it’s impossible to build anything in California. Harbor Island Marina in San Diego will tell you otherwise. They’ve been a regular advertiser in Latitude 38, a dedicated sponsor of the Baja Ha-Ha, and an annual participant in Summer Sailstice. They’ve also been working steadily to do the planning and permitting to rebuild the 50-year-old marina. Harbormaster Eric Leslie says they’re now ready to begin.
The new marina will have 623 upgraded slips and services, and also upgraded shoreside buildings and services.
As the 31st annual Baja Ha-Ha fleet left the Bay, Harbor Island West was getting ready to begin construction. Eric Leslie wrote in to give a bigger view of the project, which you can see in Business News here.
Congratulations to Eric and team for their success in getting the new project launched. Future sailors, Ha-Ha participants and Summer Sailstice sailors will look forward to launching from your new docks.
Encinal Yacht Club Hosts 2025 Wylie Wabbit Nationals
The 2025 Wylie Wabbit Nationals, hosted by Encinal Yacht Club (EYC), were sailed on Oct. 17–19. This year’s event was the 41st National Championship event for these lightweight speedsters.
This year’s event featured 12 boats. Longtime class member Aaron Sturm traveled the farthest, coming north from San Diego to compete in this year’s Nationals. The regatta was a unique three-venue format, expertly run by EYC.
The fleet has a mix of long-term and new owners. Some of the younger members point out that the older crowd has been sailing these boats longer than the new owners have been alive. This year it was the older (and craftier?) crowd that prevailed.
Friday was a long-distance race, starting just off the end of the Berkeley Pier. Due to light winds, the race committee chose a short beat to YRA Mark 8, then a long reach/run to the finish off the EYC club docks on the Oakland-Alameda Estuary. It was a moderate to calm race against the ebb current, with some boats gaining places by anchoring south of the Bay Bridge near the Port of Oakland –- shades of the Three Bridge Fiasco! The wind finally filled, and the boats made it to the finish after about three hours on the course. Following the race, EYC hosted food and drinks for the fleet around their pool.
Saturday saw five races on the Estuary in front of the EYC. The results had many mix-ups in the finish orders; during the three-day event, six different boats won one of the nine races. There was enough wind to sail, but the conditions were shifty and puffy, with both sides of the Estuary favored at times. Even the middle paid off occasionally. Once again, after racing, EYC hosted a friendly gathering, with displays of drone footage of the racing, and a regatta dinner that evening.
On the third day the three support boats towed the entire fleet out of the Estuary. The plan was to race in the South Bay, but the glassy conditions had the race committee keep the tow going, and the race venue ended up south of the Berkeley Pier off Emeryville. The first race was quite windy, the second moderate, and the final race of the regatta was again in light air. The committee shortened the course to finish at the second-lap weather mark in the final race. The race committee ran an excellent event, ready to shorten course or tow the fleet as needed.
After the final finish, two boats headed back to EYC, with 10 boats beating around the end of the Berkeley Pier and enjoying a firehose reach back to Richmond Yacht Club — the fastest sailing of the weekend. It was an exciting way to get home for these lightweight speedsters.
EYC put on a great event for our class, and we were quite happy to have a dozen boats in close racing in the three different venues. Our congratulations to team Erkelens on Jack (RYC), who repeated their win of last year and have earned the most national championship wins in our class history. Andy Hamilton was at the helm, and Zach Shapiro was the sheet hand. Second place went to Wabbit builder Kim Desenberg on Mr. McGregor (RYC), with Bart Hackworth and Liza Trombi providing excellent advice, direction and boat handling (they were polite and let Kim steer). In third was Aaron Sturm on Wild Bunch (MBYC), with Guillaume Canivet on the trapeze and Larry Schmitz at the helm.
The class is evaluating next year’s locations — Clear Lake, Huntington Lake or Tomales Bay — for their 2026 National Championships.
You can see the full scores from the 2025 Wylie Wabbit National Championship here.
Eight Bells for Sailors Now on Obituaries Page
Since the Latitude 38 community’s lives revolve around sailing, and nearly all our friends are sailors, we’ve long struggled with how to give recognition to those we lose. Eventually, our friends cross the bar and eight bells toll. We have always been challenged to have space available to memorialize these sailors whose lives have meant so much to the sailing community.
We are now honored to be able to pay tribute to these great sailors, our friends with whom we will no longer sail, with a new section in the magazine. We hope to give the community another avenue through which to share the news of their loss. With this in mind, we recently created a page on our website dedicated to our departed sailing friends — Eight Bells Obituaries.
Avid Bay Area sailor, Sabre 40 Escapade owner and Sausalito Yacht Club member Nick Sands recently crossed the bar. His wife, Renee Lind, honored his legacy with our first submission to this new section of Latitude 38. You can see it in the magazine here and online here.
Eight Bells Obituaries provides an opportunity for readers to submit a notice of, or remembrance for, a favorite sailor who has crossed the bar. Not unlike the obituary pages in newspapers, it’s a simple way to let the sailing community know about the loss of one of its members. We are constrained by space and resources to allow more tributes like our recent story on Don Trask, and are hoping our Eight Bells page allows the lives of more sailors to be recognized by the community.
The Eight Bells page follows the format used by newspapers, allowing you to select the size, add the text and photos of your choosing, and make payment. The notice will then be proofread and posted on our Eight Bells page online and also included in the next available issue of Latitude 38. See the page here.
Don’t Miss the Baja Ha-Ha Beach Party this Sunday
