The 2025 YRA Awards Party Held at Richmond Yacht Club
Many sailors spend the year on the Bay trophy hunting, but for the YRA, the season championship trophies aren’t handed out until the yearly November YRA trophy party. The trophy “pickup” party was held Saturday afternoon, Nov. 22, at the Richmond Yacht Club. The room full of winners, with supportive crew and guests, comes by to pick up the loot and be recognized for all their accomplishments across the year. To congratulate them all you’d have to attend the trophy party, but we recognize the event and some winners here.
Latitude 38 joined YRA executive director Laura Muñoz, YRA board chair Joe Rockmore and event chairs in awarding prizes to the gathered winners.
In attendance were winners of the Offshore Series, Doublehanded Racing Series, Destination Regattas, and Offshore and In-the-Bay Series. The YRA and respective event chairs produce and organize the racing along with partner clubs for everyone’s varied interests in racing.
The event occurs as Latitude 38 and the YRA are in the middle of creating the 2026 Northern California Racing Calendar. The calendar usually contains over 900 individual Bay Area races that are all permitted by Laura Muñoz’s work with the US Coast Guard. This includes the many YRA series, plus all the individual club races.
There’s no shortage of opportunities to get out racing in the Bay Area, from quick one-hour evening beer can races to destination races to Vallejo, Half Moon Bay, Benicia and many more. The biggest reward for everyone is just being out on the Bay, and then there’s the chance to end up at the year-end trophy party picking up some additional recognition for success.
Latitude 38 awarded the Wosser trophies, created by Ron Young in 2021 to help support growth of participation in racing on the Bay.
First up was the Jake Wosser Trophy for the largest one-design regatta held on the Bay. The winner was Hayden Zieger of the California Yacht Club. Hayden won with the 51-boat Opti PCCs run by the San Francisco Yacht Club.
The Ruth Wosser Trophy goes to the boat that raced the most YRA-sanctioned race days in a year. This year’s winners were Christian and Diane Kramer, racing 58 days aboard their Alerion 28 Sweet De. They edged out Samantha Chiu, who raced 57 days this year aboard her Open 5.70 Altair.
The Susie Wosser Trophy for taking the most crew racing during the year went to Rick and Petra Gilmore on their Catalina 42 Revelry. This year they took 65 different people out racing with them!
As YRA board chair Joe Rockmore said in his remarks, the best way to grow participation in racing is for those who do race to race more often, or take more people out racing. The Wosser trophies support that mission.
This year was the first year of the YRA Women’s Championship Series. The series of three races requires participating boats to have a woman skipper and tactician, and at least 50% of the crew must also be women. For many years, Latitude 38 has also been awarding a Queen of the Women’s Circuit to a woman skipper who participated in the many women’s events and encouraged more women to skipper and crew.
This year it want to Elizabeth Henderson and her J/105 Chinook crew. They attended almost every women’s regatta on the Bay that was open to them, including Island Yacht Club’s Sadie Hawkins, SFYC’s Anne McCormack Women’s Invitational, Encinal’s Shirley Temming Cup, Sequoia’s Rock the Boat Again Regatta, and the YRA’s Women’s Regatta. Plus they supported both the Island Yacht Club and Corinthian Yacht Club women’s sailing seminars.
Skipper Elizabeth Henderson was supported by a skilled all-female crew consisting of Claire Perhach, Tracy Ward, Gwen Holst, Shelli Bohrer, Mayim Weins, Kira Maixner, Andrea Guthrie, Julie Kim, Wrye Sententia and Jessica Wang.
As the YRA board chair said, everyone can help grow participation in 2026 by inviting more boats and more crew to race, and helping those who’ve never tried racing to get signed up and sailing. If you do that you could also end up winning a Wosser trophy, even if you never win a race.
See you on the water.
Latitude 38 December Issue Out Now
Ho, ho, ho — it’s the last 2025 issue of Latitude 38, and it’s available now! This month is full of great stories and sailing happenings, including a reflection on the Poobah’s last Ha-Ha, a wrap-up of the 2025 racing season champions (part one of three), the return of Convergence, and much more. Here’s a preview.
On Board the Mothership for the Poobah’s Last Ha-Ha
Stepping aboard Profligate is akin to stepping inside a great legacy. This 63-ft custom Hughes catamaran has served as the Baja Ha-Ha mothership since the rally’s third edition in 1996. If her big white hulls could talk, we’re certain they would spill nearly three decades of the most interesting stories. The history of the mothership and the Ha-Ha is a rich one, intertwined with the history of this magazine and the countless sailors who have been inspired to sail over the horizon. It is a tapestry formed with places, personalities and oh, so many tales, with each year adding a colorful new layer. Whether from your first or 31st Baja Ha-Ha, your story adds a new strand.
2025 Season Champions — December Edition
As Thanksgiving passes and November turns to December, there are many annual traditions that must be observed. Holiday decorations go up, you will be forced to listen to Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas Is You several thousand times, and at Latitude 38 we will be highlighting the season champions from various fleets and yacht clubs.
Latitude’s “Season Champions” feature is an annual tradition in which we briefly highlight the sailors and boats that won their various season championships throughout the course of 2025.
Convergence Comes Home
In 2004, Randy Repass, wife Sally-Christine Rodgers and their 9-year-old son Kent-Harris Repass bid goodbye to friends, hoisted the sails on their Wylie 65 cat ketch Convergence, and sailed from Santa Cruz toward the horizon. Their goal: a circumnavigation. At the end of October, 21 years and about 40,000 miles later, mission accomplished. Sally-Christine Rodgers gives a quick debrief of a very long journey.
And where can you find a copy of the magazine? Read on.…
Why are these drivers smiling? One good reason is that it is December and it’s not raining on delivery day! The other reason is that they get to hand out the new December issue while meeting some of our great waterfront magazine distributors. As we finish up Black Friday and Cyber Monday we appreciate more than ever the opportunity to pick up the real thing and visit with real people in the sailing community. We appreciate our drivers, distributors and ambassadors for keeping the sailing community connected through Latitude 38.
Also in this month’s issue:
Letters: We Were Complacent and We Learned; All the Technology; Keep That Old High Note Rollin’; Ramming Speed, Mateys; and loads more readers’ letters and comments.
Sightings: First-ever Parkinson’s Benefit Regatta; Breaking Down Boat Donations; Good Jibes Live; Sailing Books, 2025.
Max Ebb: “Forecasting Time”
Racing Sheet: The end of October and beginning of November see most fleets wind down their seasons, as seen in the Fall Invitational. This time of year also sees special one-off regattas, like the Great Pumpkin, Don Trask International Masters, Lipton Cup and Fall Dinghy. Read about all this and more in the December Racing Sheet, and be sure to check out the first part of our annual season champs feature!
Changes in Latitudes: With reports this month on Stargazer’s kid boat season; Melissa Ward’s unusual summer “working cruise” in the far north; the first installment of our “Where Are They Now?” feature, in which we catch up with 2025 contributors; and a few fun end-of-year Cruise Notes.
All the latest in sailboats and sailboat gear for sale, Classy Classifieds.
Drop in to your nearest distributor to pick up your copy of this month’s Latitude 38.
We appreciate all readers and all our supporters — you keep the wind in our sails. Please show your appreciation by supporting the advertisers who have made this issue possible: Shop here.
And while we’re talking about appreciation …
Among the many good things sailors and yacht clubs do for the community is the St. Francis Yacht Club bike drive, in which members of the St. Francis Yacht Club donate bicycles through the San Francisco Fire Department to bring some Christmas cheer to communities in need. See our Calendar for Lighted Yacht parades, many of which are also fundraisers for their local communities.
Steering the Dream With Hydrovane
Hydrovane is your best crew member: an independent self-steering windvane and emergency rudder/steering system … ready to go!
‘Carpe Diem’ Seizes Successful Baja Ha-Ha
Greg Clausen sent in a few pics and a note after joining the crew of Marek Schindler’s Norseman 447 Carpe Diem for the recent Baja Ha-Ha.
Greg reports it was a most excellent trip south, with warm downwind sailing and no real breakdowns worthy of comment. The solar charging also worked great, while the fishing kept him busy and thinking up many creative dinner options.
“After Cabo, the Carpe Diem crew continued to La Cruz in Banderas Bay with about eight other boats on the morning after the awards night,” Greg tells us, “where we got first place for the most time sailing in our division.”
Greg says beyond the sailing, the Ha-Ha included meeting a lifetime of friends along the way. Next up for Carpe Diem is Sailfest in Zihuatanejo, and then continuing south along the west coast of Mexico before chasing the sunset to French Polynesia.
The report from Carpe Diem sounds pretty “normal” for this year’s Ha-Ha. Everything was great! There’s no reason not to consider participating in the 32nd Baja Ha-Ha in 2026!
We’ll cover more of their cruising adventures in an upcoming Changes in Latitudes.
The Solution to Low Participation in Regattas
Are you tired of hearing about regattas with very low turnout? Well, Encinal Yacht Club (EYC) has solved the problem. All you have to do is have a fun regatta in an awesome, easy-to-get-to place with great boats. EYC did just that when they hosted another Alameda One Design Regatta on Saturday, Nov. 15, for the newly formed San Francisco Bay Harbor 20 Fleet #10 and the local Columbia 5.5 Meter class.
The Harbor 20 fleet was just formed a month ago with seven boats. It has already grown to eight, with more to come soon. All eight boats in our fleet showed up for a great day on the water that was dominated by Drew Hess and PJ.
You can’t really say that PJ was crew on Drew’s boat because they traded off skippering. It didn’t seem to matter who was driving, because they won four of the five races by sailing fast and staying away from the crowds. The only race they did not win was taken by Mike Bishop with Gerard Sheridan crewing. Mike had won the last Alameda One Design regatta but ended up a close fourth this time, which is a testament to the close racing all day.
Second in the Harbor 20 fleet were Jon Andron and Chris Boome, who were only one point ahead of Rebecca Hinden and her dad Bob in third.
The beautiful Columbia 5.5s had three different race winners. Coming out on top with two of the wins was Ken Bodiley and his crew of Drew Guay and Brendan McNally. They ended up four points ahead of Ryan Nelson, who also had two wins. Ryan sails with his two sons Wallace (age 11) on jib trim, and Thomas (age 14), who steers downwind while Ryan plays with the spinnaker. The other win went to Chris Davis and his crew of Volker Frank and Stephanie Wilson, ending up two points behind Ryan to take third in the six-boat 5.5 fleet.
The awesome race committee worked overtime because during the day the wind shifted from west to south. Regardless, they kept getting the marks and the starting line organized very quickly so we were able to complete all five races before the 3:30 cutoff time. This allowed everyone to join up at EYC for some nice social time. Many thanks to PRO Bryan Aamot, recorder Anne Aldridge, and vice commodore Mike DiBella, who were very busy all day moving marks.
Give the Gift of Latitude This Holiday Season
