Are You Ready To Hoist Flags on National Flag Day?
Sunday, June 14, is Flag Day, created following the Second Continental Congress resolution made on June 14, 1777, to adopt of the flag of the United States. According to the National Constitution Center, the first national observance of Flag Day was on June 14, 1877, a century after the American flag was officially adopted. Then, in 1916, President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation that June 14 be National Flag Day. It was made official by Congress in 1949.
Beyond the American flag, we know there is no shortage of flags that sailors like to hoist.
We see sailboats flying flags all the time, from the US flag to their yacht club’s burgee to event flags. This year’s Baja Ha-Ha fleet will fly the new Cruisin’ to the Cape flag (pictured below) created to represent this year’s Grateful Dead-themed rally.
The Pacific Inter-Club Yacht Association (PICYA) says, “The purpose of flags is to communicate.” This is of course very true in the case of the red and yellow semaphore flags, and even more relevant to us as sailors, the international maritime signal flags. Though these don’t actually pertain to Flag Day, we just were reminded of their existence as we’re writing about flags on boats. PICYA also says there are “many rules and regulations governing the use of flags, but the fundamental rule of flag etiquette is to treat all flags with respect and common sense.”
We hope you get a chance to fly Old Glory and any other flags you like on Sunday, preferably on your boat, and even more preferably, while you’re on the water. And if you want to understand more of the yachting formality of flags, don’t hesitate to consult the PICYA Flag Etiquette Guide here.
Breault and Team Qualify for US Match Racing National Championship
On May 6 and 7, the St. Francis Yacht Club hosted one of the many qualifiers for the US Match Racing National Championship. The regatta was won by StFYC’s own Nicole Breault and her Vela Racing team, finishing with an 11-3 record.
Breault, the five-time women’s match-racing national champion, qualified for the 2026 Match Racing National Championship for the Prince of Wales Trophy in San Diego in mid-October. Sailing with her were Molly Vandemoer, Hailey Thompson and McKenzie Wilson.
“We were put to the test by the competition and the boat handling,” Breault said of the regatta, per StFYC’s press release. “So much fun, and so necessary to dig deep to pull off wins!”
The regatta, which was sailed in StFYC’s fleet of J/22s on the San Francisco Cityfront, saw two round robins completed. After the first round robin, Breault was not in the pole position. The Vela team was 4-3, with losses to Molly Carapiet (StFYC/SFYC), Shawn Bennett (StFYC) and 2026 California Dreamin’ Series winner Cameron Feves (CBYC). Breault was behind all three in the standings after the first round robin, with both Feves and and Carapiet at 5-2 and Bennett at 6-1. His only loss in the first round robin came at the hands of Lindsey Baab.
It was in the second round robin that Breault would put the pedal to the metal. She and her team swept through the second round robin in classic fashion, winning all seven of their races to give them the opportunity to compete for the Prince of Wales Trophy in the fall.
Coming into the day with three teams ahead of her, and Bennett sitting two wins ahead, Breault was going to need help, and she got it. Feves lost two races, to current Boston College sailor Tor Svendsen (StFYC) as well as Breault. Carapiet had a challenged day, winning only one race. Bennett dropped three races, to Breault, Feves and San Diego Yacht Club’s Kelly Holtus, creating the perfect storm for Breault to catapult herself from off the podium into first place.
It will be a busy fall for Breault as she competes in New York Yacht Club’s inaugural Women’s International Championship in mid-September (covered in detail in the June edition of Latitude 38), and then a week later in the US Women’s Match Racing National Championship. Having now also qualified for the Prince of Wales Trophy, she will be set up for a potentially very special (and certainly very busy) season of sailing.
You can find the full scores for StFYC’s 2026 US Match Racing Championship Qualifier here.
Sign Up Now for the 32nd Annual Baja Ha-Ha
Get off the fence and down to the docks for the greatest fun you’ll have all year — the 2026 Baja Ha-Ha Cruisers Rally to Mexico. The thousands of sailors who’ve done it before you can’t all be wrong. Sign up, join the fleet and get ready for a fun cruise south this November.
Sailing the Pacific Cup: Isobars to the Tiki Bars
Loren Brindze, starting with SoCal’s Begg Rock Race, helps Pacific Cup navigators understand the weather gods and gurus to interpret the plethora of data being downloaded from the global array of devices designed to help racers navigate the ocean weather chaos ahead of the umbrella drinks in Hawaii.
“You aren’t going to see any of that,” I typed into the group chat.
The race officer for the Pacific Singlehanded Sailing Association had done his homework ahead of the upcoming Begg Rock Race. The race, an almost 200-miler, was one of my favorites in Southern California’s Dan Byrne Series.
The officer had pulled forecasts from NOAA, ECMWF, even PredictWind. Eight models in rare agreement: moderate breeze, mostly reaching, seas one to three meters. He posted the forecast with the kind of confidence you rarely see with any offshore weather report. He had every reason to be confident. If all the forecasts agree, things are probably pretty stable and you can trust any one of them. If they don’t agree, none can be trusted.
I was looking at this while participating in the race’s group chat when I pulled up the 500-mb chart. Not the surface chart, but a chart much higher up in the middle of the atmosphere. What I saw there made me put the phone down, think for a moment, and then type:
“In fact, you are going to get Santa Anas.”
The Santa Ana winds in Southern California, for those fortunate enough to be unfamiliar with them, are infamous. Warm, dry and relentlessly cruel. This local downslope wind can lead to unpleasant conditions at best and downright dangerous ones at worst. Santa Anas typically occur when high pressure settles over the Great Basin, forcing an intense offshore wind of warm, dry air, often exceeding 40 knots. But they can occasionally occur with a low-pressure system sitting offshore. Where exactly that low settled would have a big impact on the upcoming Begg Rock race.
I reminded myself that most of what drives the weather at the surface is happening far above it. I recently enrolled as a graduate student in the local university’s atmospheric science department, despite being older than some of my professors, let alone the other students. Maybe it was all going to my head a little.
Something wasn’t lining up with the surface GRIBs. Read More
Olson 30s Are Still Fast, Fun and Available
We were looking at the November 1978 issue of Latitude 38 when we came across the ad below for the just-introduced Olson 30. It was a hot boat then and it’s a hot boat now. Latitude 38 founder Richard Spindler owned a couple of them. One was a company boat that we raced out of the Schoonmaker Point dry-storage area for years. He also cruised it for a few tours of the Bay with Doña de Mallorca. The other was shipped to St. Barts and used as a local daysailer. The boat is well built, sails beautifully, and fits the ethos of a soul sailor who likes to keep it simple.
There are still many Olson 30s tearing up the Bay — Michael and Apryl Berndt’s Flying Fish and Cameron Wright’s Concussion are signed up for tomorrow’s Delta Ditch Run. There’s also one for sale in Latitude 38’s Classifieds for $16,000! Less than the original $20,000 price. It comes with a trailer, “Plus a professional open-transom conversion. Micro-adjustable mainsheet, traveler and backstay. Bowsprit, excellent like-new sail inventory, Pelagic PA1 autopilot. Much more! Sail now!” That’s what the ad says.
We have to admit, for all the great stories we assemble every month for the magazine and ‘Lectronic Latitude, we routinely hear that many people’s favorite reasons to read the magazine and online material are all the great boats for sale. They can be boats in the brokerage ads from our advertisers, or boats like this Olson 30 in the Classifieds. Another great Santa Cruz-built boat was just added, the Express 27 Chimo, available now for $9,500.
Don’t wait to buy. You’ll miss the Delta Ditch Run tomorrow, but buying either of these boats now will help you have a better summer sailing!
You can see all of Latitude 38‘s back issues here.
Sailagram: A Snapshot of May Sailing
Welcome to this month’s edition of Sailagram, the place where you can browse a gallery of sailing, sailboats and sailors in all sorts of places and events. This month includes an assortment of photos from last month’s Great Vallejo Race, taken by Steven Green of Slackwater_SF.
Reading Latitude 38 Is Good for Your Health!
