Last Pacific Cup Start Today, and Other News
Today is the last start of the 2026 Pacific Cup, with two classes of hot rods jumping off the starting line at noon and 12:10. It looks as if the fast boats will have a somewhat brighter, sunnier day than the Monday and Tuesday starters, with more breeze to help them get offshore. Meanwhile, the early starters report that weather is warming up as they move south and the wind moves back, so kites are being set. Reports from onboard include dolphins racing alongside, squid on deck, and, reliably, good food being important to crew morale. Food reports look as if they’re succeeding.
By the time you read this all boats should be on the tracker, with the hot boats in hot pursuit of the early starters. Everyone is heading south around the Pacific High and also practicing squall management to find the fastest track while staying in control.
A Peek in the Fo’c’sle
We looked to see what’s new in our Classifieds, and, as always, we found some intriguing boats. There’s this Olson 30 for sale in Ventura, formerly of Point Richmond. Olson 30s remain one of the many great boats to come out of the magical Santa Cruz boatbuilding days.
If you act really fast, you could join the Corsair Nationals happening at Encinal Yacht Club, July 17–19, in this Corsair 27 that’s been stored inside for the past 26 years.
For those who became inspired by the look, feel and heritage of wooden boats at the recent Master Mariners Wooden Boat Show, you could fulfill your dream with this $1500 wooden Folkboat.
It’s been cool and foggy on the Bay, making it an ideal time to cruise the Delta (or bolt to Hawaii). Still, there will be some beautiful sunny afternoons to cruise the Bay, with the Oakland Estuary generally a good place to find some sun, flat water and gentler breezes. If you search our local microclimates, you’ll find good sailing. Our racing calendar shows some great weekend races will be underway, including a YRA Offshore Race and small-boat racing on Huntington Lake.
For a better summer, make sure you just go sailing, like this Tartan 3700, Annie Jane, that was out sailing on Summer Sailstice weekend.
Caption Contest(!)
Full disclosure: We were scrambling for a photo to run for this month’s Caption Contest(!) and Googled, “sailboats made out of ridiculous things.”
No disrespect at all intended to this “custom-built ‘Gorfnic Mini Camper” with an Opti rig that we found. We think it’s a pretty cool boat, actually. We just thought it might inspire some good captions, too.
Ready, set … Caption(!)
Master Mariners 2026 — Clash d’Elegance
If we had to pick just one event on one weekend to represent the fun, color, spectacle and history of sailing on San Francisco Bay — not to mention some of the coolest people sailing the coolest boats — it would be a no-brainer: the annual Master Mariners Regatta, sailed as always on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend (May 23 this year). And not just for the eclectic assemblage of classic schooners, gaffers, cutters and ketches — a few of them more than a century old — but also for the weather this event almost always seems to luck into: bright sun, whitecaps, spray flying and 20–25 knots of chilly westerly blasting through the Golden Gate and down the Slot into the Berkeley Hills. These conditions often send small craft scurrying for calmer water, but for the 40 boats entered in the 2026 Master Mariners Regatta, this is nirvana.
This year’s fleet ranged in size from the 23-ft Bear class up to the 132-ft brigantine Matthew Turner. The Turner took the ceremonial first gun in the (non-racing) Parade Class at noon. The first official start gun fired for the Bears, fielding five boats this year, at 12:15, with the rest of the 10 divisions following suit in five-minute intervals.
Latitude had a correspondent “embedded” in the fray this year. Publisher John Arndt sailed aboard John Egelston’s spectacularly restored 56-ft P-Class cutter Water Witch, a “local girl” built in 1928 at the Stone Boatyard in Oakland.
Now, John is no slouch when it comes to sailing. In addition to helming Latitude for more than a decade, he’s helmed several of his own boats to racing victories in various events. How was this level of skill and expertise utilized aboard Water Witch?
“My main role was rail meat,” he says.
Read more and see the great photo spread in this month’s Latitude 38 here..
Jim Quanci and ‘Green Buffalo’ Race the Pac Cup
As the boats take off on this year’s Pacific Cup race, we’re continuing our Pac Cup profile series highlighting some of the sailors and teams racing to Hawaii in this year’s event. Today we’re featuring Jim Quanci and his Cal 40 Green Buffalo.
Jim’s race began on Monday, in the PHRF 2 division, racing under the Richmond Yacht Club banner. His “Why sail in the 2026 Pacific Cup?” is to “Have some fun!” he says. “I also find a few weeks on the water makes me ‘fitter’ (lose weight and [gain] muscle tone). Also opportunity to make a few new friends!”
This will be Jim’s 21st Pacific crossing in total — 17 Pac Cups, three Singlehanded Transpacific Races, and two L.A. Transpacs under his keel, though not all aboard Green Buffalo. He tells us this will be his 10th crossing and return on the Cal 40 (seven Pac Cups and three Singlehanded Transpacific Races). Jim also found time to crew aboard Perplexity in the 2025 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race.
With so many crossings, Jim found it a bit of a challenge to choose his most outstanding memory, so he gave us a few. “Family and friends in 2006 (three teenagers and three adults); hitting a sperm whale in 2008; riding out a 30k+ front for several hours in the dark with the chute up, doublehanded with my wife Mary Lovely in 2014; winning overall, doublehanded on a Moore 24.”
Jim (54) has been a sailor since he was 13. He spent the first 10 years racing Lasers on the East Coast. After moving to the Bay Area he then spent 20 years ocean racing as crew on other people’s boats.
“[That’s] how I met my wife … rail meat together.”
This year’s crew joining Jim on Green Buffalo are as follows: Jeff Duvall from Portland, who has done several Pac Cups and was on Jim’s delivery crew a few years back. “Jeff leads the Pac Cup inspector team this year,” Jim tells us. Elizabeth Bishop, who crewed with Jim on the 2024 Pac Cup and is the vice dommodore of the Pacific Cup Yacht Club. This will be Elizabeth’s second Pac Cup. Gabe Serafini, who is part of the Pac Cup events team (his wife Amber runs events). Jim continues, “Gabe has done a lot of racing locally on several boats. This will be his second Pac Cup.” Cameron Gibson, who is the crew’s “newbie and youngster.” This will be Cameron’s first Pac Cup. “A bit of a break for him after finishing his master’s degree a few weeks back,” Jim adds.
And of course there are things to look forward to, both during and at the conclusion of the race: “Cold beer and cheeseburger under the lanai at Kaneohe YC; catching up with old friends; making new friends; the Milky Way — “The nights are WONDERFUL!” And then there’s the sail home, which will allow “time for reading and fishing,” Jim says.
Jim’s biggest concern while racing across the ocean is not the weather, or where they are placed in the fleet, it is “keeping the crew healthy (physically and mentally).”
By the way, if you’re wondering how Jim came to do so many races across the Pacific, it might be because apart from being passionate, committed sailors, both Jim and his wife Mary were founding members of the Pacific Cup Yacht Club (1987), and past commodores — 1989–1990, 1993–1994 and 2021–2022.
We wish Jim and the crew aboard Green Buffalo fair winds and a safe race. We’ll have another Pac Cup profile for you on Friday. In the meantime, if you like trying to predict the race winners, take a look at Andy Schwenk’s picks in this month’s issue of Latitude 38, out now.
Another Perspective on the YRA Half Moon Bay Race
Last week we published a recap of the YRA’s 2026 Half Moon Bay Race, written by Brandon Mercer. This week we have another perspective, as shared by Andy Newell.
On Saturday, June 20, 17 monohulls and three multihulls with 114 eager sailors aboard
started the YRA race to Half Moon Bay. Winds were light but better than the dreaded
forecast of “variable to five.” Due to the lighter wind the race committee gave us one of
the shorter courses (26.5 miles) around the #8 (inside) ship channel marker and down to
Half Moon Bay.
A healthy ebb current helped get the fleet out of the Bay and around the channel marker.
As we rounded, spinnakers went up but things slowed down since we no longer had ebb
to help us. The fleet stayed mostly as a pack for most of the day, spreading out slowly
as the faster boats stretched. Boats with asymmetric spinnakers, now a majority, loved
the beam-reach angle, and those of us with symmetric kites spent the day with the pole
on the headstay. Everyone had to sail high just to keep moving.
While on the course the whale-watching was the best I can remember in years. We saw
several groups of whales blowing and showing their tails as they dove. A few even
breached and did tail slaps. At one point we came upon a raft of over a dozen sea lions
with humpbacks around them. They were so close we had to alter course around them.
It was an incredible sight.
Conditions stayed consistent, with most of the boats making less than 5 knots with kites
up. The first multihulls finished at about 1440, with the first monohulls finishing within a
minute of each other just after 1500. The rest of the fleet trickled in with the last boat
finishing just after 1830.
Since this race is also part of the YRA Destination Races, there was a party at Half
Moon Bay Yacht Club with paella served to racers and lots of HMBYC members
enjoying the party and the band.
Our trip home early on Sunday was even lighter than Saturday, so we made the whole
trip with diesel instead of Kevlar and never hoisted a sail.
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