Will This Be Boat #76 in the 50th Annual Moore 24 Nationals?
There are currently 75 boats signed up to race for the 50th annual Moore 24 Nationals out of 158 that were ever built. That’s almost 50% of the entire worldwide fleet! If you don’t already have a Moore 24 it will be pretty hard to find one now unless you want to rapidly pick up the one that just became available in Latitude 38’s classifieds. The price for this 1980 Moore 24 is $16,000, and they’ll meet you halfway between California and Florida. It’s $14,000 if you want to drive all the way there.
You could sign up as number 76 on the list of entrants for the 50th annual Moore 24 Nationals in Santa Cruz next month.
She’d also look good on the Bay for next year’s Three Bridge Fiasco.
Wherever in the world you have a Moore 24, this is the place to be from September 24 to 27 this year.
Entries close on August 31. Learn more here.
Latitude 38 ‘First Timer’s Guide to Mexico’ Available Now
Everyone remembers their first time. Though memory can be fuzzy, we know it’s always nice to have a guide to help you get started with anything new. Latitude 38 has been producing and updating the First Timer’s Guide to Mexico for a couple of decades, and, as always, it’s just in time for the Baja Ha-Ha. There are four ways you can get the 2026 edition. Three of them are free! You can read it online here. You can also sign up to attend our annual Fall Crew List Party, where we’ll be handing them out free to attendees at the Mexico Cruising Seminar (along with the September issue). One is included in the entry packet when you sign up for the Baja Ha-Ha, and lastly, we’ll mail one to your home when you purchase a printed edition from our store here. Grab a hat while you’re at it!
The guide is packed with helpful information from the Grand Poobah’s 31 years with the Baja Ha-Ha. It’s a simple and excellent resource to help you through your first time, or for those who’ve been before, there are good reminders. One important piece of information we emphasize as often as possible is to make sure anyone cruising south ensures their boat does not have an unexpired TIP (Temporary Import Permit).
We recently heard of a situation in which an owner sold their boat to a cruiser who subsequently found out they couldn’t go to Mexico because of an unexpired TIP. Upset, they contacted the former owner, who had no idea that the boat they sold had a prior TIP. Upon digging into it they found out the owner’s son had raced the boat in the Ensenada Race once, so it had a prior TIP. We’ve heard many stories over the years and bring this up to help minimize the number of people who get surprised. It has caused many boats to miss the Ha-Ha or to have to postpone their cruising plans. Not fun.
On our Heading South page we also have a PDF copy of Carole and Pat McIntosh’s very helpful Things To Know Before You Go, which covers many good ideas on preparing your boat for Mexico. Whatever advice you read anywhere, Lin and Larry Pardey’s advice still stands: “Go Small, Go Simple, but Go Now.”
The Baja Ha-Ha now has a great fleet of 52 boats signed up, ranging in size from 28- to 60-ft. Whether you’re going this year or next, Latitude 38’s First Timer’s Guide will help you on your way. It was written by real people with real experience, not by AI, though nothing written by anyone can be guaranteed to be free of mistakes. Laws change, typos happen, and details can get complicated. Regardless, this is the latest information we have at present, and a year or more of cruising Mexico is just as delicious as always.
We have to share a photo of the fleet because although the paperwork is necessary, it’s always worth it to join a fleet of fellow cruisers heading south.
Thanks to all the Baja Ha-Ha sponsors for making this guide possible: Baja Sur Tourism Board, Cabrales Boatyard, Commanders’ Weather, Cruiser Services, Ensenada Cruiseport Village, FlopStopper, Harbor Island West Marina, Hydrovane, Hylas Yachts, author Julia Shovein, Keenan Filters, KTI Systems, La Paz Tourism Board, Marina de La Paz, Marina El Cid/Marina de Sábalo, Marina Puerto de la Navidad, Marina Riviera Nayarit, Mexico Marina Association, Novamar Insurance, Paradise Village Marina, Sevenstar Yacht Transport and Ullman Sails.
Premier Vessel Care at Safe Harbor
A Visit to the Elkhorn Yacht Club Nautical Flea Market
At our Latitude 38 staff meeting last week (yes, we do have them, despite complaints from the crew) our newest team member, Maddy Garcia, spoke about having recently visited Elkhorn Yacht Club and browsed the club’s annual Nautical Flea Market before joining members at the bar for drinks and salty tales. We’re hoping Maddy will share some of those tales with us, particularly the one about sailors’ piercings. But that’s for another day. Today we are sharing the musings of Scott Baly and Margarita Martinez-Baly, who sent us the tale below, which they titled “Where Boating Dreams Go To Die — Elkhorn Yacht Club’s Nautical Flea Market.” While we do not believe a nautical flea market indicates the death of boating dreams, nor does the Elkhorn Yacht Club, we believe Scott and Margarita were commenting on the items that sailors tend to collect with the idea of “one day” putting them to good use, or eventually clearing out their lockers and hanging up the lines for good. That, it seems, is a fact of boating. How many of us have a corner of the garage or shed (or the entire space) filled with boat bits and gear that we think we will one day use? (Hands shoot up all over the world.) But enough of what we think. Read the story and decide for yourself what it means to you.
“On a cool, foggy Sunday morning my wife and I arrived at the Moss Landing Marina. Even with the advertisement torn out from Latitude 38 it took us time to find the sale.
“Earlier I showed it to my wife and asked her if she wanted to go. ‘Why not?’ she said. ‘It’s going to be over 107 degrees in Fresno. We can beat the Valley heat at a sale of used boating stuff.’ After all, we are always looking for gear for Knot Guilty, our 24-ft Signature Chaparral berthed at Coyote Point Marina in San Mateo, California.
“The Moss Landing marina is a refuge from the bougie [also spelled ‘boujee’] harbors at Monterey and Santa Cruz. This is a working-person’s marina. It is also where derelict boats are towed to be dismantled.
“We found our way to the boating folk with boat stuff. People trying to clear out clutter in garages and storage sheds.
“From one fellow I bought an antique for $40. Immediately he tried to sell me more stuff. Digging through a plastic box full of rope he offered me some line for $5. Then he tried to sell the whole box for $20. We chatted a few minutes and I declined. Then he offered me $20 just to take the box away. He wasn’t kidding.
“In a circle of navigational instruments, ship’s wheels, lanterns and salvaged scrimshaw sat an old salt in a chair. He seemed sad when we spoke, telling me he was tired. “That ship’s wheel was taken from the battle bridge of a WW II destroyer,” he said. Price tag was $200; out of my budget.
“Then I saw the advertisement for his boat. He was giving it away for free, along with ‘a lot of gear and equipment.’ The boat was in the water at the marina. When I asked about it, he said, ‘Are you interested?’ I told him I was not. Boaters know the most expensive boat you will ever buy is one that you get for free.
“To everything there is a season. Turn, turn, turn — so true. So, it goes in the life of boaters; beautiful days on the water turn into beautiful memories in the mind. As we sit [amid] a circle of stuff that we don’t want to leave behind.” — Scott Baly and Margarita Martinez-Baly. Scott tells us he’s been reading Latitude 38 since the 1980s, when he was a Sea Scout in the S.F. Bay Area. “Thanks Scott!”
After reading Scott and Margarita’s story, we took a little sail around the Elkhorn Yacht Club’s website and learned the club has just turned 80! According to the its information brochure, the idea for the club was seeded in 1946, in downtown Watsonville, when boat owners Gil Perry and Ade Nelson stood on a street corner and had a conversation about their shared passion for boating. Perry and Nelson, and six other sailors, had their first annual club meeting aboard SV Golden Dragon. (It doesn’t say what type of boat the Dragon was, or whose.)
One year later the members purchased a wooden barge that would serve as their headquarters in the Moss Landing Harbor. As the club grew and became practically and financially viable, a building was erected on the barge and became the clubhouse in which members meet to this day.
We extend our congratulations to the Elkhorn Yacht Club members past and present on their 80 years of sailing community.
Come Meet Sailing Friends at the Latitude 38 Fall Crew List Party
There are only four weeks until the Latitude 38 Fall Baja Ha-Ha Crew List Party! That’s a mouthful of a name, but there is a lot going on! We have the celebration of a (usually) clear and mildly warm summer evening, the fun of mingling with sailors and soon-to-be sailors from all around the Bay, a gathering of folks heading to Mexico with the Baja Ha-Ha, and some of the sponsors and supporters who help make this happen.
In short, the Crew Party is all about making sailing connections in a relaxed, fun, social setting.
THE SEMINAR
First on the agenda is the annual cruising seminar for Baja Ha-Ha sailors and cruisers preparing to head south.
-
3:30 p.m. – Doors open for the cruising seminar
-
4 p.m.–5 p.m. – Seminar
-
5 p.m.–5:30 p.m. – Half-hour Q&A session
This year’s fall Crew Party will be an information-packed afternoon. We’re excited to present our annual Mexico cruising seminar featuring Baja Sur Tourism and “Assistant Poobah” Patsy Verhoeven, who will share experiences from her years of sailing her Gulfstar 50 Talion, including in the last 15 Baja Ha-Ha’s.
We’ll have tables from Baja Ha-Ha sponsors who will be happy to answer questions about heading south, while Spaulding will run the bar to benefit their programs. Plus, the Casablanca Mediterranean food truck will be parked outside.
THE PARTY
The Fall Crew List Party will be from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
The event will be mostly outside, in the Spaulding Marine Center boat yard, with vendor tables set up inside. (This is Sausalito — so please dress in layers!)
Casablanca Mediterranean Food Truck will serve from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., and Spaulding will offer a no-host bar, with all proceeds going to benefit their education programs.
Vendors will be on hand to answer your questions about cruising and heading south to Mexico, along with local partners who want to help you get sailing on the Bay. San Francisco Sailing Science Center will set up an entertaining and educational exhibit.
Our crew parties are geared toward helping people find sailing opportunities for cruising, racing or daysailing. The Fall Crew List party is ideal for boat owners seeking crew who want to head south to Mexico and for crew who want to do the same. It’s also well-suited for folks looking for midwinter racing crew or anyone who just wants to sail the Bay.
Everyone is welcome; come as you are.
ADMISSION DETAILS
Admission includes free munchies, a door-prize drawing, a sailing slideshow, and connecting to the most vibrant sailing community in the Bay Area.
-
Admission to the Fall Crew List Party: $10*
-
Admission to the Mexico Cruising Seminar: $10*
-
Admission to the Party + Seminar: $20
*Each skipper and first mate registered for the 2026 Baja Ha-Ha gets free entry to the Fall Crew List Party and Mexico Cruising Seminar.
Early Bird Perk: If you are considering joining the 2026 Baja Ha-Ha fleet, sign up before September 1 and get two free tickets to the Fall Crew List Party and Mexico Cruising Seminar.
Stay Connected
Join the Latitude 38 Crew List in advance to post or search for crew opportunities — and keep the connections going year-round. You can sign up to crew or to find crew using our free online Crew Lists, but you don’t have to be on a Crew List to come to the party!
Make sure your name is on the crew list here.
Return to Palmyra — Same Boat, Different Feel
There are certain places in the world that refuse to stay in the past. You carry them with you, quietly at first, until eventually they demand a return. For me, that place has always been Palmyra Atoll. Sailing there again, years after my first landfall, was a return to a measuring stick, the place that defined what “pristine” meant before I had the miles to truly understand the word. And this time, I wasn’t alone.
There’s something strange about stepping back onto a boat that used to be yours. A boat you lived on, depended on, trusted across oceans through fear, failure, growth and triumph. A boat that helped define who you became. Being on Tiama again with Jenny was a bit like hanging with an ex and her new lover, which is strangely how Jenny and I met.
I had spent nearly five years and more than 50,000 miles solo circumnavigating aboard Tiama. I knew every locker, every creak, every quirk. I could find tools in the dark, feel when something was off. Stepping aboard again, I felt like a guest in my own past. Jenny had made the boat her own. Lines led slightly differently, gear organized with her logic, not mine. The feel was familiar, but not identical, like hearing a favorite song played on a different instrument.
For this trip, I would be captain again. But it was her boat, her journey, her dream taking shape. That dynamic somewhere between teacher and passenger, between past and present, set the tone for everything that followed.
Preparing for a 1,000-mile offshore passage is, in theory, a big deal. In practice, after enough miles, it becomes routine. We prepared methodically: safety gear checked and rechecked, rigging inspected, systems tested. Food provisioned, and one last pilgrimage to Costco for the kind of haul that only makes sense when you’re about to disappear into the Pacific for 10 days.
Jenny’s nervousness was visible, though she tried to hide it. I understood it completely. The first time I made this exact passage, it was the beginning of everything. My first true offshore leg of what would become a solo circumnavigation. The ocean felt impossibly large. Every decision carried weight. Every mile was earned.
Now, a decade later, I had the opposite problem. Experience dulls fear. A thousand miles had become, in my mind, almost trivial. Not easy, but a familiar routine. To me, this was a grocery run. To Jenny, it was the longest passage she had done, multiplied by 10. Somewhere between those two perspectives, our journey began.
For More Great Sailing Stories, Tune In to Good Jibes
