Help Latitude 38 Award the 2026 Wosser Trophies
As 2026 draws closer to its conclusion, Latitude 38 is looking to continue the annual tradition of the Wosser trophies. Established in honor of avid Bay Area sailors Jake, Ruth and Susie Wosser, the trophies aim to promote participation in sailboat racing above all else. Since sailing is such a wide-ranging sport, we need your help to identify the winners of the 2026 Wosser trophies.
The Jake Wosser Trophy recognizes the sailor or team that won the largest one-design regatta on San Francisco Bay in 2026. The winner could come from a fleet of 50-plus-ft keelboats, or tiny Optis.
Last year’s winner was Haydon Zieger, an Opti sailor from California Yacht Club who won the 2025 Opti Pacific Coast Championship at San Francisco Yacht Club, an event with 51 boats registered in the Opti Champs fleet. We’re looking to see who can claim the 2026 prize! Nominate someone for the Jake Wosser Trophy here.
The Ruth Wosser Trophy focuses on volume. It is awarded to the skipper or boat owner who raced the most individual YRA-sanctioned or Coast Guard-approved race days on San Francisco Bay in 2026. Last year’s competition was as close as it could get. Chris Kramer won the trophy with 58 days of racing on board his Alerion 28 Sweet De (RYC), narrowly ahead of Samantha Chiu’s Open 5.70 Altair (SeqYC) with 57days. Do you or a friend think you may be in contention for the Ruth Wosser Trophy? Nominate someone here!
The Susie Wosser Trophy is all about bringing as many people into racing as possible. It is awarded to the boat owner who takes the greatest number of crew members racing in the calendar year. Last year’s winners were Rick and Petra Gilmore of Sequoia Yacht Club, who took an amazing total of 65 different people racing throughout the course of 2025 on board their Catalina 42, Revelry. Do you think you or a friend might qualify for the Susie Wosser Trophy? Nominate someone here!
Looking to Latitude 38’s Future
In spring 2027, Latitude 38 will celebrate its 50th anniversary of covering and connecting the West Coast sailing community. The current publisher has been here for four decades and is looking for a new owner to take the helm.
At its core, Latitude has been a hub for the West Coast sailing community. We follow “the world of sailing through the eyes of the West Coast sailor.” And, as the tagline says, “We Go Where the Wind Blows.”
It’s been an incredible privilege to work with our great crew and the many terrific people serving an inspiring audience of sailors and advertisers. The rapidly evolving worlds of sailing and publishing create opportunities for fresh ideas and new leadership, particularly from someone who understands technology and the next generation of sailors. We believe the soul of Latitude 38‘s culture remains little changed. Sailing is an adventure that connects us with nature, each other and the wind-powered creations built by humans.
We also don’t try to take it all too seriously. Nature and sailing keep us humble, and our sailing friends keep us in good humor while blowing out a spinnaker or dragging an anchor. We all choose to put ourselves in these situations, so why not have a laugh along the way?
Technological advancements have made it possible to build incredible sailing machines and create and distribute an amazing volume of sailing content. Yet life’s soothing moments can still be found sailing a used $700 dinghy, varnishing a well-sanded strip of wood, or sitting back reading a story on a printed page. It doesn’t feel as if any technology will improve upon these simple pleasures.
If you’ve read this far, you may be someone who’d like to carry on the Latitude tradition. Or perhaps you know someone or a group of friends who’d like to carry it forward. We can’t say where the worlds of sailing and publishing are headed, but we remain big believers in what sailing and Latitude 38 have been doing for nearly 50 years. There are plenty of opportunities for the next generation.
We love what we do, but don’t want to stay on the shelf past our “Sell By” date.
We’ve had good conversations with people expressing interest in caring for the Latitude culture, and know it’s time to let a wider audience hear of our search for a successor. Sure, there are business brokers and other professional services who might help, but we’re more interested in finding someone from the Latitude 38 sailing community who already has a passion for publishing and the full spectrum of West Coast sailing.
We’re making the bold assumption that there might be one or more people interested, and with time being a precious commodity, we’re asking interested parties to express their interest through a Google questionnaire. If you have sincere interest, email [email protected] to receive a link to the questionnaire.
It’s time to turn over the helm. Ready about.
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S.F. Boardsailing Association Tracks Vanishing Access to the Bay
Windsurfers, kiteboarders, and wing foilers are among the many forms of sailing that need public access to the Bay. We recently received an email from the San Francisco Bay Boardsailing Association, which has been tracking the public’s vanishing access to the Bay. The effort echoes the Surfrider Foundation’s efforts to protect public access to beaches and surf breaks in addition to sustainable ocean initiatives. We publish their email here:
Hello from the San Francisco Boardsailing Association (SFBA). The SFBA represents roughly 5,000 boardsailors who use Bay shoreline launches. Each year we audit public access at those sites and classify each one as closed, compromised, or under active threat. This is the 2026 report.
The nature of the risk has changed sharply since last year. Our 2025 audit documented erosion and operational neglect, conditions that degrade access gradually and can usually be reversed. This year the primary threat is different in kind: Decisions now before regulators and local agencies will set access terms for decades. Four stand out:
- A BCDC permit to charge for parking at Berkeley
- A proposed ferry terminal on Berkeley’s recreational waterfront
- Winter storm planning at Crown Beach
- Sea level rise planning for Richmond and the East Bay Crescent
Most of the boardsailors we represent depend on four keystone launches: Alameda, 3rd Avenue, Berkeley, and Crissy. Three of those four face binding decisions within the next 12 months. The volume and permanence of change arriving at once is without precedent in the Association’s history, and it is why we are bringing this year’s audit directly to your attention.
The audit may be useful to your own work. It is a year-over-year, site-level record of public access conditions along the Bay shoreline, documented by the people who use these launches regularly. If you are preparing comments, reviewing a permit, or building a planning record, this is field-level evidence on how access is actually functioning at specific sites, and it is the kind of detail that is difficult to reconstruct after a decision is made.
Thank you to the San Francisco Boardsailing Association for helping preserve recreational access to San Francisco Bay. And readers, don’t hesitate to share this story.
You can send questions or comments to [email protected].
Reelin’ In the Years: Reconnecting With Marc Hightower and ‘Free Bird’ Part 1
Marc Hightower first appeared on the Latitude 38 radar when he showed up at the very first Sea of Cortez Race Week in spring 1984. He stood out even then, not for being young, good-looking and adventuresome — weren’t we all back then? — or even for being a singlehander. What set him apart was his boat, the bright-red Montgomery 17 Free Bird. Anchored amid a fleet of 70-some other cruising boats, at first glance Free Bird seemed almost like somebody’s oversize sailing dinghy.
But this was no plaything, or some crazy guy sailing a marginal daysailer on a lark voyage. Marc was a serious sailor, and Free Bird was a serious long-distance cruising boat, ingeniously compressed into a small package.
We were intrigued, to say the least. After Race Week, we stayed in sporadic contact as Marc made his way south along the coast from Mexico into Central America — mostly by himself but with the occasional company of equally adventurous young women. At the time, we recall he had his sights set on getting the boat to the Caribbean, and keeping going. Several articles by and about him appeared in these pages over the next few years.
The last we heard in the late ’80s, he had put Free Bird on a trailer and was getting her towed across Guatemala for more cruising in the Caribbean. Then comms dried up. In those days before smartphones, Starlink and social media, that’s the way it often went. We long wondered what had become of him.
Ironically enough, the internet finally provided answers. By complete chance, we came across a post on the Montgomery Boats website showing Marc and Free Bird — reunited in Rio Dulce, Guatemala, this past March after almost four decades apart! There was also a short report from the man himself, still adventurous and adventuring at age 68.
“The new owner, Hector Zachrisson, saved her from an ignominious fate of being cut up and converted into a barge for hauling material,” he wrote. All the cruising gear had been removed, he noted, and the boat has been converted into more of a daysailer. Hector had done an amazing restoration job, right down to a new set of sails. “He was kind enough to allow me to take her out sailing,” Marc wrote. “It’s like we were never apart. She handles beautifully and is a joy to sail.”
We had to know more. We were able to re-establish contact with Marc to see what he’s been up to for the past lifetime-and-a-half. It’s been a bit like catching up with Phileas Fogg after that 80-days thing. And well worth sharing with readers, starting at the start.
Reminder — Flare Collection Event Happening This Weekend
Last Friday we gave readers a heads-up that an expired marine flare collection is taking place on October 24 and 25. Well, the time is nigh; the flare collection event is happening this weekend! Below is a recap of the locations, times and days of the various collection points in California.
Please check additional detailed information and requirements for each event below:
Northern California:
Alameda County
Sunday, October 25, 2026 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
By appointment ONLY. Sign-up for an appointment: www.stopwaste.org/marineflares
Marin County
Sunday, October 25, 2026, from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Clipper Yacht Harbor, 310 Harbor Dr., Sausalito, CA 94965
San Mateo County
Sunday, October 25, 2026, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Pillar Point Harbor, 1 Johnson Pier, Half Moon Bay, CA
By appointment ONLY: Call (650) 372-6200 (M–F); or visit smchealth.org/hhw
This event is open ONLY to San Mateo County residents, boaters who berth in the county, and county commercial boaters who generate less than 100 kg of hazardous waste/month. To participate, you must provide proof of residency, boat berth or business address in San Mateo County.
Santa Cruz County
Sunday, October 25, 2026, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Santa Cruz Harbor Maintenance Yard, 425 Brommer St,. Santa Cruz, CA
West Contra Costa County
Oct 14–Oct. 24, 2026, Wed–Sat 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
101 Pittsburg Avenue, Richmond, CA 94801.
This event is only for West Contra Costa residents or boaters in the following cities: El Cerrito, Hercules, Pinole, Richmond and San Pablo, and unincorporated Contra Costa County (i.e., El Sobrante, North Richmond, Tara Hills, Rollingwood, East Richmond Heights, Bayview, Montalvin Manor). Must prove WCC residency to participate.
Southern California:
Orange County
Saturday, October 24, 2026, from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Sunset Aquatic Marina, 2901 Edinger Ave., Huntington Beach, CA 92649
Port of San Diego
Saturday, October 24, 2026, from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Shelter Island Boat Ramp, 2210 Shelter Island Dr., San Diego, CA 92106
Ventura County
Saturday, October 24, 2026, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Channel Islands Harbor Marina, 3850 Harbor Blvd., Oxnard, CA 93035
Only expired marine flares from residents and boaters berthing their boats in the covered areas will be accepted. No marine flares from commercial craft or an organization nor other forms of household hazardous waste (HHW) will be accepted during the special events. Proof of residence or eligibility is required (i.e., license, registration or slip fee).
Thank you to Alameda County, West Contra Costa County, Marin County, San Mateo County, Santa Cruz County, the Port of San Diego [San Diego County], Orange County and Ventura County, which have partnered with CalRecycle, the California Product Stewardship Council, California State Parks and the Coastal Commission’s California Boating Clean and Green Program for continuing to collect expired marine flares. It makes a big difference to us and the many boaters who have not yet switched to electronic distress signals, or have old flares tucked away in the garage or shed.
Go get your old flares now and put them by the front door or wherever you will see them tomorrow.
Reading Latitude 38 Is Good for Your Health!
