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Jules Verne Trophy
French sailor Yann Guichard and the crew of Spindrift 2 set sail on a new Jules Verne Trophy attempt at Ushant today, Wednesday, January 16.
Closing the Loop
Webb Chiles, 77, is about to sail from Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, for Panama and San Diego, in Gannet, his ultralight Moore 24, to complete his sixth circumnavigation and her first. Since leaving San Diego in 2014, Gannet's daily runs total 25,028 miles.
Commuting by Water
San Francisco Bay Ferry, aka WETA, a public agency, runs the new service. A catamaran, Cetus will cover the route to the San Francisco Ferry Building in about 35 minutes.
Always Ready
As the federal government shutdown enters its fourth week — and now has the dubious distinction of being the longest gap in US government funding ever — the Coast Guard is about to miss a paycheck tomorrow.
Wash me!
Here’s your January Caption Contest(!). The winner — who will be the owner of a new Latitude 38 T-shirt — will be published in the February issue’s Loose Lips. 
Solo Yachtsman
Missing solo sailor Robin Davie has turned up and is just fine, thanks. As we reported on Friday, he was overdue in his delivery from Les Sables-d'Olonne, France, to Cornwall.
Speaker Series
Max Ebb comes true. In the January issue of Latitude 38, Max Ebb and Lee Helm show up at a prestigious yacht club for a luncheon event promoting the proposed Sailing Science Center. That event really will happen, this Wednesday, at St. Francis YC in the San Francisco Marina.
Sunrise Sunset
Did you know that there are three definitions of 'twilight'? Nautical twilight persists until the horizon vanishes, "when a mariner cannot distinguish between sea and sky."
golden globe race
The Falmouth Coastguard has issued an 'All Ships Alert' for British singlehanded sailor Robin Davie. His Rustler 36 is now three days overdue on a 300-mile solo voyage across the English Channel.
Government Shutdown
The United States Coast Guard may soon be working without pay. As the government shutdown enters its 18th day today, more and more federal agencies are seeing whatever funds that had been tiding them over dry up. 
News Nuggets
A Setback for the Ocean Cleanup After steaming out of the Bay in late September with the ambition of cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the Ocean Cleanup project has suffered a major setback and is heading back to Alameda. “Due
Junior Programs
Jack London started sailing San Francisco Bay at age 14. He borrowed money to buy his own boat, the Razzle Dazzle, and became an oyster pirate.
Commuting by Boat
Good news for sailors, the city of Richmond, the Richmond Yacht Club and the Pacific Sail & Power Boat Show! The San Francisco Bay Ferry’s Richmond-San Francisco service will launch tomorrow, Thursday, January 10, 2019.
Wild Weekend
It was an absolutely wild weekend of weather here in the Bay Area that saw the cancellation of every major regatta — a rare occurrence for sailors used to 25-knot days in the summer.
New Boat on S.F. Bay
Spaulding Marine Center hosted the christening of a seven-plus-year building project by J. Parsons, who designed and built the classic in his garage at home in Tiburon. (One of the first steps was building the garage!) The boat is the culmination of vision and hard work.
Race to Hawaii
“The 50th running of the race is a great milestone, and we have an incredible turnout," said John Sangmeister. In addition to the 92 amazing teams listed on the race website, Sangmeister claims to have loose verbal commitments from several others that would push the fleet past the century mark.
A Bay Area Jewel
On December 29, sailboats lit up the historic Aquatic Park anchorage with colorful holiday lights for the “Lighted Night in the Cove” to support The San Francisco Maritime National Park Association.
Daysailing S.F. Bay
Imagine a picture-perfect winter day sandwiched between high-wind advisories and a frost warning. Now realize that this perfect day just happens to fall on January 1. The result is a perfect excuse to get the boat out.
News Nuggets
Abby Sunderland’s Boat Found After abandoning her boat in the Indian Ocean in 2010 during an attempt to become the youngest person to sail around the world, Abby Sunderland’s 40-ft expedition yacht Wild Eyes was spotted off Southern Australia.
Racing Down Under
While it rains in Northern California this weekend, the sunny, breezy 5O5 World Championship will continue down under in Fremantle, Australia.
Let's Table the Discussion
Apparently, strapping motors to furniture is kind of a thing, has been for, like, a while, and is even celebrated at an annual international festival (more on that in a bit).
Out with the Old . . .
Latitude Nation — we thought we’d share one more 2018 retrospective with you before we’re ready to ship out the old and welcome in the new. 
The Golden Ticket
As we start off 2019, we're recognizing Latitude 38 T-shirt winner Lenny Jay, who picked up his December copy at the Golden Gate Yacht Club and found an It's-Your-Lucky-Day notice inside.
YRA Calendar
When we got our 2019 planner from the office supply store, we saw that the weekend days are half the size of weekdays. What's up with that?
Offshore Yacht Racing
As of this writing, just 10 yachts have completed the 74th running of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race.
So Long to 2018
With the 12 months of 2018 nearly complete, this is a great moment for a look back at the 12 covers of Latitude 38 in 2018. It's easy to see why this was a great year for sailors.
Mexico Cruising Events
On the weekend of December 15-16, the last of the Banderas Bay Blast races concluded with the Pirates for Pupils Spinnaker Run, which raised over $2,000 for the children of Punta de Mita.
Daysailing S.F. Bay
The Ham Jam is a two-hour sail with the destination determined by mother nature — and a few ideas thrown out by the skippers and crew who show up.
Aaannd the Winner Is . . .
Thanks to everyone for making another year of the World Famous Latitude 38 Caption Contest(!)
West Coast Circumnavigators
On Wednesday, solo circumnavigating guru Jeanne Socrates made a late-night rounding of Cape Horn.
Cruising Mexico
Long before the North American Fun Tourism Agreement sailors have known Mexico to offer a warm welcome. Over the years it's only gotten better.
Catamaran Racing
Regular readers of 'Lectronic Latitude may recall that we reported on the capsize of Greg Slyngstad's catamaran Fujin back in February. The Seattle sailor's Bieker 53 was racing in the wild RORC Caribbean 600 when she flipped.