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About That One (Cautionary) Boat

In Monday’s ‘Lectronic Latitude, we showed you pictures of a boat that we saw anchored just outside the channel from San Rafael Creek last weekend. At low tide, the boat was slumped over on its side. Curious, we asked if you knew anything, and it turns out you did.

Not quite high and dry, but certainly at medium elevation with increasingly minimal water on her hull. This boat apparently finds itself in this position all the time.

latitude/Tim
©Latitude 38 Media, LLC

"I hadn’t seen this guy around San Rafael for a few months, but it seems like he is regularly aground," wrote Allyn Schafer. "I think these pictures — which I snapped in January — are of the same boat. I first saw him lying on his side on Jan 7."

Looking for shore power?

© 2018 Allyn Schafer

Schafer said that not long after he snapped the preceding picture, the same boat was lurking deeper down the Creek (and closer to shore).

"A few days later on the 11th, and a little farther into the Channel," Schafer wrote.

© 2018 Allyn Schafer

Another reader said they’d seen the boat in question in Sausalito. "I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this boat doing the same thing in Richardson Bay just north of Clipper," wrote Joe Ording, "as well as getting blown onto the Clipper breakwater during a storm a couple months ago." 

We’ll take this opportunity to remind everyone how radically shallow the waters around San Rafael can be. (We’re also going to go shopping for a chart ASAP.)

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The Santa Cruz 50 Adrenalin and the 1D48 Bodacious+, seen here in the first leg of 2016’s Great Vallejo Race, would be among the boats invited to compete for the YRA’s new Jumbo Cup.
San Francisco Bay and the Gulf of the Farallones offer spectacular and exciting sailing.