‘Latitude 38’ April Issue Out Today — No Joke!
Where does the time go?! In many respects it feels as if 2023 has just begun. Yet here we are at the end of the third month, with the April issue making its way around the Bay as we write. This issue contains many great stories, including the story of S/V Raindancer, which sank in the Pacific after colliding with a whale. Here’s a preview…
On March 14, the Kelly Peterson 44 Raindancer was cruising along with good winds and sunny skies at a comfortable six knots across the Pacific, bound for the Marquesas, French Polynesia, from the Galápagos Islands on a 3,100 nm passage. Captain and owner Rick Rodriguez, his girlfriend Alana Litz, and friends Bianca Brateanu and Simon Fischer were about 1,700 nm into the voyage, or 13 days into an estimated three-week crossing. The crew was enjoying some homemade pizza when a sudden impact threw everything into chaos.
Young Salts Across the Pacific
Throughout my six-month journey through the South Pacific, there was only one thing that remained constant: With each new person aboard the boat came some unpredictable and unique qualities that made the sailing experience that much more special. Often, the most interesting of plans came from the minds of the younger crew: the kids who had never sailed, lived on a boat, or in some cases had not spent much time on the ocean at all.
On a Lee Shore of a Volcanic Crater — A Cautionary Tale
As soon as we started to make the turn, I realized we had just casually sailed into a very sketchy situation. The winds were now blowing 17 knots on the nose; the wind-chop waves that had been working their way across the bay were now a front-line assault against our exit. I pushed the throttle lever down to the cockpit floor and my 2GM20F Yanmar engine gave it all she had. I looked astern; we were about 500 feet from the cliffs of the crater’s interior wall (a distance confirmed on our track after all was said and done).
Plus all your favorite, regular columns:
- Letters: Putting the Fleet In Order From Chaos; Why? Why Am I Dead F@#%ing Last?; My Experience With US Sailing and the Olympic Committee; and many, many more.
- Sightings: Heather Richard’s Tall (Ship) Ambitions; Olympic Sailing Stumbles with Paul Cayard’s Exit; The =librium, a Therapeutic Drug; Good and Bad News About Cruising Mexico; and more.
- Max Ebb: “It’s the Hormones, Stupid.”
- Changes in Latitudes: Silver Lining‘s clever methodology for identifying and fixing problems; Azimuth‘s passage through Panama and baptism into Caribbean cruising; OutRun‘s ideas for how to integrate working remotely into the cruising lifestyle; Magnum‘s return to cruising after a long hiatus; a few more updates from 2022 contributors in our annual “Where Are They Now?” feature — and a forepeak full of Cruise Notes
- Racing Sheet: Midwinter reports sprinkled throughout this section include Corinthian, YRA Doublehanded Series, Seaweed Soup, Jack Frost, Island Days, Optis, and Berkeley YC (tune back in for South Beach next month). We also cover the Mercury NorCal Series, Big Daddy in Richmond, and the Santa Monica Bay Race. Box Scores and Race Notes make a spring comeback.
- World of Chartering: This month we hear from Art Hartinger, of Pied-a-Mer in Jack London Square, on chartering a 41-ft Beneteau Oceanis from Barefoot Yacht Charters, and exploring St. Vincent, Mustique, Tobago Cays and Bequia.
- Loose Lips: Check out the results of the March Caption Contest(!).
- The sailboat owners and buyers’ bible, Classy Classifieds.
If you’ve subscribed to Latitude 38, you should receive your issue shortly. If you haven’t subscribed, you’re missing out, but you can still pick up your copy from your favorite distributor.