The Latitude 38 Cover Conundrum

We were talking with Colin Lindberg, the new owner of Owl Harbor Marina in the Delta, about his plans for the marina and asked him to make sure the magazine delivery was working properly. He told us all is good, and that he keeps them right out in front in the marina office, though he did mention that someone coming in for the August issue thought they had already picked it up. When they discussed it further, he discovered how similar the August cover is to the June cover. Darn, he’s right. Sometimes the details escape us.

How do we pick a cover photo? We generally like them to be timely so it’s from something that happened recently. However, every rule is meant to be broken, so a great shot from someone’s South Pacific cruise last year could easily jump into the mix. The June issue photo was taken by Felix Weidling, the StFYC race director, of Nicole Breault and Lucy Wilmot racing in the J/105 Women’s Skipper Invitational. Of course, our July issue intervened, but then Lauren Easeley Towill’s shot arrived: Tina Roberts sailing Ragtime toward the finish for their first in the Pacific Cup’s Pasha Hawaii Division ORR1. Another great shot we couldn’t help publishing.

We broke the two covers up with a return to a wooden classic on the Bay showing Ken Inouye at the helm of his 1970 gaff-rigged ketch Makani Kai. Since we get to pick only 12 covers a year, it’s always hard to decide, as there are so many scenes we want to showcase. Fortunately, there are a lot of pages between the covers where we get to show more photos of your sailing. If you do have a hi-res photo you think we should consider for a cover, send it to [email protected]. You never know what might strike our fancy. They don’t necessarily need to be vertical shots, but they do need to be high-resolution so we can crop them to fit.

We’re always inspired when we look back at 50 years of covers, many of which have been sent in by readers. The February cover was sent by Valerie Bucholtz from the Sydney Hobart race aboard the Express 37 Perplexity and the March cover was sent by Don Litton from cruising the Channel Islands aboard his Columbia 29 Pythagorus.

If you are inspired to send a shot, just make sure it doesn’t look like our June or August issue of the magazine. We like to think we won’t make the same mistake twice or even three times, but you never know.