‘Latitude’ Ambassador Spiffs Up Image at Sports Basement
Gerry Gragg is a sailor and Latitude 38 ambassador. Gerry’s role as ambassador is to get among the sailing community and share stories about sailing, all while helping to ensure the magazines find their way into readers’ hands. A tough gig? Gerry does it gladly, and with pizazz!
On a recent wander around the Berkeley area, Gerry decided it was time to lift the image of Latitude 38 at the Sports Basement store — literally. Below is a photo of how the magazines used to look in the Sports Basement foyer.
After a phone chat with Penny, Latitude’s accountant and organizer of all things extraordinaire, Gerry set up a new magazine rack to tidy up the stacks and ensure readers can find their favorite sailing rag easily. See next photo.
By now you may be wondering how, or perhaps more importantly, why, Gerry Gragg decided to become a Latitude 38 ambassador. Gerry was happy to share his “why.”
“I became an ambassador for Latitude because the task of calling on all of Latitude’s points of distribution in the East Bay brought me in contact with a wide spectrum of maritime interests that include yacht brokers, marinas, yacht clubs, sailing schools, restaurants, and various marine suppliers. At each of these stops, I was able to share some of my sailing experiences with ownership, and get a better understanding of their concerns for sailing as a sport!”
Yep, Gerry is a sailor who enjoys getting involved.
“I began sailing in Chicago rather late, at age 40, as new crew for a couple who had just purchased a Tartan 10 as an upgrade from their Soling,” Gerry shared with us. “At 10 meters, the T-10 sailed with a crew of five or six, and was a very popular and competitive one-design class in the Great Lakes, with 17–21 boats at the starting line for every race, and up to 35 boats for the big races.”
After crewing aboard the Tartan for six years, Gerry bought a half share in another T-10 in the same fleet. He raced the boat, named Siege, for 10 of the 16 years he raced out of the Chicago Yacht Club. Gerry and his partner eventually donated their boat to the University of Wisconsin Sailing Club, where it is currently racing on Lake Mendota.
“In 2000, my wife and I decided to go cruising in retirement and bought a Passport 42 from a classified ad in Latitude 38,” he continues. They were Latitude 38 subscribers living in Chicago. The boat was moored in Vallejo. When the couple took ownership they moved to the Bay Area, and moved the boat to Grand Marina, Alameda. “We named the boat So Bella using parts of the names of our granddaughters, Sophia and Isabela, although when we got the boat to Italian waters in 2010, the Italians thought our boat name was So’ Bella, a shortened form of Sono Bella, or ‘I am beautiful!'”
Gerry and his wife Darby sailed out the Gate in 2005, and “turned left for undefined destinations south and east.” In 2010 they found themselves in the Italian port of Gaeta and spent the next three years sailing the Med. “We returned the boat to Fort Pierce, FL, where we sold it in 2014.”
“My time racing on T-10s provided both competitive challenges and a wonderful mental break from the stresses of the work week,” Gerry reflects. “I sailed in a total of 16 Chicago-Mackinac races, including the fastest (36 hours) and the slowest (84 hours) in the race’s history. Our cruising time on So Bella provided us with an inexpensive way to see the world, and included an Atlantic crossing, which was the highlight of my boat ownership years.”
We’re happy to have Gerry aboard and are honored to get to know him a little better through stories of his sailing life. If he happens to walk down your dock one day, we hope you have time say ahoy and share a sailing tale or two.