July 11, 2003

Photos of the Day

July 11 – Marseille, France

Today’s Photo of the Day comes from Ken
Burnap and Nancy Gaffney of Santa Cruz, who a few months ago
took delivery of their new Amel Maramu 53 Notre Vie in
La Rochelle, France. Since then they’ve sailed down the coasts
of France, Spain, Portugal, past Gibraltar and into the Med,
to the Balearic Islands, and are now loving the South of France.
If you’re like us, you’ve taken a million photos of jumping dolphins,
but always ended up with disappointing results. Well, somewhere
along the line either Ken or Nancy clicked at just the right
second, catching this dolphin at the apex of its jump. Well done!

Notre Vie anchored at one of the calanques just to the
east of Marseille. What a lovely spot.
Photos Courtesy Notre Vie

TransPac Report

July 11 – Pacific Ocean

In yesterday’s morning report, the fleet
was reporting very slow going. Last night, however, Philippe
Kahn on Pegasus 77 was reporting an improvement in conditions
– see below. At this stage in the game, Stan Honey and Sally
Lindsay have reclaimed corrected time honors with their Cal 40
Illusion, while Seafire, another Cal 40, has moved
into third overall. The TransPac 52 Beau Geste is in second.

Rich Reports reports: “The slowest
elapsed time ever in 41 previous TransPacific Yacht Races since
1906 was five minutes shy of 24 days by William Merry’s Viking
Childe, a 42-foot ketch from Long Beach, in 1939. That was
the only TransPac to start in San Francisco, and actually was
140 miles shorter than the 2,225-nautical mile course from Los
Angeles in play since 1941. For that route, the longest race
was a bit over 21 1/2 days by Irving H. Baltzer and Verne Pemberton’s
Blue Jacket, a 50-foot ketch from the Aeolian Yacht Club,
in 1953. One boat reported on the daily roll call that year:
‘Out of wind, out of patience, out of beer.’

“The current race isn’t that bad yet,
but the foregoing is mentioned because competitors are starting
to relate to those painful passages of the past. There was this
report Thursday from veteran Wendy Siegal’s Cal 40, Willow
Wind:
‘Early morning, just at daybreak. Supposedly, there is more wind
to the south of us, but as of now we are wallowing in 2-3 knots
of wind. The newbies on board don’t believe in 20-30 knot trade
winds and, quite frankly, right now, I’m wondering if it is all
a myth. This is the second light air TransPac in a row, and this
year is much worse than last year. The wind predictions have
not been accurate at all. When we looked at the surface analysis
yesterday, we SHOULD have been in 20-knot trades.’

“Typically, Philippe Kahn’s Pegasus
77 sailed only 249 miles but stretched its lead over Roy
E. Disney’s Pyewacket – now directly behind – from 8 to
43 miles. Pipe Dream, a Choate/Feo 37 being coaxed along
by John Davis of Long Beach in the Aloha B class, has made only
56 and 65 miles the last two days of what looks like an 18-day
trip.

“‘The 24-hour runs are enough to make
a grown man cry,’ communications officer Grant Baldwin commented
from Alaska Eagle. Only eight of the 54 boats made 200
miles – a bad day by normal standards. Four are now projected
to reach the Diamond Head finish line as late as July 18, the
day of the awards dinner. No boats are projected to finish before
Monday, July 14.

“Through it all, Stan Honey, sailing
his and wife Sally’s Cal 40, Illusion, from Palo Alto,
with veterans Skip Allan and Jon Andron as crew, has demonstrated
his usual TransPac navigational wizardry – heretofore beneficial
to Pyewacket – by putting this much slower boat in the
right places at the right times. With 172 miles from Wednesday
to Thursday, Illusion had a better day than most of the
boats in Division 4 and below, and now lead the next Cal 40 by
68 miles.”

For more info, visit www.transpacificyc.org.

Pegasus
Skipper’s Log

July 10 – Lat: 23 North, Lon: 137 West

Philippe Kahn reports from on board Pegasus
77, “It’s beautiful sailing here: The trades are back
up to 16-18 knots. We’ve got our 4A spinnaker up with a staysail.
This is just what the brochure advertised and why California
to Honolulu passages are probably some of the best offshore sailing
in the world. This is my sixth trans-Pacific crossing and I’m
hooked. Young Shark is just 13 and this is his third; he just
loves it. The first couple of days tend to be cold, wet and wild
and then the magic begins. We’re experiencing that magic now.

“As we look at the weather charts,
we see squalls ahead. Quite a few of them. Squalls in the northeast
Pacific tend to become active as the air temperature cools in
the evening, but the ocean water temperature stays warm. Then
before daybreak they usually dissolve and leave hours of light
air behind them. When racing we look for squalls and jibe to
stay in front of them where the wind is considerably accelerated
and usually shifted right. There can be more than a 50% increase
in pressure at the front end of a squall. For example: if we’re
sailing in 20-knot trades, we could expect 35-knot wind speeds
in the front of a squall, and we could also expect to find ourselves
becalmed if we got caught behind a squall. So it’s pretty simple:
Stay in front of a squall as long as you can and escape quickly
as soon as the squall starts overtaking you. Easy to say, tough
execution.”

For more, see www.pegasusracing.com.

Shark clipped in, drinking lots of water, “Mom, I’m 13 now,
I’m doing great… I even had a couple of Cup-o-Noodles!”
Hanging tough while Doogie is trimming the headsail, Crusty the
main and Philippe trying to keep the Pegasus going better
than windspeed.

Lose Your Hobie Cat Main?

July 11 – Berkeley

If you think you might have lost your white
Hobie Cat main around Highway 80 and Central St. in Berkeley,
it’s been picked up. Call Greg at (707) 745-1177 or (925) 323-3555
to identify and claim it.

Kicking Around the Boatyard

July 11 – Napa River

During our cruise to the Napa Valley Marina
last weekend, we took a walk around the boatyard, and as always,
met some great folks. First was George Ogihara, who was doing
a bottom job on his Vallejo YC-based Valiant 32 Ryden.
He’s owned the boat for five years, and was dealing with some
blisters that some Valiants became famous for.

The next guy we met was Dick Rudolph, who
along with partner Gary Morley started building a Brown 40 Searunner
trimaran back in ’94. They launched Time Further Out in
2001, and have hauled her out again in preparation of sailing
her to San Diego. But we got Rudolph to pose with the Danny Greene-designed
10’8″ ‘nesting dinghy’ they also built. The idea behind
a nesting dinghy is that it separates in half, with one half
fitting inside of the other to take up as little space as possible.
It also allows for the use of two small dinghies or one big one.

The last fellow we met was Mark Barmettler,
who has been restoring the S&S-designed, Chris-Craft-built
Apache 37 Kemo Sabe for the last five years. Check out
his half-built hard dodger. He used his cabin house as a mold
to retain the boat’s style and lines.

Photos Latitude/Richard

Yep, there’s a lot more than drinking going
on in the wine country.

The Admiral’s Cup Is Back. Sort of.

July 11 – Cowes, UK

From the early ’70s up until about 10 years
ago, the Admiral’s Cup in England was like the World Series of
international offshore racing. Three-boat teams from as far away
as Australia and Hong Kong would gather for a series of short
races, a medium distance race, and the famous Fastnet Race. It’s
the stage on which Dave Allen’s Imp from Belvedere shone
brightly, as well as Monroe Wingate’s Scarlett O’Hara, Irv
Loube’s Bravura, and Randy Short’s Sidewinders.

But for the last 10 years, the Admiral’s
Cup has been in the doldrums, the victim of a lack of an internationally
accepted rating rule and a dramatic broadening of big time sailing
events. It was even canceled for lack of interest last time around.
After flirting with holding a new Admiral’s Cup in Dublin, the
event will still be based at Cowes, but with two-boat teams,
and will no longer include the Fastnet Race. Eight teams are
ready to start the new version tomorrow; one from Australia,
four from England, one from France, and two from Spain. May it
rise like a phoenix.

Did You Blow It?

July 11 – Belvedere

If you didn’t sign up for late tomorrow’s
Midnight Moonlight Marathon Madness rabbit start race from Raccoon
Strait to Vallejo and back, you may have really blown it. The
forecast is for warm weather and a full moon!

If you call Anne McCormack at the San
Francisco YC and beg like crazy, you still might be able
to get into the race. But do it immediately.

YOTREPS

July 11 – The Pacific Ocean and Cyberspace

Who is out making passages in the Pacific
and what kind of weather are they having? The YOTREPS daily yacht
tracking page has moved to www.bitwrangler.com/psn.

Weather Updates

July 11 – Pacific
Ocean

San Francisco Bay Weather

Check out this guide to San Francisco Bay
Navigational Aids: http://sfports.wr.usgs.gov/sfports.html.

To see what the winds are like on the Bay
and just outside the Gate right now, check out http://sfports.wr.usgs.gov/wind.

The National Weather Service site for San
Francisco Bay is at www.wrh.noaa.gov/Monterey.

California Coast Weather

Looking for current as well as recent wind
and sea readings from 17 buoys and stations between Pt. Arena
and the Mexican border? Here’s the place – which has further
links to weather buoys and stations all over the U.S.: www.ndbc.noaa.gov/Maps/Southwest.shtml.

Pacific Winds and Pressure

The University of Hawaii Dept. of Meteorology
page posts a daily map of the NE Pacific Ocean barometric
pressure and winds.

Pacific Sea State

Check out the Pacific Ocean sea states
at: http://www.mpc.ncep.noaa.gov/RSSA/PacRegSSA.html.

For views of sea states anywhere in the world,
see http://www.oceanweather.com/data.