July 13, 2001
Photos of the DayJuly 13 – La Cruz, Mexico Philo Hayward of Northern California, who  Photos Courtesy Philo Hayward |
  |
Yacht
Intentionally Rammed by Ship North of Cabo?
July 13 – Pacific Coast of Baja
According to a report in Scuttlebutt,
earlier this week Rob Massuco’s Foxglove III, a 65-ft ketch,
was rammed and severely damaged about 120 miles north of Cabo
San Lucas while sailing north. It’s a bizarre story. Both masts
came down, a 10-ft section of the bow was torn away, and there
was severe structural damage to the bulkheads. Fortunately, nobody
was hurt. It’s a bizarre story.
The captain of Foxglove reports that
an unladen 600-ft ship owned by a Singapore company, registered
in the Bahamas, and skippered by a Croatian, passed a mile off
their beam about 0630 a few days ago, then disappeared over the
horizon heading south. At this point, Foxglove was put
on autopilot so the skipper and one of the crew could work on
the generator and engine. Winds were light and there were four-ft
seas.
When the captain came back on deck half
an hour later, he found that the freighter had turned 180 degrees
and was heading directly at them at between 15 and 20 knots. That’s
when the collision occurred. The freighter then turned around
and appeared to make another run at the yacht! But stopped short.
What’s the story? The captain of Foxglove
says he thinks the skipper of the ship wanted to have some fun
and scare the yacht, but misjudged the speed and distance. The
captain of the ship is reported to have said that Foxglove
signaled an SOS and they were returning to help.
Ultimately, the ship offered to take the
yacht in tow, but the skipper of Foxglove declined. The
ship was asked to call the U.S. Coast Guard, but either could
not or did not make contact. The Mexican Navy finally arrived
on the scene 18 hours later, and towed Foxglove to Cabo
San Lucas. Representatives of the ship have apparently hired the
Port Captain to conduct a survey.
Over the years, there have been a number
of instances of fishing boats chasing and ramming recreational
boats, particularly in Mexico, but this is the first time we can
remember somebody believing a ship changed course 180° to
ram them.
Rich
Roberts Rounds up the 41st TransPac
July 13 – Honolulu
| If conditions in the 41st TransPacific Yacht Race have seemed too placid to produce a record, think again. TransPac lists no official doublehanded record, but Howard Gordon’s Open 50 Étranger sailed the 2,225 nautical miles with Jay Crum as the only other crew member in 10 days 4 hours 4 minutes 1 second. That eclipses the elapsed time of 11:17:51:12 by Blackjack, a MacGregor 65 sailed by Carl Nelson and John Townsend in 1995, which is believed to be the fastest TransPac by a two-man crew. |
 |
“We had a good time,” Crum said. “I’d do it again.”
That’s easy to believe. Crum, 43, from Soquel, has now sailed
12 TransPacs and 16 races from the U.S. West Coast to Hawaii.
Gordon was sailing his first, but the two were happy with their
performance despite a handicap rating of 12.717 seconds per mile,
sixth lowest in the fleet. With that, they probably won’t even
win overall on corrected time among the three doublehanded entries.
“That’s OK,” Crum said. “We just wanted to go as
fast as we could.”
| The other two doublehanders – Dan Doyle’s Two Guys on the Edge from Hawaii and Michael Abraham’s Watercolors, Newport Beach, were expected to finish Friday and Saturday, respectively. Jorge Morales’ Mystere, a fully crewed Swan 42 from Laguna Niguel, was in a nail-biting battle with Watercolors for the Tail-end Charlie award. Étranger was designed by Scott Jutson and built in Australia in 1994, completing something of a Down Under sweep. Philippe Kahn’s Barn Door-winning Pegasus and Seth Radow’s overall winner Bull also were built in Australia. |
 Two Guys on the Edge arrive in Honolulu Photos Courtesy TransPacific Yacht Club |
Gordon, a resident of San Luis Obispo,
was off surfing Thursday as Crum talked about the race. “We
found our limits,” he said. “It’s a big boat and we
had to throttle back just to get rest.” They got plenty of
that the first night out parked in the lee of San Nicolas Island
70 miles offshore for 12 hours, along with Medicine Man, Mongoose
and Yassou, all of which had to play catch-up the rest
of the way. Their only serious breakdown came 50 miles from the
finish when the spinnaker block broke at the top of the carbon
fiber mast. The load on the internal halyard split the mast down
to the top spreaders, forcing them to finish without a chute.
But they weren’t discouraged by either of the reversals. “You
could do the race in eight days with this boat,” Crum said.
At a press conference for the winning skippers
Thursday, Pegasus crew member Zan Drejes noted the effect
of TransPac increasing the daily roll calls from one to two. “It
definitely kept the boats closer together,” Drejes said.
“It was more tactical than a navigator’s race. The intensity
was relentless. When we had 15 sleds [in past years] you were
lucky to see another boat.” The difference was that there
was less chance to break away from a rival between roll calls,
as Roy E. Disney’s Pyewacket did against Zephyrus
in 1999. Disney said, “We were within sight of each other
for seven consecutive days. It looked like an ad for North Sails
at one point.” Drejes said, “I suppose somebody could
have missed a roll call, but we felt that wasn’t in the spirit
of the competition.” Drejes, who won the Don Vaughan top
crew member award sailing with Disney in ’99, played a key role
in organizing Kahn’s crew. “Philippe hired a band of mercenaries
from around the world,” Drejes said.
Pete Heck, a member of David Janes’ crew
on J-Bird III, a TransPac 52, told of a close encounter
as they sailed the final miles toward Oahu early Tuesday morning.
“The sun was just coming up and I could see something low
in the water moving on a collision course with us,” Heck
said. “I said, ‘Is that a submarine?’ David said, ‘Oh, yes,
that’s a boomer.’ ” Janes should know. He’s a retired Navy
rear admiral. “We couldn’t see anybody on deck,” Heck
said. “We tried to call ’em about 25 times on our radio but
never got a response. Since we were doing about 20 knots with
a spinnaker up we were getting a little concerned. We thought
we’d have to jibe and go around ’em.” Instead, they headed
upwind slightly and slipped past the boomer’s bow.
The senior citizens aboard the 65-foot ketch
Bonaire, an Aloha Division entry, were one crew that didn’t
worry about breakdowns. “It’s a good boat, strong as an ox,”
said Jim Eddy. “It goes 9 knots.” Although three of
the crew members were over 70, “We did 12 jibes and seven
sail changes the last seven days,” Eddy said. Eddy and Gil
Jones are former TransPacific Yacht Club commodores. Jones said,
“The refrigerator door fell off when I was trying to get
some ice out for drinks. That’s absolutely the only thing that
broke.”
For final results and other features, visit
www.transpacificyc.org.
Moby
Dick, the Fender
July 13 – San Francisco Bay
|
Some of you may remember that on the Fourth For what it’s worth, if original plans |
 Robert Sutherland (in borrowed clothing) poses with the catch of the day Photo Juan de Juanderer |
The
Santa Barbara Grand Jury Report
July 13 – Santa Barbara
Yesterday we reported that the Santa Barbara County Grand Jury
issued findings that may end up costing some Bay Area boatowners
thousands of dollars. Here’s the deal:
It’s been common in some packed marinas
for the rights to a boat berth to go with a boat when it’s sold.
This has been the case at Santa Barbara, San Francisco Marina,
and other places. There’s a certain logic to it, because if buyers
aren’t going to have a place to put a boat they buy, they’re less
likely to buy it. But as a result, the ‘rights’ to these berths
have value – sometimes many thousands of dollars. In Santa Barbara,
it’s asserted that some boats have sold for $60,000 more than
what they are really worth because the berth came with them.
 Santa Barbara Harbor Photo Latitude/Richard |
The Santa Barbara County Grand Jury
doesn’t like the system for a number of reasons. One is that it’s
made the normal wait for slips in Santa Barbara up to 175 years.
Secondly, they believe that individuals shouldn’t be able to make
large sums of money off rights they don’t really have to public
lands. The practice of individuals making large sums of money
off of public slips has also been criticized by other grand juries,
the State Lands Commission and the State Attorney General’s Office.
In other words, the heat is on, particularly as there are some
efforts to standardize rules statewide.
We’ll publish the complete report in the
August issue of Latitude
38, but meanwhile, if you’ve got the ‘right’ to transfer
the slip when you sell your boat and think it’s worth a lot of
money, it’s probably worth a little bit less than it was last
month. If the Santa Barbara Grand Jury gets its way, the system
will be outlawed in five years, which means the value of the berths
will plummet with each passing year. There’s no final verdict,
but consider yourself having been warned.
YOTREPS
July 13 – The Pacific Ocean and Cyberspace
Who is out making passages in the Pacific
and what kind of weather are they having? Check out YOTREPS –
‘yacht reports’ – at http://www.bitwrangler.com/yotreps/
Weather
Updates
July 13 – Atlantic Ocean
Tropical Storm Cosme
Yesterday’s Tropical Depression #2 in the
Atlantic has turned into Tropical Storm Cosme with 35 knots of
wind. On the other hand, another weather site (weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atlantic/2001/index.html)
says it’s only blowing 20 knots and dissipating. We’ll see…
July 13 – Pacific Ocean
San Francisco Bay Weather
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/.
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/stuff/southwest/swstmap.shtml.
Pacific Sea State
Check out the Pacific Ocean sea states at:
http://www.mpc.ncep.noaa.gov/RSSA/PacRegSSA.html.
For another view, see http://www.oceanweather.com/data/global.html.
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