We Loved Meeting You at the Latitude 38 Baja Ha-Ha Fall Crew Party

It’s always way more work, coordination, sweat, stress and tears than we think it’s going to be, but we love hosting the Latitude 38 Baja Ha-Ha Fall Crew Party, held on Wednesday at one of our favorite venues: Spaulding Marine Center in Sausalito.

The work came together, the volunteers volunteered and instantly transformed the venue from workshop to lecture hall and hangout, and the people showed up. Thanks to everyone for bearing with us as we had a few technical difficulties with the ticketing system. It was serendipity, actually — it gave us a chance to ask everyone’s name rather than just scan and greet. Thanks to Lili Jeske and everyone at Spaulding.

Thanks to Latitude 38 delivery driver Chris Siefert for volunteering. Thanks to Paul Irving, who is putting on this year’s Zongo Cup, a mellow race from Morro Bay to Avila Beach.

Here are just a few of the people we got to meet:

As we sat on a trailer in the Spaulding yard eating our Casablanca Mediterranean, we met the crew of the Passport 40 Perla, who are doing their first-ever Ha-Ha this year. “I’m excited. I’m terrified. I can’t wait,” said Brenton Piercy, the new and recent owner of Perla. Between bites of falafel, Brenton told us that he grew up sailing in Arkansas, came to the Bay and started racing, and eventually took the leap to bluewater sailing and boat ownership. (We also met Brenton’s crew Colm, a wry, hilarious Irishman.)

This is the kind of story we at Latitude love to hear — it’s the new sailors and boatowners who remind us how precious the dream is of sailing over the horizon.

We got to meet Maddie Zug and Jeremy Snyder of the Tayana 42 Tardigrade, a lovely young couple who, if memory serves (apologies; we were drinking and socializing and not being reporters), decided to do this year’s Ha-Ha on Other People’s Boats before venturing out on their own in the future. We wish them luck in future Ha-Ha and cruising endeavors!

Some of our staff finally got to meet Curtis Havel in the flesh. He’s the former Richardson Bay Regional Agency harbormaster and current harbormaster at Clipper Yacht Harbor. Curtis told us about his recent travels to Japan and Fiji, where he surfed the legendary Cloudbreak.

Some of our staff finally got to meet Yosh Han, who has kind of been blowing it up in Latitude this year. Yosh wrote an excellent piece, “The Art of Crew Life,” in the April issue, was on the cover of the August issue, and makes regular cameos on our social media.

Some of our staff finally met Brady and Blue (and their dog Sharky), who took the spotlight early in the evening to present the Mexico Cruising Seminar.

After seeing the sailing duo on YouTube for years via SV Delos, then on social media sailing upon the blueness of Lake Tahoe, it was really good to see them IRL. (In Real Life.) If you missed the seminar ,or attended and wanted to grab the pdf version you can do so here for a limited time. 

We got to meet Doug Samp and Lauren Cefali from the United States Coast Guard. “Thank you for allowing Lauren and me to attend the Crew List seminar and party at Spaulding and represent the USCG,” Doug wrote us yesterday. “The event was very beneficial for us to meet and engage with offshore sailors and discuss safety equipment and procedures. We had approximately 30 sailors engage us at the booth, and we validated the information on file within the NOAA’s SARSAT Beacon registration database for seven beacon owners.”

We got to see all the folks from Island Yacht Club, the staff of whom helped us clean up after the party. (Thanks, everyone!)  We got to see some of the folks from the Science Sailing Center. In short, we got to see all our favorite people, to finally see people in the flesh, and to meet some new folks.

Thank you, Latitude Nation. Thanks for coming, thanks for reading, thanks for supporting us, thanks for helping us keep it all going.

We do it for you, and we couldn’t do it without you.