Latitude 38 December 2022

CALENDAR

Non-Race

Dec. 3 — New Boat Launch, Hyde Street Pier, San Fran cisco, 1 p.m. Launch of student-built skiff. San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, https://maritime.org Dec. 3 — Lighted Yacht Parade, Oakland-Alameda Estuary, 5:30 p.m. Theme: Holiday Music. Fundraiser for Oakland Fire fighters’ Random Acts and the Alameda County Community Food Bank. Info, www.lightedyachtparade.com

Dec. 3 — Lighted Boat Parade in Santa Cruz, 5:30 p.m. Theme: Deck the Hulls. SCYC, www.scyc.org Dec. 3 — Delta Reflections Lighted Boat Parade, San Joa quin River, Stockton, 5 p.m. Windmill Cove-Weber Point-Light 39. Stockton YC, www.stocktonyc.clubexpress.com Dec. 3-4 — Advanced First Aid/CPR/AED for Mariners, Southwestern YC, San Diego, 8 a.m.-3:30 p.m. $375. Info, www.maritimemedicalguides.org

Dec. 3-31 — Small Boat Sailing, South Beach Harbor, San Francisco, 9:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturdays, weather permitting; RSVP in advance. Free. BAADS, www.baads.org/sailing. Dec. 5-12 — Kayak Build Week, Spaulding Marine Center, Sausalito. Info, www.spauldingcenter.org

Dec. 7 — Pearl Harbor Day.

Dec. 7 — Full Cold Moon on a Wednesday.

Dec. 7-28 — Wednesday Yachting Luncheon, via YouTube, noon. StFYC, www.stfyc.com.

Dec. 8 — Winter Open House, Spaulding Marine Center, Sausalito, 4-9 p.m. Live music by the Hot Clams, food & drinks, local arts sale, silent auction, Figure 8 Voyage stories by Randall Reeves. $30/artist table; free admission. Info, www.spauldingcenter.org or education@spauldingcenter.org.

Dec. 10 — USCG Boat America Class, Vacaville (in person), 8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Certificate of Completion satisfies CA Boater Card requirement. $55 includes all materials, lunch, snacks, bottled water. Text or call Margie, (925) 768-1608.

Dec. 10 — Sea Concert Series, live stream, 11 a.m. LocTup Together performs folk and maritime songs and sea chanties. Donations benefit the San Francisco Maritime Park. Info, https://givebutter.com/lOL2xi.

Dec. 10 — Making Waves Gala, Sailing Science Center, Treasure Island Administration Building, 5-9 p.m. Tours, exhibits, cocktails & hosted bar, seated dinner, silent & live auctions, games & prizes. $125. Info, www.sailingscience.org

Dec. 10 — Lighted Boat Parade, Sausalito, 6 p.m. Fire works, 7:15 p.m. Info, www.winterfestsausalito.com Dec. 10 — Lighted Boat Parade, Petaluma River, 5:30-7:30 p.m. Info, www.visitpetaluma.com.

Dec. 10 — Lighted Boat Parade, Oxbow Marina, Georgiana Slough, Isleton. Info, www.marinawestyachtclub.com. Dec. 11, 18 — Parade of Lights, San Diego, 5:30 p.m. Theme: FantaSEA on the Bay. Info, www.sdparadeoflights.org Dec. 14, Jan. 11 — Singlehanded Transpacific Race seminars, via Zoom, 7:30 p.m. 12/14: Power requirements, electricity budgeting, communications. 1/11: Rigging, sails, repairs at sea. Register, https://tinyurl.com/3bcb5f8j.

Dec. 16 — Decorated Boat Parade, San Francisco Cityfront. StFYC, www.stfyc.com.

Dec. 17 — SSS Awards Ceremony, Encinal YC, Alameda, 2-5 p.m. Info, www.sfbaysss.org

Dec. 17 — Boarded! Pirate Adventure, aboard the San Salvador, San Diego, 10:30 a.m. or 12:45 p.m. $25-$60. Info, https://sdmaritime.org.

Dec. 17 — Tim Flannery and the Lunatic Fringe live con cert, aboard the Star of India, San Diego, 7-10 p.m. Ages 21+ only. $65-$99. Info, https://sdmaritime.org.

Dec. 17 — Boat Parade, Coyote Point, San Mateo, 5:30

Naos Yachts is opening a new office in the San Francisco Bay.

Founded in 2009 in Los Angeles by Offshore racer Charles-Etienne Devanneaux, Naos Yachts represents sailboats brands BENETEAU Oceanis, Oceanis Yacht and First, First SE, Lagoon Catamarans, Neel Trimarans, CNB Yachts and power boats brands Four Winns, Wellcraft, BENETEAU Antares and Flyers.

Naos Yachts San Francisco Bay is located in the Maritime Center 530 West Cutting Blvd Pt. Richmond, CA www.naosyachts.com

Meet our team: Multiple BENETEAU Top Gun Dealer award recipient Torben Bentsen and Sam Gordon, both established San Francisco Bay boat brokers with great track records.

Torben cell: (510) 851-3082 Sam cell: (415) 465-9045

CALENDAR

p.m. Followed by holiday treats and music at Coyote Point YC, plus special guest arrival by boat. Cathy, (650) 464-6265 or staffcommodore@cpyc.com.

Dec. 17 — Lighted Boat Parade, San Rafael Canal, 6 p.m. Info, www.facebook.com/SanRafaelLightedBoatParade. Dec. 17-18 — Advanced First Aid/CPR/AED for Mariners, Los Angeles Maritime Institute, 8 a.m.-3:30 p.m. $375. Info, www.maritimemedicalguides.org.

Dec. 18-26 — Hanukkah. Dec. 21 — Winter Solstice. Dec. 25 — Christmas Day. Dec. 26-Jan. 1 — Kwanzaa.

Jan. 1 — Happy New Year 2023!

Jan. 7 — USCG Boat America Class, Benicia YC (in person), 8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Certificate of Completion satisfies CA Boater Card requirement. Bring lunch or purchase on-site. $40 includes all materials. Text or call Margie, (925) 768-1608.

Racing

Dec. 3 — Fall Series. SSC, www.stocktonsc.org Dec. 3 — Die Hard Regatta. HMBYC, www.hmbyc.org. Dec. 3 — Hot Rum Series. SDYC, www.sdyc.org Dec. 4 — Fun Sail. ElkYC, www.elkhornyachtclub.org Dec. 10 — Santana 22 Team Races. SCYC, www.scyc.org.

Jan. 1 — Resolution Pursuit Race. CYC, www.cyc.org

Jan. 1 — Brrr Rabbit. CPYC, www.cpyc.com

Midwinter Series

BENICIA YC — Frostbite Series: 12/11, 1/14, 2/11, 3/11. Info, www.beniciayachtclub.org

BERKELEY YC — Separate Saturday & Sunday Midwinter Series: 12/10-11, 1/14-1/15, 2/11-12; Champion of Cham pions: 2/26. Chowder Series: Every Sunday through March except when it conflicts with the Midwinters. Info, www. berkeleyyc.org or www.jibeset.net.

CAL SAILING CLUB — Year-round Sunday morning dinghy races, intraclub only. Info, www.cal-sailing.org.

CORINTHIAN YC — Midwinters: 1/21-22, 2/18-19. Info, www.cyc.org

COYOTE POINT YC — Winter Races: 1/8, 1/22, 2/12, 2/26, 3/12, 3/26. Info, www.cpyc.com

ELKHORN YC — Chowder Cup Series: 12/17. Info, www. elkhornyachtclub.org

ENCINAL YC — Jack Frost Series: 12/3, 1/7, 2/4. Info, www.encinal.org or www.jibeset.net.

GOLDEN GATE YC — Manny Fagundes Seaweed Soup Regatta: 12/3, 1/7, 2/4, 3/4. Info, www.ggyc.org or www. jibeset.net.

ISLAND YC — Island Days: 12/11, 1/8, 2/12, 3/12. Info, www.iyc.org or www.jibeset.net.

KONOCTI BAY SC — OSIRs (Old Salts in Retirement) every Wednesday, year round. Info, www.kbsail.org

LAKE MERRITT SC — Robinson Memorial Midwinters: 12/10, 1/15, 2/11, 3/12. Denis, (707) 338-6955.

MONTEREY PENINSULA YC — Perry Cup for Mercurys: 12/3, 1/7, 2/4. Info, www.mercury-sail.com.

OAKLAND YC — Sunday Brunch Series: 1/15, 1/29, 2/5, 2/19, 3/5, 3/19, 4/2. Info, race@oaklandyachtclub.com, www.oaklandyachtclub.net or www.jibeset.net.

RICHMOND YC — Small Boat Midwinters: 12/4, 1/8, 2/5, 3/5. Info, www.richmondyc.org.

SANTA CRUZ YC — Midwinters: 12/17, 1/21, 2/18, 3/18. Info, www.scyc.org

SAUSALITO YC — Chili Midwinter Regatta: 12/4, 1/8, 2/5, 3/5. RegattaPRO Winter One Design: 12/10, 1/7, 2/11.

Info, www.sausalitoyachtclub.org.

SEQUOIA YC — Winter Series: 12/3, 1/7, 2/4, 3/4. Red wood Cup pursuit race series: 12/17, 1/21, 2/11, 3/18. Info, www.sequoiayc.org or www.jibeset.net

BEACH YC — Midwinters: 12/17, 1/21, 2/18, www.southbeachyachtclub.org.

TIBURON YC — Mott Midwinters: 12/3, 1/7, 2/4, 3/4. www.tyc.org or www.jibeset.net.

ALLEJO YC — Tiny Robbins Midwinters: 12/3, 1/7, 2/4, www.vyc.org or www.jibeset.net

ACHT RACING ASSOCIATION — Shorthanded Sunday Midwinters: 12/18, 1/22, 2/26. Info, www.yra.org or www.

send your calendar items by the 10th of the month calendar@latitude38.com. Please, no phone-ins! Calendar listings are for marine-related events that are free or don't cost much to attend. The Calendar is not meant to support commercial enterprises.

December Weekend Tides

Predictions for Station 9414290, San Francisco (Golden Gate) date/day time/ht. time/ht. time/ht. time/ht.

LOW HIGH LOW HIGH Sat 0102/1.1 0755/6.0 1425/0.6 2041/4.4 Sun 0150/1.6 0830/6.2 1511/0.1 2147/4.5

HIGH LOW HIGH LOW Sat 0154/4.7 0603/3.5 1146/5.9 1853/-0.5 Sun 0236/4.7 0647/3.5 1224/5.7 1931/-0.4

HIGH LOW HIGH Sat 0630/5.3 1256/1.8 1836/3.8

LOW HIGH LOW HIGH Sun 0006/1.6 0704/5.7 1343/1.0 1959/3.9

HIGH LOW HIGH LOW Sat 0052/5.0 0503/3.1 1114/7.1 1815/-1.8 Sun 0140/5.1 0559/3.1 1206/6.9 1904/-1.6

HIGH LOW HIGH Sat 0626/5.9 1313/0.9 1929/3.9

LOW HIGH LOW HIGH Sun 0018/2.0 0704/6.2 1408/0.3 2052/4.1

December Weekend Currents

NOAA Predictions for .88 NM NE of the Golden Gate Bridge

date/day slack max slack max 12/03Sat 0224 0554/2.8F 0918 1206/1.8E 1542 1848/2.1F 2200 12/04Sun 0018/1.1E 0312 0636/2.8F 0954 1248/2.0E 1642 1948/2.3F 2306 12/10Sat 0336 0536/0.9E 0754 1042/1.9F 1336 1636/1.9E 2048 12/11Sun 0036/2.5F 0424 0624/0.9E 0836 1124/1.8F 1418 1724/1.7E 2130

12/17Sat 0012 0418/2.1F 0806 1036/1.2E 1418 1712/1.2F 2036 2242/0.7E 12/18Sun 0100 0506/2.2F 0836 1112/1.4E 1512 1818/1.4F 2142 2336/0.7E 12/24Sat 0224 0418/1.0E 0642 0948/2.6F 1236 1542/2.7E 2000 2324/3.0F 12/25Sun 0312 0512/1.0E 0736 1042/2.6F 1330 1636/2.6E 2048

12/31Sat 0036 0418/2.5F 0748 1036/1.6E 1424 1736/1.7F 2042 2248/0.9E 1/01Sun 0124 0506/2.5F 0830 1124/1.7E 1530 1842/1.9F 2200

Source: https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov

LETTERS

⇑⇓ AN ISSUE THAT CONSTANTLY FLARES UP

On October 23, the St. Francis Yacht Club* motorboat Victory declared on channel 16 with a Sécurité, and said they would be conducting flare exercises in Raccoon Strait. We happened to be motoring by and got a close-up look at the goings-on. [*It was actually the San Francisco Yacht Club's boat Victory.]

As we watched the smoke (which looked great from 100 feet away on a calm day) and red handheld locator flares (which didn't show up so well during daylight), we were in spired to imagine doing the same thing ourselves.

Wouldn't this be a great way to dispose of expired flares (referencing the Latitude October issue's Letters: Expired Flares Are Still Difficult to Throw Away (on page 38), while giving us all valuable practice?

There have got to be reasons we don't all conduct exer cises like this. Perhaps emergency responders — official as well as Good Samaritans — might not hear every announce ment, and might not want to beat to quarters unnecessar ily. Or are there environmental concerns? We did, after all, observe what looked like burning slag and an active smoke flare being discarded into the water.

I can't find any published protocols about how marine flare exercises work, and I wasn't invited aboard the SFYC Victory. Do we all just incant Sécurité three times into the radio, and then set about exercising? Or is there more to it?

Eric Spross Terral, Swan 431 Sausalito

Eric — To answer your question:

1) To schedule a flare-training exercise, call Coast Guard Sector San Francisco's Command Center at (415) 399-3539. (For those of you in other parts of the country and world, there should be some equivalent resource.)

2) Once you've scheduled your exercise, Coast Guard watchstanders will relay a Safety Marine information broad cast on channel 16, then transition to the Coast Guard's liai son frequency (channel 22A) to broadcast the safety message. Any individual or group wishing to practice using flares needs to give the Coast Guard a minimum of one day's notice, a de scription of what the exercise entails, and all the when-andwhere details. The Coast Guard will want to know what type of flares you plan to use, and how many.

Clearly, these exercises will draw attention — which is ex actly what flares are supposed to do.

Alameda: (510) 521-1327

Sausalito: (443) 454-2275

San Diego: (619) 681-0633

Marina del Rey: (310) 821-8300

LETTERS

⇑⇓ YEAH, NO, FOR SURE: THAT DEFINITELY CAUGHT OUR ATTENTION

The crew of SV Merope happened upon this while departing Ayala Cove, and it caused a bit of concern.

We knew we were in a rush to get back to port before the ebb left our channel too shallow, but we turned and beat to weather (and away from our destination) to make sure the vessel was not in distress. We did not hear an announcement on VHF 16 from the vessel, but we did eventually hear one from the Coast Guard, at which point we hightailed it back to port.

⇑⇓ FYI: MY EXPIRED FLARES WORKED JUST FINE

As part of the US Sailing Safety at Sea courses, we regularly demonstrate the different types of "flares" (visual distress signals) largely to show the superiority of the SOLASgrade signals, but also to give students experience with lighting or launching the signals safely. There's absolutely an element of risk involved, but with good instruction, and the use of a leather welder's glove (or something similar), they can be demonstrated safely.

However, there are some caveats:

1. While a call on channel 16/22 may alert nearby boaters who have VHF radios, inevitably, flare demonstrations generate 911 calls, or cause inquisitive boaters to investigate if there is an actual emergency.

2. Aerial signals, especially SOLAS red rocket parachute signals, travel with the wind and can end up where you didn't anticipate over their 40-second lifetime. You need a lot of searoom and planning before launching one. I've witnessed many close calls over the last 30 years or so when demonstrating this "safety" item.

3. In Safety at Sea courses, we try to use expired signals from liferaft repackers, such as Sal's Inflatables, or expired Coast Guard-approved signals. This does reduce their reliability somewhat, which is a good lesson in itself.

4. Finally, the good news is that pyrotechnic signals are being replaced, slowly, by other means of signaling for help. Modern electronics (VHF radios, EPIRBs, SEND devices, etc.) as well as LED signals have greatly reduced the need for pyro signals.

Thank goodness — they are a disposal problem and have a modest effective life and some risk involved in their use.

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PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES

The all-new Hallberg-Rassy 50 follows on the success of the 57, 44, 40C and 340. The new 50 is designed for effortless sailing and great comfort with lots of storage. The Hallberg-Rassy 50 pushes the boundaries for what is possible up to 50 feet and at the same time remains true to the classic Hallberg-Rassy fundamentals. • Carbon mast • Easily handled modern sailplan • Spacious center cockpit with twin wheels

LETTERS

If you want to dispose of your expired flares, bring them to the recycling center where you also dispose your flammable chemicals. They take them.

Heinz — Nope, not true. Maybe your local recycling center takes old flares, but we'll ask you to double-check, because they probably don't. For the past three years, sailors from all over the West Coast have told us how difficult it is to dispose of flares — especially at their local recycling centers. Not even the Coast Guard takes old flares, leading to this very discussion of what one does with expired required equipment.

⇑⇓ MY EXPIRED FLARES WORKED TOO

When my Morgan 45 sank in the Caribbean, I used all except two of my 12-gauge flares.

The expired ones worked just like the current ones.

I kept the expired ones in a separate container, and had them clearly labeled as being expired. I would not recommend getting rid of your expired 12-gauge flares.

Ron — I'm in a kayak club that held a demo day, and your observation related to the 12-gauge was verified. The small pencil flares had a very high failure rate, but the 12-gauge flares worked — even the expired ones — though they sometimes required more than one trigger pull.

Don — Glad you verified my observation. In my case however, I only needed one trigger squeeze.

⇑⇓ HONORING LINDA NEWLAND

Thirty-five years ago, I took a navigation class at Alameda Community College where Linda was the instructor. Although I never sailed across the ocean, Linda's enthusiasm for sailing opened my eyes and led to several great years of wonderful sailing adventures. Now, finally, I have a chance to say: Thank you, Linda, for all that you do!

Tammie was commenting on the June 10 'Lectronic Latitude: NWSA and BoatUS Honor Linda Newland. (NWSA: The National Women's Sailing Association.)

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LETTERS

at the last minute. She did fly over and bring Strider home with some of her friends. Great sailor and a wonderful person. Glad to hear she is doing well, and she definitely deserves the award.

I saw Linda being active (proactive) in the 1980s and she continues today. I don't know how Linda does it, but the sailing community is better for her efforts!

Well deserved! Back in the '80s, before Dan, Linda was a key player in the SSS. As a fellow Hawkfarm Transpacific finisher, I take my hat off to her.

Wow! What an amazing and humble woman! Thank you for that lovely interview. What a great storyteller she is and detailed memory she has!

Readers — Linda Newland was our guest on the Good Jibes podcast on October 19. Go to www.latitude38.com/ goodjibes to hear the episode.

⇑⇓ DAWN RILEY, LARRY ELLISON INDUCTED INTO THE AMERICA'S CUP HALL OF FAME

Congratulations to sailing's Grand Dame. I always follow Dawn on Facebook and any other venue she stars in. Her smile and spirit exemplify the essence of a true legend of sailing.

Chuck was commenting on the October 21 'Lectronic with the same name as this letter.

"Dawn is who she is," commented Mark Reid, who wrote that 'Lectronic. "Nothing fake and no BS. Dawn exemplifies old school in the modern era. Oakcliff Sailing Academy is fortunate to have someone like Dawn in charge to work with those young sailor students."

⇑⇓ THE SCHOOL OF ADVENTURE

Thank you John Arndt and Latitude, for this was a wonderful interview. [Jim is commenting on the October 12 Good Jibes episode Adventures From Sausalito to Costa Rica With Jim Shaw.]

This was a glimpse back decades ago to the scrappy innovation and make-do attitude found among residents and adventurers along the Sausalito waterfront. Inspired by sea stories, their yen to find more waves to surf, and gusto to turn a surplus lifeboat into a sailboat and sail away, well, that's what adventure is about.

With no radio, no motor, no watermaker and many lessons learned and skills gained, it launched your guest and crewmates into the school of adventure and a lifetime of experiences.

THE HUMBLE ALBIN VEGA HAS A STORIED HISTORY

I'm currently refitting Vega #1742 Altair in Vancouver, BC, since the end of 2021. I got it off the docks and sailed in the Strait of Georgia in summer 2022. A previous owner had

LETTERS

taken this boat to Mexico and Hawaii prior, so I'm looking forward to attempting something similar.

Raphael was commenting on the January 7 'LL with the same name as this letter. The story referred to the humble Albin Vega 27, which has been the star of several epic circumnavigations. John Neal sailed a Vega 27 for a 15,000mile circumnavigation of the Pacific in 1974, chronicled his adventures in the book Log of the Mahina, and went on to sail another 400,000 miles.

In 2011, Matt Rutherford did the first-ever singlehanded circumnavigation of the Americas aboard a 1969 Vega 27. And this summer in Spain, a couple daysailed their Vega on a mild summer day, and had a lovely time.

⇑⇓ AN ABSOLUTE JOY

We are the proud owners of our restored 1971 Vega #1030, called Vegabond. Indeed, yesterday we were sailing along the coast of Spain with the air temp in the 80s and a wonderful 10-12 knots of wind.

Absolute joy — she sailed wonderfully.

⇑⇓ THE BEST BOAT I HAVE EVER OWNED

I hope I'm not too late to post this. [Thomas is commenting on the August 8, 2008, 'LL: The Little Boat That Could, referring to his old Pearson Electra.]

I owned Sparky for 10 years, and sailed it all over S.F. Bay in every kind of weather. I would wait for storms to come through just to go out. I did the Farallones Race in 1983 and got 10th overall.

Sparky was a tough little boat, and I was never scared sailing it. I also did many trips to the Delta. It's the best boat I have ever owned. I simply can't say enough about how much I loved it.

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LETTERS

⇑⇓ ANOTHER ELECTRA-FYING TALE OF OWNERSHIP

I sold my beloved Pearson Electra Soul Possession (hull #57) to a Michael Walsh in 1978 in Normal, Illinois. I've often wondered what became of her. Anyone have any ideas?

⇑⇓ 'TIS THE SEASON TO BE HA-HA

I tried to make the Baja Ha-Ha in 2003, but got hung up in Newport for a reason I cannot re member. I followed the Ha-Ha down two weeks later.

I'm currently an chored in Barra af ter coming up from Panama. I'm look ing forward to run ning into the new bies while heading north into the Sea of

A WORD FROM OAST

It's that time of the year — Baja Ha-Ha time — when you see lots of sailboats with deserty hills in the background.

excited to attend the Baja Ha-Ha departure seminars and talk about the capabilities of the USCG and Mexican navy from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas. If you issue a dis tress notification, what should you expect if you need help, and what happens next?

I will answer the bur ning question of what is the differ ence between a Garmin InReach, a SPOT and an EPIRB. Bring your 406 Mhz SARSAT Hex ID and we will check your data in the beacon registration database. If you have an old EPIRB or PLB, bring it along, and I will dispose of it for you.

APPS FOR MEXICO?

What is the best prediction app for Gulf Northers? I'm planning a trip to Loreto mid-November.

Owner, TowBoatUS S.F. Bay & Delta

I don't consider myself an expert on the Sea of Cortez, but my understanding is that just about any decent weather site will do the job. The thing is that there is a very specific con dition that creates Northers, and they can be seen coming days in advance. Nobody should be caught by surprise, ever.

Baja Ha-Ha Cruisers Rally Facebook Page aka Richard Spindler

The osprey cam is a wonderful find! I have been boating and sailing out of Richmond's Marina Bay for 18 years — being one of the owners and captains of the scow schooner Gas Light, which navigates past this cam almost daily. I now know to look up and wave as we cruise past!

Steven Ingram

Gas Light, 72-ft scow schooner Richmond

LETTERS

Steven was commenting on the October 12 'Lectronic with the same name as this letter.

⇑⇓ YUCCA, NOT MAYAN, WINS CLASSICS AT ROLEX BIG BOAT SERIES

The Classic fleet at this year's BBS was a mess. Ratings aren't accurate for the types of boats and course given, not to mention boats correcting to podium finish got DNFs because of race-cutoff restrictions. Overall a poor experience.

Nice job, Yucca; ya looked good out there.

Drew was commenting on the October 14 'LL with the same name as this letter.

A few weeks after this year's Rolex Big Boat Series, the schooner Mayan's owner and skipper Beau Vrolyk sent an inquiry to the St. Francis Yacht Club, who conferred with US Sailing's Rating office and officials, and eventually corrected the results. Mayan was bumped from first to second, switching places with the 8-Meter Yucca Vrolyk was praised for his selfless sportsmanship.

⇑⇓ CLEARLY AND CONCISELY

Thank you for the post in 'Lectronic Latitude regarding the handling of the Rolex Cup Classic Division ratings issues.

You explained the situation clearly and concisely. I appreciate your giving credit to Beau Vrolyk for bringing the ratings discrepancy to light. His knowledge of the rules and his sportsmanship are an example to all.

The photo accompanying the article [seen below] is terrific. I love it. Yucca has never looked better, as Michael Zolezzi is a fantastic steward of the Yucca and taking her into the future.

MORE PRAISE FOR B.V.

Wow! What a truly Corinthian gesture. Makes me feel like there might be a future in yacht racing. Thank you Mr. Vrolyk. Well played.

lot of people could take a hint or a large helping from Beau. Winning is great when you actually win, but it's not everything. Hats off to Beau Vrolyk!

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LETTERS

Good on Beau! Scoring is no longer as simple as who makes it back to Gloucester with the first load of fish.

Good on you, Beau Vrolyk, for your integrity; you set a fine example for us all.

I loved the positivity of the [October 14] article. Everyone wins, especially integrity, which these days is sorely lacking. [Hank Easom is] 88 years old and still racing. I hope to be so energetic at 88!

⇑⇓ RACING IN THE SOUTH BAY

We had a full house on Saturday, October 22, for Sequoia Yacht Club's annual Racers' Ribs dinner and 2022 Racing Awards ceremony. For those of you who couldn't attend, here's a quick recap:

What a great year we had — with overall participation up 24% from last year, an active fleet size of 51 boats (recovering to 2018 levels), and the new Spring Regatta and two-day South Bay Championship format. Racing in the South Bay is as vibrant and active as it has ever been.

It's great to be back!

Sequoia is a volunteer-driven club, and this success could only have been achieved with the support of an army

It's always a good time at Sequoia Yacht Club. Above, sailors John Stephens, Bruce Ladd and Todd Mehserle ignored playoff football in 2020 to dive deep into 'Latitude'

of volunteers — both on and off the water. A big thank you to the members and guests volunteering for kitchen prep/ serving/cleanup, house set-up/tear-down, bartending, race committee support including committee boat skippers, the race captains, the Sequoia Flag and board, and of course the competitors! None of this would have been possible without all of you.

SAN DIEGO BAY MORE WELCOMING THAN SAN FRANCISCO BAY?

It would be wonderful if the Bay Area welcomed boaters and sailors, as does San Diego. It seems the myriad San Francisco Bay bureaucracies have their own individual

LETTERS

agendas in the forefront and don't play nice with anyone standing in their way. Boats are considered a threat to Bay waters, objects that run into or harm sea life, and a taxable opportunity instead of a normal, vibrant part of Bay Area life.

Rich Brazil

Tally Ho, Nauticat 43 Mexico

Rich was commenting on the November 4 'Lectronic Latitude with the same name as this letter.

Smaller and more centralized than the Bay Area, San Diego seems to be a mecca

⇑⇓ POLITICS, BABY

It takes a lot of cat herding over a long period of time to make change happen. And San Diego has a more right-leaning government and politicians willing to force a solution, supported by their more right-leaning voters.

Democracies are inherently messy but the only long-term answer. (Do your duty and vote!)

Maybe a few yacht club commodores need to turn in their blazers and run for public office (having experience wrestling with club politics)? That said, most of us would rather go sailing — which is why we tend to make poor politicians.

Green Buffalo, Cal 40 Point Richmond

⇑⇓ THAT WOULD BE A NO

Does San Diego deal with the BCDC? Just curious.

Jason — Our understanding is that while the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, or BCDC, is a state agency, their purview is more or less limited to the San Francisco Bay Area. The California Costal Commission assumes many BCDC-like duties in the rest of the state.

⇑⇓

FROM YEARNING TO REALITY? HOW?

How would we make the changes to make this a reality? Money and motivation.

We probably shouldn't start with Richardson Bay; it's the People's Park of San Francisco Bay. Lots of boaters like to visit San Francisco, and the Port of San Francisco's Waterfront Plan seems supportive of this type of development. They might even have money.

So how do you generate the motivation?

Neal Holmlund Respite, Islander 32 Oakland

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LETTERS

⇑⇓ LESS THAN STELLAR EXPERIENCES

Sorry, I don't agree. San Diego is unwelcoming to boat ers. We're 20-year boaters here, and they've made it nearly impossible to enjoy the anchorages.

⇑⇓ RIDICULOUS AND OVER THE TOP

I totally disagree.

I was anchored in Mariner's Cove for five days instead of the three-day limit because of medical issues, and they impounded both boats within a four-hour time span of my being in the hospital, charged me over $400 to get them back by morning, and would not release the boats to me at 8:30 p.m. I had to get a hotel for the night, got followed and harassed constantly, got two citations back to back, and was escorted out of the county by a Coast Guard inflatable.

Ridiculous, over the top, anti-free testosterone in that county.

⇑⇓ WHEN HAS ANYTHING EVER BEEN CHEAPER IN THE BAY AREA?

I spent four months at a marina when I bought my boat in San Diego. Slips were $750/month or more for a 40-ft boat, and very hard to find. Compare that to $450 at the time in the Bay, and slips were readily available (depending on the marina, of course).

San Diego has moorings because it doesn't have enough marina space, so many boaters have to keep their boats on moorings. We don't have that problem in the Bay.

Circe, Freedom 40/40 Point Richmond

⇑⇓

BERTH CONTROL

Many of you know me.

My brother Greg and I arrived on the Sausalito water front in 1953, making us the oldest surviving Sausalito houseboaters. We lived for several years on the Vallejo, then on the Issaquah, before finding the City of Seattle in 1958. (To moor the Seattle, we sank two barges at the end of Gate Six and tied the ferry off the outboard perimeter.)

Eventually, my parents divorced. Mimi, my mother, was scraping by as a publicist for Guide Dogs for the Blind. When some people asked if they could tie up to our barges, she welcomed the additional income.

This was the genesis of Yellow Ferry Harbor.

Eventually, the constables tried to wipe us out. Mimi

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meetings. Exactly what school of governance does this come from? Who feels it is appropriate to exclude the people most affected by this legislation? Has anybody ever heard of rentcontrol legislation where the renters wanted to hide from public support? Shame on you guys.

This is because it is so ludicrous. AB 252 is faux pro gressivism. There is no wrong here that needs a right. The situation is already massively tilted in favor of the boat own ers. All boat owners already have 20- to 30-year leases at CPI [Consumer Price Index]. In Yellow Ferry Harbor, we have leases that go to 2051.

No houseboat with a lease has ever been evicted. In the 70 years I have lived here, there has never been a large in crease in berthage rates. Don Arques used to charge $25. One year, he apologetically increased it to $26, citing sea serpents or something. Over the decades, houseboat values in Marin have skyrocketed while we kept the berthage rate in check under the terms of the leases. Houseboat berthage on a square-foot basis is cheaper than recreational marinas. Empty berths already sell for over $350,000, demonstrat ing the spread between the berthage and real-estate value. Berths at the end of the docks would sell for many times more.

AB 252 is not rent control. It is protection for people who want to speculate on somebody else's land. This bill passes on the real property value to the tenants while reserving the taxes for the landowners.

We already have a problem with speculators taking his toric houseboats and trashing them in favor of some box, whose only aesthetic is based on square-foot metrics. The Pirate, one of the best examples of interior boat remodeling on the waterfront, is a case in point. Ian Moody (may he rest

LETTERS

in peace) was the prime mover in houseboat flipping and made millions converting boats into boxes.

AB 252 is blatantly discriminatory. It only covers 480 boats in six marinas in Alameda, Marin and Contra Costa County — houseboats in San Francisco, the South Bay and San Diego are exempt; so are houseboats in recreational marinas. Scattered through the marinas of Sausalito are as many houseboats as in my harbor. All are exempt.

Our leases have provisions to pass on excess increases in water fees or property taxes beyond the CPI (never used). Other marinas have similar conditional clauses. This bill attempts to override long-standing contracts between the marina owners and boat owners.

Most importantly, unlike other rent-control ordinances, there is no provision to pass through the costs of improvements or adaptations to climate change. The Bay is expected to rise one to three feet in the lifetime of our leases. This will require raising the docks, utilities and parking lot — basically rebuilding the entire marina. AB 252 assumes the marina owner is going to singlehandedly shoulder the cost of rising sea levels on behalf of all the tenants. That's not going to happen when the marinas are not even allowed to keep up with the current round of inflation.

This is legislation flushed down from Alameda, where the new owners of Barnhill attempted to raise the rents 30%. But Alameda is not Sausalito. And did anybody check what was going on there? The rent had been barely raised in 20 years. They were paying $500-$800. Even after the rent increase, they would have been half market rate. The harbor is losing money. They are considering shutting down the houseboat section.

As for the local impact, we have already spent $30,000 on new landscaping plans to redo the entrance and parking landscaping. The budget was around $200,000. It's a beautiful design. But we are tabling these plans if AB 252 passes. [It did pass in September.] Why should we pour large amounts of funds into amenities that will raise houseboat values if we cannot even keep up with inflation? (We are reevaluating the plans to go solar. This is something YFH can do for the whole harbor since we are still master-metered.)

In Yellow Ferry Harbor, we have established a Climate Change Fund that everybody is contributing to. [My partner] and I contribute double each month. It is questionable if this will survive a challenge under AB 252.

AB 252 fixes nothing and ruins everything. I urge the Floating Homes Association to write Governor Gavin Newsom and roll back this dumb and pointless legislation.

Chris

Owner, Yellow Ferry Harbor Sausalito

LETTERS

To read our reporting on AB 252, please check out the October 14 'Lectronic: Rent Control Comes to Bay Area FloatingHome Marinas. Are Liveaboards Next? (The next letter will comment on that story.)

Please also go to this month's Sightings, page 54, for a discussion about people living on boats and floating homes in the Bay Area, as well as expanded reporting on Barnhill and Oyster Cove marinas.

Before AB 252 became a California state law, the City of Alameda extended tenant protections, including a moratorium on rent increases, to residents at Barnhill Marina.

⇑⇓ A WORD FROM A BARNHILL RESIDENT

The issue that just made its way through the Alameda City Council, and compelled the residents of all of the floating-home communities to craft California AB 252, might never had been enacted if the new owner of Barnhill Marina had kept his word and only raised the berth rents 10%, and communicated honestly with residents.

We are not idiots. We understand that the rent had to go up, but this owner came in with a sledgehammer and attempted to raise the rents on some of us as much as 85% and up to 150% for others. He pretty much thought he might be able to do that every year!

This man and his investors own an apartment building in Visalia, and it would appear that they felt they could swoop into a 50-year-old community of homeowners and treat them the same as he did his renters. He was wrong. He totally mishandled a situation that has left him, his daughter and his investors at odds with all of us in the community.

I daresay we would likely be amenable to some assessments over time to help repair docks and with some other infrastructure needs. But he chose not to do that, and, voila, two bills have been passed at the city and state level, which will keep us all — and please excuse the pun — afloat.

This is not over, and the ramifications statewide have hardly been discussed. Meanwhile, those of us who live here do so without leases and without the certainty that we can sell our homes should we need to walk on failing docks without any sense of when life might return to some sort of normal.

I am one of those well-over-60-year-old residents on a fixed income. I'm an active volunteer in this community of Alameda. But it's quite likely that I will need to move in the next few years as age, climate change and king tides create conditions that could prove difficult for me to navigate.

The question is, will I be forced out before that time comes? And, if so, can my investment in this charming home be sold for enough to sustain me? Uncertain times.

LETTERS

Readers — The Visalia property Susan was referring to is the Buena Fortuna Village apartments, which are owned by Valley Investments LLC and Amarpal Narang, who purchased Barnhill Marina in late 2021.

⇑⇓ A WORD FROM AN ALAMEDA COMMODORE

We place both great value and confidence in our liveaboards in Alameda.

The most challenging thing to get non-boaters in government and in the local non-boating community to understand is this: Marinas do not rent out boats that select boaters use as accommodation. Berthing arrangements are already governed under federal maritime law, and boats most definitely are not "housing stock."

Using a boat for full-time accommodation is not something just anyone can do; a boat is in an environment of constant decay, floating on a slowly corrosive medium, further aggravated by the weather and sun exposure. Boats are a conveyance of transportation, with an inherently elevated measure of risk, which is why they are heavily regulated by myriad state and federal entities.

Selecting someone to have a liveaboard license requires that they are able to fully maintain their vessel, occupy

There are times when we feel as if the Alameda City Council and government are unaware that they live on an island, and are uninterested in hearing from the maritime community. When a rent moratorium for foating homes in Alameda was under discussion, the City Council considered extending tenant protections to "other maritime residential tenancies," in Alameda, meaning all liveaboards. Marina owners said they were not notified or asked for their input.

it safely, and ensure they have fully self-sustaining systems aboard, and that they will keep their boats insured and registered and fully in compliance with a multitude of marine statutes and regulations. All of this means a sailor has to have the experience, judgment and resources to be a liveaboard, and for as long as they intend to live that lifestyle.

What may seem to a non-boater to be a very "cheap" way of living, especially in localities with extremely expensive and limited housing, really is not cheap at all when you factor in the expense of maintenance and effort requisite to safely be a liveaboard on one's own vessel.

The relatively modest fees for offering liveaboard licenses are set that way for the mutual benefit of both the boater and the marina. Liveaboards are 24/7 sentinels and stewards for the waterways and harbors we care about. For that reason, we consider them to be our finest boaters. Recent attempts to impose on marinas regulations written for actual housing stock aside, we have no inclination or motive to price out or close out our liveaboards.

And for that reason, we look with great concern at anchor-outs who are under no such legal compact of

LETTERS

responsibility and safety for themselves or the environment, especially with nests of boats where city and county enforcement is almost nonexistent. Every unregistered, uninsured, unmaintained anchor-out is an inevitable disaster waiting to happen. Lives are at risk.

⇑⇓ A WORD FROM THE FATHER OF A LIVEABOARD

My son had been a liveaboard at two marinas over the last seven years, but not at this marina [Oyster Cove Marina], where these people have to move. I lived in the Bay Area for almost 60 years, and at one time, there was enjoyment in seeing the coastline. But now you have big companies ruining what should be left to be scenic.

I'd rather see boats, marinas, beaches, and children and families BBQing rather than some BS buildings that block the Bay. There are plenty of places they can put up buildings that are not blocking the Bay. I don't know who the attorney representing these people [at OCM] is, but the fact these people should be grandfathered in doesn't seem to work anymore. That's why Pete's Harbor in Redwood City is not there anymore.

Joseph was commenting on the July 15 'Lectronic Latitude: Oyster Cove Marina Liveaboards Have Been Told to Evict on Short Notice. At the same time that Alameda was discussing including liveaboards under the umbrella of tenant protections, residents at OCM were being evicted, illustrating two extremes faced by a portion of the liveaboard community.

⇑⇓

A WORD FROM SOMEONE STILL AT OYSTER COVE MARINA

I'm still a holdout at Oyster Cove Marina along with a few others — about 16 boats out of 109 remain.

Our lawyer found we were improperly noticed for eviction, so we are in a gray area. Our work will now be to get allies and work on the BCDC to increase the liveaboard percentages. All of our full-time residents here were placed in Oyster Point Marina for a maximum of 11 months to allow them to find a liveaboard slip elsewhere, with slight success.

There is a plethora of oyster-named marinas in San Francisco's South Bay. Oyster Point Marina is in the foreground; Oyster Cove Marina is the smaller set of docks tucked away behind the building in the middle-right of the photo. After evicting longtime liveaboards this year, OCM is now virtually empty.

Matt Klien Irwin 31

Oyster Cove Marina South San Francico

⇑⇓

A WORD ABOUT SNEAKABOARDS

As a liveaboard, I'm about 50/50 on sneakaboards.

LETTERS

We spent a few years having a good amount of privacy because we were spaced away from other liveaboards. Then, in the space of a year, we were surrounded by about four sneakaboards within a few slips of us (and one sharing our finger slip).

For the most part, they are nice and just want to live here quietly, which I'm fine with. A handful have been problems, and I really wish the marina would evict them to keep the area peaceful. I would report the bad ones if it meant leaving the ones who are here quietly and peacefully — and if I thought our marina's harbormaster would actually do anything about it.

⇑⇓ WE LEAVE YOU WITH A THOUGHT ABOUT SAN MIGUEL AND THE CHANNEL ISLANDS

Having been an aircrewman at Point Mugu Naval Airstation in the late '70s, I became very familiar with the Channel Islands due to low-level aero tours while on hold during range-clearance operations.

San Miguel was often under FBI surveillance because of smugglers using the island as a remote landing destination. I am really happy that the offshore realm is now a park and marine sanctuary. Truly, it's the best use imaginable.

⇑⇓ IT'S ALWAYS A BIT TOO WINDY

I want to go to San Miguel, but it's

and Dennis were commenting on the November 4 'Lectronic: The Remote Encounters

Recent History of San Miguel Island. In that story, we mistakenly posted photos of camping grounds on Santa Rosa Island, labeling them as being on San Miguel.

Woodenya' know it! Our readers got chopping on November's Caption Contest(!) and felled us with some great humor that we never saw coming. But really, our hearts, and our mirth, go out to the owner of the boat below, and we hope the yard crew were able to cut through the flotsam and chalk up a win in the game of marine debris versus boat.

"A new definition of 'woodie' that I haven't seen before." — Scott Henry.

"I said 'make a log entry,' but not like that!!!!" — John Dickerson.

"What happened to that Knarr we saw a minute ago?" — Tim McCormick.

"FOR SALE: Wood chipper, slightly used." — @dirty_trail_ clean_mind.

"Completely stumped!" — David Woo.

"The throttle was stuck wide open! The wheel was frozen! We were headed right for Alcatraz! I ripped the nav station right off the wall, tossed it over, and thank God it stopped in the nick of time!" — Dag Gano.

"I wood motor 500 miles and I wood motor 500 more…" — @coreyblaser.

"Hey, Long John! We've found your leg." —Rob Falconer.

"The old game, paper, stone, scissors has been replaced with water, wood, propeller. Wood won this game." — John Carapiet.

"Wood in boat." — Brad Cornelius.

"I really don't know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it is because in addition to the fact that the sea changes and the light changes, and ships change, it is because we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch it, we are going back from whence we came." — President John F. Kennedy.

SIGHTINGS

a nipper's guide to being value-added listen up!

A few weeks before getting protested on our race to Hawaii, I had a friend come up to me wearing the newest and best offshore sailing gear. He had the equipment and the enthusiasm, but along the way, in his journey of getting the right gear, he wasn't able to find many guides about actually sailing offshore. There are plenty of guides on what to purchase and what gear is best, and there are also many great stories about sailing offshore. In addition, there are many good guides and playbooks for jibes, peels, inline changes and so forth. They're worth reading and knowing the lingo. But information appears lacking regarding what you can do to actually make yourself valuable. As a person lucky enough to be the permanent new guy or "nipper" on some incredible programs, I have learned from some amazingly talented sailors. So I thought I'd share some universal lessons I have picked up.

When you get into the art of endurance racing, you can generally count your chances of emerging victorious by the willingness of your crew to

continued on outside column of next sightings page

There are plenty of offshore races in Northern California for gaining skills and experience.

We now have winners for the Spracht BoneHead bone conduction headphones we offered in a one-year-anniversary prize drawing from a pool of readers who signed up for our Good Jibes podcast email list.

The lucky recipients have been listening to at least one of our now 66 episodes of sea stories, adventures and West Coast insights into the world of racing, cruising and sailing on San Francisco Bay, to Catalina Island, in Mexico or around the world.

We heard first from Grant Du Plooy from Concord, who said, "Thanks for letting me know about my BoneHead win. I can't wait to try it out on the new Jeanne Socrates podcast!"

a nipper's guide — continued good jibes winners

Next up was Karla Jacobs from San Rafael, who wrote in saying, "Really? I won something? Oh boy! I'll send you a photo of me listening to your podcast. My favorite Good Jibes podcast was the one featuring Dawn Riley."

Then came winner Andy Buck, who was just happy to win and will be synching his new device in San Diego.

Finally, Christian Siefert with the Ericson 34 Outatime sailing out of Antioch responded after receiving the notification that he'd won. "I am super-excited to have been selected for the One-Year-Anniversary Contest. I will definitely follow up with a picture

tackle problems as a cohesive unit. In this league, ego is a card held by the losing team. Sleep is a weapon, and consistency in driving, trimming, and navigating prevails over all else. Things happen both more slowly and faster offshore; sail changes at night can rapidly turn into a total cluster with improper action. Crew cohesion (attitude) and proper delegating are critical before the race even begins.

Everyone has been the new guy. But good practice is the best remedy. All-around instrument guru Peter King has said, "Having the best systems, sails and numbers will only be as beneficial as telling you a tack was bad if your team isn't performing well." Once aligned with a team, think in terms of your role as a benefit to others. Break things down procedurally. You are a cog in the machine and should operate as such. Many times, maneuvers are done in rough conditions and on low sleep. So to be of the best value, carry a smile while you help pull down that spinnaker on your off-watch. Effort is critical and that means practicing your job as well as helping with the jobs of others. In other words, once you know your primary job, learn the jobs of others. This is your secondary tasking, something you have a good idea of and can complete in the event your crew is not able. Look at your jobs as tasks. Break things down into stages. This creates a stronger economy of motion for the operation being completed.

One of the best things you can do as a new addition to a team is to hike harder than everyone else. Doing this in the literal sense helps flatten the boat and shows considerable effort on your part. But more importantly, it trains your mind to put in 100%, to push through the initial pain and work hard. You can accomplish much more through your mind than through your muscles. Having a mindset of always putting in 100% will literally make the boat faster. While racing, put your hand up to pack the spinnaker, clean the sheets, and help where possible. "An object in motion stays in motion." This rule holds true to an extent while racing. Staying alert, in tune with the boat, and ready for the next maneuver is what separates the great sailors from the good ones. Neil Fraiser of Mexican Divorce infamy, an incredibly accomplished West Coast skipper, once corrected me prior to a peel when I had a sheet rigged incorrectly. He was in the back of the boat, trimming. But he understood what had to happen in the next maneuver and was able to correct a mistake before it happened.

Finally, take a page out of the pros' handbook: Torben Grael is an off-wind sailing idol, an extremely accomplished sailor in his own right — his downwind sailing is the stuff of legends. When interviewed by a sailing publication, he stated that his inner monologue while at the helm is simply, "I am Torben, I am Torben." He reduces thoughts and focuses on the task at hand. When sailing, don't overthink and don't let your mind wander. Focus on the present moment. Take time to think about what's next, but don't think about tomorrow. Be like Torben. — aidan mobley

untethered

At 12:23 a.m. on that moonless night, we were 25 miles out from Monterey Harbor, pounding through heavy seas and struggling to keep things upright in winds peaking above 33 miles per hour. As the keel spun out from under the rig yet again and we lurched into another violent broach, it hit me.

Graduation day was still a week off. Senior prom wasn't for another 12 hours and an unlikely early morning bus ride away — if the boy even made it. His Eagle Scout court of honor was a parental pipe dream at this point. Yet, at that moment, in rising seas and the howling winds of a coming squall, I realized it: My little boy was now a man.

When I finally bought our J/24 — registered in both our names — and began racing, he usually drove while I trimmed and crewed. With all the rites of passage available to a middle-class kid living on the edge of suburbia, his quintessential rite was, appropriately, during a passage.

continued on outside column of next sightings page

Spread: James Mercer at the helm in the calmer conditions following the start of the Spinnaker Cup. Inset: Father and son with restorative chili at Monterey Peninsula Yacht Club following the boisterous race.

good jibes winners

and comment as to why I love Good Jibes, and my favorite episode. Thank you again for providing us listeners with such a wonderful podcast and for the opportunity to help celebrate the one-year anniversary."

You don't have to win to listen. You can head to www.latitude38.com/goodjibes or tune in at Apple podcasts or anywhere else you look for digital entertainment and enlightenment.

Keep your eyes and ears open — we have good stories on the printed page and for easy listening. And we may have another contest coming along too.

no one reads anymore

We beg to differ. If you're reading these words, you may never have heard of Tik Tok, or you're tired of watching cats jump ing at ceiling fans — or maybe that was Ins tagram? Either way, we have fresh evidence that people are reading.

We recently opened an online bookstore at https://bookshop.org/shop/latitude38, where you can shop from a curated collec tion of books that have been recommended by our Good Jibes podcast guests. As a test, we ordered Jack London's Tales of the Fish Patrol, about his days chasing fishing out laws on San Francisco Bay in the 1890s.

continued in middle column of next sightings page

untethered — continued

The Spinnaker Cup from San Francisco to Monterey started under the Golden Gate before transitioning into a completely foggy, cold and rainy evening. Finally, a fresh breeze and a developing gale enveloped the fleet. We reached like a bat out of hell toward the final mark, already tasting the famous chili and chocolate chip cookies awaiting us at 2 a.m. at the Mon terey Peninsula Yacht Club.

My son was mid-bow on Wildcard, a racer-cruiser — emphasis on racer. The Santa Cruz 37 was designed to fly downwind on offshore races, with a carbon fiber hull and rig, a massive sail plan, and a stiletto keel around which the boat could spin on windward broaches. I was pit. Middle of the boat. I relayed communication from the helm to the bow, ran halyards and tack lines, and played a key role in sail changes.

As the winds rose, everyone was clipped in. The skipper made sure of it. As night descended, the endurance race began wearing on us. Visibility decreased to as far as the lifelines, with just a few phantom, distant glows that might be a trawler, another racer or a reflection in our own retinas.

The best drivers were taking turns on the helm, but even then it was like keeping an avalanche under control. Jerk the wheel and throw the stern left and right. Keep the center of gravity underneath the mast and that masthead spinnaker. Don't let the speed of surfing down the increasingly large swells turn us to windward.

There were plenty of broaches.

My son expertly rigged the smaller spinnaker as I eased or tightened control lines. We peeled from the biggest A2 to the A4, a smaller, more manageable fractional downwind sail. But still, we wiped out several times. That's normal.

A broach can be slow — a few seconds before all hell breaks loose. Or it can be fast and violent. Surfing down a wave, a puff hits you, the driver pumps the wheel to leeward, but the wind spins the boat like a top, with the rudder unable to overcome the force of a massive piece of canvas pulling the yacht over.

While blowing the vang, and sometimes the mainsheet and spinnaker sheet, you also have a more urgent need to grapple for something to keep you on the boat. You're still in 6-ft or even 12-ft waves, but now the deck is vertical and you're staring down into the black abyss, with nothing be tween you and the bottom of the submarine Monterey Canyon but a mile of frigid water. The waves wash over the leeward rail and splash that winch that you need to get to.

You cling to whatever you can while also trying to do your duty in right ing the boat. Unfortunately, your feet can't grip a vertical cockpit floor. You hang on because you do not want to go into that water. Losing someone overboard is not a good way to win a race. And it's cold. And potential ly lethal. You're tethered in, but tethers fail. Even when you're tethered, the water is frigid, fast-moving and dangerous. You don't want to be in it, dragged along by the boat.

It was at this precise moment, as I hung from the companionway, that my 18-year-old son was directly above me, staring down. He knelt on the port side of the cabin, which was now facing the clouds, and said words I couldn't fathom.

"Dad! Unclip my tether!"

"What?!" I yelled above the thunderclaps of the flapping spinnaker. Right then was pretty much the worst possible moment to be unclipped from a boat.

"Dad, now! Unclip my tether!"

Finally grasping what he meant, I also suddenly had the epiphany that all those 18 years of teaching knot-tying, how to ride a two-wheel, how to get down from a tree when you've climbed too high, how to drive a car, even parallel park — all of it culminated in this highly skilled and competent crewmember who could do a complex spinnaker peel in zero visibility.

So I unclipped his tether, which had been clipped to the leeward jack line, now dangerously close to the water, which was not where he wanted to be attached. It was time to let go and trust him to make the right calls.

untethered — continued no one reads anymore

What I didn't grasp at first was now crystal clear. He needed me to re lease his tether so he could do the job he was required to do.

And of course, he was safe and secure. He had on a double tether, and the shorter leash was already safely attached to the windward jackline above me.

We got the sail back under control and pointed the bow down toward the mark, screaming toward Monterey at more than 16 knots, exhausted and smiling ear-to-ear.

It was a good bowl of chili, and he made that bus to the senior prom, and finally had his Eagle Scout ceremony in August. But it was in that moment offshore, as he looked to me to free him so he could maneuver, I realized my boy had already become his own man.

— brandon mercer

Brandon Mercer races J/24s out of Richmond YC and recently completed the Pac Cup on Wildcard while his son taught sailing classes and packed for college. James Mercer is a freshman at the Rochester Institute of Technol ogy and made the sailing team, taking first place in his first intercollegiate regatta, sailing 420s in the Battle of Lake Erie.

pacific puddle jump — westward ho!

During the many years we've reported on the annual migration of cruis ers from the West Coast to French Polynesia, we've made some fascinating observations. One of our favorites is that such ambitious cruising plans are often inspired by a book, movie or spoken story heard decades before the would-be voyager ever set foot on a sailboat — Moby Dick, Tales of the South Pacific, Mutiny on the Bounty and Robinson Crusoe come to mind.

We've also learned that long before beginning the often-month-long crossing to Polynesia, the pre-departure challenges can seem monumen tal: not only buying and equipping an appropriate boat, but also securing commitments from reliable crew, and finding time to study up on the exotic places and cultures that you hope to visit. Add to all this the fact that most bluewater dreamers must find or create a window of time when obligations to family members, financial concerns, and personal health and fitness all line up to give them a green light to pursue a stint of offshore adventuring.

Given such challenges, we can only imagine how frustrating it must have been when the COVID pandemic forced hundreds of fully prepared voyagers to put their South Pacific plans on ice — with many forced to leave their boats in limbo in foreign ports.

At this writing, however, virtually all island groups in the Central South Pacific have reopened their borders to foreign yachts once again. And the 2023 Pacific Puddle Jump rally is now taking sign-ups. Widely known as a loosely structured event whose focus is on fleet-wide safety and camarade rie, the PPJ typically attracts a disparate collection of cruising boats from a dozen or more nations. They depart independently from a variety of ports along the west coast of the Americas, any time between late February and early June.

The largest number of boats typically depart from Nuevo Vallarta, Mex ico, and Panama City, Panama. In both locations the PPJ will partner with representatives from the nonprofit South Pacific Sailing Network to present highly informative South Pacific Bon Voyage seminars. (Dates TBA soon: January in Panama and March in Nuevo Vallarta. Free to all.)

From Panama it's roughly 4,000 miles to landfall in the Marquesas Is lands — the easternmost of French Polynesia's five archipelagos — with an optional stop en route at the Galápagos Islands. The trip from Nuevo Val larta is roughly 3,000 miles. On either route, passagemakers will typically face a variety of wind and sea conditions, with the wild card for navigators being the ever-changing band of unsettled weather called the ITCZ (Inter tropical Convergence Zone), aka the Doldrums. Lucky boats have reported the Zone to be narrow enough to cross in an hour, despite its occasionally expanding to 200 miles wide!

It's a quick read, and we thought, "Why not mail it to the first Latitude 38 reader who raises their hand and gives us their mailing address?"

We posted this offer on 'Lectronic Latitude on Monday, November 14, and had our win ner two minutes later, with 10 more read ers raising their hands within an hour and about 30 people total within 24 hours.

London's book tells stories of the Fish Pa trol's pursuit of poachers, done under sail within an area from the South Bay up into the Delta. It was a dangerous job, facing off against fishermen who were occasionally

armed and dangerous. The list of sea life that he and the Fish Patrol were aiming to protect included sturgeon, shrimp and oysters. (Oyster Cove Marina — currently on the endangered-marinas list — and Oyster Point Marina are a tribute to that era.) Sadly, they didn't save any of those species, but they did have amazing adventures.

We did not set our bookstore up on Amazon because Bezos has enough people contributing to his 417-ft, three-masted megacatastrophe. We set it up with bookshop.org, which shares its profits to help

puddle jump — continued

A PPJ vessel tracking chart with daily position posting will be facilitated by PredictWind, and will be viewable in real time on the event website: www.pacificpuddlejump.com. Being able to follow the fleet's daily progress is not only fascinating for friends and family, but it adds immeasurably to the peace of mind of PPJ fleet monitors.

The PPJ has also enjoyed a long partnership with the Tahiti Crew yacht agency, which gives fleet members discounts on all of their services, including duty-free fuel certificates (40% savings beginning in Marquesas).

As you can imagine, there are typically many tasks to tick off on every Puddle Jumper's "to-do list" before he or she is ready to up-anchor and head west. But one of the most important is often forgotten: taking the time to learn a little basic French. Doing so will add immeasurably to the richness of your interactions with islanders. (Some do speak English, in continued on outside column of next sightings page

SIGHTINGS

puddle jump — continued

addition to Polynesian dialects.)

It's often said that the islands of French Polynesia are some of the most beautiful in the world. We think that's partly due to the fact that mass tourism has never been allowed here, and generations-old cultural traditions are still highly revered. Once you arrive, we think you'll feel as we do, that it is truly a "privilege" to spend time here. So whether you cross to the islands with the PPJ fleet or on your own, we ask you to show respect — as always — and leave a clean wake for those who follow.

katie pettibone podcast with moe roddy

It's not every day that you get to sit down with one of your heroes and have a one-on-one chat about your favorite subject, sailing, but that is exactly what I got to do when I sat down with Katie Pettibone to interview her for a Good Jibes podcast. Even as I sit here now and see her name in print, I can recall the thousands of times I have seen her name and followed her sailing adventures.

Sometime in the late '90s, several years after the women's America's Cup team hit the waves, I got into sailing multihulls. I had a wonderful man in my life who lived and breathed multihulls. Early in his career he worked for Dick Newick, and by the time I met him, he had designed and built a 56-ft trimaran that we often doublehanded. We sailed her from as far south as Antigua and all the way to Newport, RI, several times. People came into my life who were part of that multihull world. One of them was a competitor in a race called the Worrell 1,000. The Worrell 1,000 is a grueling 1,000-mile offshore race held on the East Coast, going from Florida to Virginia. In the early days of the race, it was raced in 16-ft Hobie Cats.

By 2001, I was following just about all offshore racing, especially if it had a multihull as part of the competition. That year I was so excited to follow the Worrell 1,000, as now I knew several of the competitors. I was also up to my eyeballs in full awe of Ellen MacArthur and Kingfisher and the Vendée Globe, having followed this petite woman across the Atlantic Ocean from Plymouth, England, to Newport, RI, in 2000. Following Ellen began to awaken my own aspirations of singlehanding; she proved to all of us that even being a woman and only 5-ft 2-in tall, we can handle a boat and handle her well.

I was reading everything I could about other women who singlehanded, and my list of heroes grew to include not only Ellen but Naomi James, Florence Arthaud and Isabelle Autissier. On their heels, in 2001, came a woman by the name of Katie Pettibone racing in the Worrell 1,000, and she just blew me away! I mean, the Worrell 1,000 is about as grueling as any sailing gets. How did this woman escape my radar? Well, now I had her in my sights, and every morning of the 2001 Worrell I would wake up early before work to get onto my computer and check the Worrell website for the latest updates, "Go, Katie, go! OK, you too, Rod (her skipper)." Katie sailed into that realm of a Moe hero. I had no idea she had already raced in the Whitbread or the America's Cup; I was living the life of a mother and nurse on St. John in those days, dreaming of cruising and sailing around the world. I was oblivious to what professional female sailors were capable of and what they were doing. It wasn't until my marriage broke up that I realized there was no longer anyone who was going to take me cruising, and, if I really wanted to go, I had better get off my keister and learn how to take myself.

Fast-forward 20 years and I let the dock lines go in Newport, RI, dropped a hook in Sausalito, and retired from nursing. I somehow ended up on the board of directors for the St. Francis Sailing Foundation, and to my astonishment, there was that name again, Katie Pettibone, also on the advisory board. The first time I met her, I didn't say two words past hello; it was just as well, as I probably would have stuttered. Here was a woman whom I had admired from afar, who had no idea that she'd inspired me to reach beyond my own personal fear and become a sailor in my own right. Associating her

no one reads — cont.

small, independent booksellers.

With more than 30 responses, it's apparent that people do read. We received comments such as, "You guys have a very popular mag. I always open it quickly; I guess just not as quickly as some!" and, "Love Latitude 38 and always wanted to read Tales of the Fish Patrol," and, "Tales of the Fish Patrol sounds like a great read, especially since I live in Jack London Square."

Who won? Reader and Catalina 22 owner Vikas Kapur from Sunnyvale was the first to be quick on his keyboard. The book is in the mail. We wish we had more copies to mail out, but they are available online at https://bookshop.org/shop/latitude38. — john

Clockwise from here: Katie Pettibone with 11th Hour Racing; Katie climbs high wherever she goes; Moe Roddy has singlehanded in the Bermuda 1-2 and is now active on the StFYC race committee; from big boats to small cats to Olympic dinghies, Katie has conquered them all.

eight bells for jim dewitt

As we were finishing up this issue to send it to press, we received the sad news that Jim DeWitt of Point Richmond passed away on Saturday, November 19, at the age of 92.

Jim was long admired on the Bay and beyond as a competitive sailor and a sail maker before becoming one of the most respected marine artists of the era. A col orful character with colorful paintings of Bay sailing and more, he will be missed by friends, family and the entire sailing com munity.

We'll have more, but in the meantime, please take a look back at our profile of Jim in our February, 2021, issue.

katie pettibone — continued

with the Worrell was just the beginning of what I came to know about her and all her accomplishments. Then suddenly she was sitting at a confer ence table a few seats down from me. It was surreal.

As you listen to what was a very special podcast for me, I hope that you too will come to appreciate and be inspired by all of Katie's accom plishments as you hear, in her own words, what it was like to be a part of the America's Cup, the Olympics, the Whitbread, the Volvo Ocean Race and the Worrell 1,000. There are so few sailors, men or women, who have achieved so much and who remain approachable and humble, and con tinue to be among my heroes. If you are a woman listening to the podcast, I hope you are inspired to take the word "impossible" out of your vocabulary and dream big.

You can listen to Moe and Katie talk in Episode #37. Connect from www. latitude38.com/goodjibes, Apple podcasts, or wherever you reach your fa vorite podcasts.

opinion: the dreams and déjà vu

When residents at Oyster Cove Marina were given eviction notices in June, it felt like déjà vu.

In 2018, about 70 owners and tenants in Docktown were ousted in the wake of a lawsuit claiming that liveaboards were on public trust lands. Redwood City abruptly settled the suit, and the former residents are still in court, but long story short, Docktown is no longer a liveaboard marina. In 2013, as many as 114 liveaboards at Pete's Harbor — now known as Blu Harbor — were given the boot when a devel oper bought the property. There were an estimated 32 people living on boats at Oyster Cove Marina this summer, with an October 14 deadline to vacate. Matt Klein, who is still at OCM aboard his Irwin 31, said he's one of four liveaboards and 16 boats still left. There are rumors of a class action against OCM owner Kilroy Realty, as well as an effort to lobby the Bay Conservation and Development Commission to amend the law and raise the liveaboard cap to 25%.

It's déjà vu all over again: People living on boats in the Bay Area often find themselves colliding with waterfront develop ment and are displaced into an ever-shrinking market.

Here's how the debate has played out time and again: When it's a public marina, such as Docktown, we often rehash the history of regulation on the Bay. The 1965 McAteer-Petris Act sought to prevent "indiscriminate filling," and created the BCDC to regulate the Bay Area's waterfront. It was a semi

nal moment, and the BCDC should be heralded for cleaning up the Bay. But suspended in limbo were people living on boats. Were they, somehow, "fill"? (Of course not.) Jumping back onto the merry-go-round, there would be more than 30 years of debate over just what liveaboards were, while sailors explained to lawmakers how plumbing and graywater tanks work. There's never really been a wholesale acceptance of liveaboards; they've largely been outcasts falling between the cracks — sometimes by accident, sometimes by design.

When it's a private facility that evicts liveaboards, such as Oyster Cove Marina or Pete's before it, we often bemoan the ever-gentrifying face of the waterfront, and wonder how much (if any) control we have over what the Bay becomes next. But we're not trying to cling to the past. We know that change is inevitable, and we know that marinas built in the '70s are often slowly decaying relics of a different economic era.

We once had romantic and unrealistic notions about how liveaboards might offer some minuscule amount of relief to the housing crisis. Now, we're reluctant to mix the idea of liveaboards and housing, which is exactly how the issue has been trending. We are now advocating for threading the nee dle between a robust liveaboard community and the humane treatment of people on boats who are being displaced, and to prevent the housing crisis from further encroaching on mari nas and recreational sailing.

Behold the "Maritime Ecosystem" of the San Francisco Bay Area. Unlike other nooks of the West Coast, the Bay Area's marinas are spread out and subject to local laws instead of a single, unifying maritime plan, such as in San Di ego. Clockwise from top left: The Oakland Estuary has been a source of conflict, with floating-home marinas and anchor-outs in the news; South San Francisco, with Brisbane Marina at the top, Oyster Point Marina on the bottom right, and the now-former Oyster Cove Marina tucked away on the left; Sausalito is home to hundreds of boats and foating homes; the now liveaboardless Docktown Marina in Redwood City; Richmond's Marina Bay, right, and Point Richmond.

of living on a boat in the bay area

The owners of Oyster Cove Marina, Kilroy Realty, met with the BCDC in late July to inform staff that they were in the early stages of designing a future project for the site. We have reached out to Kilroy Realty on several occasions, as well as to the Tideline Marine Group, which took over management of the harbor in July, but have never gotten a response regard ing what their plans are for the site, or why there was a rush to evict the longtime tenants when the marina is now sitting virtually empty, with no apparent plans for future use.

We respect a business's right to reinvent itself, but why boot people out just to have an empty harbor? This kind of action has repercussions on the entire liveaboard ecosystem, and understandably forces residents to fight for their rights.

The lawyer representing OCM liveaboards says that the marina was a "residential real property subject to the Tenant Protection Act of 2019," and that any lack of compliance with the TPA would be considered a "wrongful eviction for which civil claims may be made."

OCM represents one extreme swing of the pendulum. On the other extreme, the Alameda City Council granted a rentincrease and eviction moratorium to about 60 floating-home residents at Barnhill Marina and Boatyard this summer, and is considering extending those protections to "other maritime residential tenancies," meaning all liveaboard boats, taking the liveaboard debate into new territory.

Some people living on boats have little protection as rent ers, while floating homes now have broad shielding of their status as tenants via the Alameda ordinance as well as a state law. Signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in September, AB 252 imposes rent control on nearly 480 floating-home berths across Alameda, Contra Costa, and Marin counties. (We asked the lawmakers who wrote AB 252 why the bill cov ers only three counties, and doesn't include San Francisco, San Diego, etc., but did not receive a response.)

Several residents at Barnhill Marina told us they are con cerned about the new owners' history as landlords. Amar pal Narang and Valley Investments LLC purchased Barnhill in late 2021; the company owns the Buena Fortuna Village apartments in Visalia. A November 2020 article in the Fresno Bee said that management at the Buena Fortuna property — which included Amar's daughter Drishti, who now lives at Barnhill and is involved in operations there — "has not addressed [tenant] complaints and concerns about bug and roach infestations; water damage on their ceilings; broken appliances; rent increases; random fees and arbitrary de mands for deposits, ranging from $500 to as high as $1,800. According to records, Amar Narang operates at least six other properties in the area."

Several floating-home marina owners told us they were not consulted in the drafting of AB 252, and said that without their being able to raise berth fees with inflation, the sus tainability of their businesses is threatened. "If this bill is enforced, we may have to sell the harbor due to financial concerns," said Becky Smith, the property manager at the 282-home Waldo Point Harbor in Sausalito, one of the largest floating-home marinas in the country.

Is it really this hard to maintain a sustainable ecosystem for people living on boats and floating homes?

Though residents at Barnhill might have legitimate con cerns about their new owners, it is still in homeowners' best interest to be in a financially sustainable marina; without a harbor to berth in, the equity in their floating homes is null. This is where we might have more unrealistic notions that all parties, at least in the floating-home ecosystem, can sit down and have a frank discussion about what a sustainable marina looks like. "There's a misconception some residents have that the harbor makes so much money, and we don't," Becky Smith at Waldo Point said.

And what of those people being displaced from marinas? Is there any sustainability in their futures? A number of ves sels from Oyster Cove Marina were temporarily moved to the nearby, county-owned Oyster Point Marina, where the BCDC temporarily relaxed the liveaboard cap of 10% for one year, while people continue to look for liveaboard slips. According to one source, however, there is already a 77-person wait ing list for liveaboard slips at Oyster Point. When a marina closes, "absorption" does not occur, but rather, anxiety.

We understand the urge to offer broad renter protections to liveaboards, but we worry that this might fundamentally change marinas and harbors as we know them, and swing from one extreme to the other. Many people believe it's time to raise the liveaboard caps in marinas that have the facilities to accommodate more people. Please, stop quoting a smart but dated and arcane law that no longer applies to the cur rent ecosystem. Conversely, we all know that not everyone can live indefinitely on a boat, and that it's truly a dream life to have, for as long as you can. Just please hold the déjà vu.

Latitude 38 and the Baja Ha-Ha would like to thank all participants and sponsors for making 2022 another spectacular year for sailing South. The dream is kept alive by those who have sailed before and made possible by the people and organizations who support this cruise of a lifetime.

You won't hear from the Baja Ha-Ha again until spring 2023 when we get ready to open entries for the 29th running of this annual cruising rally.

Baja Ha-Ha 2023 Registration Opens Early May Departure Early November

To keep in touch with announcements follow 'Lectronic Latitude at www.latitude38.com.

(619) 224-2349 (866) 341-6189 Fax (619) 224-4692

"This, my first Ha-Ha, was so much fun that I want to do it every year until I drop." — John Santon, Wild Grace, Hunter 356

"This was the first of what will be many Ha-Ha's for us. We sailed in excel lent winds most of the time, met great people, saw tons of sea life, and ate like kings. We loved the locals and donated lots of new baseball gear at Turtle Bay." — Michael Chobotov, Venture, Jean neau SO 49

"What a 'rowdy' bunch, which is the highest compliment I can pay a group. A Ha-Ha virgin, I was impressed with the organization and super-impressed with how everybody pitched in to help people who had various issues. I would never want to go without a group like the Ha-Ha." Kelly Hu, who plays a de tective along with Snoop Dogg on the television series Black Family Mafia — Malolo, Lagoon 42

Eighty-eight boats ultimately fin ished the participant-pleasing 28th an nual Baja Ha-Ha cruiser's rally from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas, with R&R stops in funky Turtle Bay and spectac ular Bahia Santa Maria. The fleet fea tured 78 monohulls between 32 and 57 feet, 10 of them sailing with white sails only.

The most noteworthy monohull was Zachery Singer and Sail MS's Andrews 56 Encore. The entire team, except for Capt. Eugenie Russell and Singer's wife Karina, are living with multiple sclerosis. It was a "super-emotional" trip for the MS folks, as sailing has given added purpose to their lives. It was for Russell, too, as they sailed past the spot where a whale had sunk her boat in the 2009 Ha-Ha. "I got chills when I remembered watching the top of the boat's mast slip beneath the sur face on what was my sixth Ha-Ha, and

had a moment of silence for all my stuff that had ended up on the bottom of the ocean."

There were nine multihulls between 32 and 44 feet, and one 40-ft Nordhavn motor yacht whose owners decided to do the Ha-Ha rather than the power boat CUBAR because they'd previously done a Ha-Ha and thought "sailors are more fun".

The fleet represented about a 30% drop from last year. Why? You'll remem ber that last year everybody was buying any kind of "escape vehicle" they could to get some freedom after the restric tions imposed by COVID. This year has been different, as inflation has been brutal, the stock market has plunged, and the housing market is either stag nant or slipping. There has also been an unsettling war in Ukraine, and this was a summer of anxiety over the mo mentous midterm elections. All in all, a lot of mariners, no matter if they'd been planning to do the Pacific Cup, the CUBAR, the Ha-Ha, or another event, pulled in their horns.

To look on the bright side of things, a smaller Ha-Ha meant it was a more intimate event. It was easier to see the same folks several times in a group of 380 than 550, thus making it easier to bond with new friends.

As always, the participants ranged from extremely experienced ocean vets to skippers who have mostly done weekend trips, to a couple of crew who were stepping onto a sailboat for the first time. "My two crew had never been on a sailboat," reported Eric Smith of the Gemini 32 cat Big Idea, "but they caught on quickly and had a good time. We had a great trip."

When it comes to sailing of fshore, there are few better teachers than ex perience, and the Ha-Ha is arguably a

near-ideal venue for taking baby steps into that world. The winds and seas are generally mild and from astern, the legs aren't too long, the anchorages for the two R&R stops are huge and well-pro tected, and there is tremendous sup port within the fleet.

Participant after participant told us how much they’d learned and how much more confident they now are on the ocean. "We had a fabulous experi ence that increased our skill and con fidence — which were our goals for the trip," reported Hank and Su Kraus of the Gulfstar 37 Habibi

The wind along the Baja coast in ear ly November is almost always a mixed bag, with considerable light winds. But this year was better than most. Paul Kamen, who sailed on the Swan 55 Swan Fun, and who also gave a noon sight celestial class to 25 students on the beach in Turtle Bay, reported it fea tured the best overall wind of the four Ha-Ha's he's done.

His opinion was seconded by Rodney Pimentel of the Cal 40 Azure, a vet of six races to Hawaii. "We enjoyed great sailing, especially on the last leg."

The 360-mile first leg started out as a whif f, with the first 25 hours being declared a penalty-free "rolling start'' by the Poobah because of nearly nonexistent wind. However, one boat, Alec Charters' appropriately named Bene teau 44 Tenacious, bucked conven tional wisdom by sailing well offshore in hopes of finding a consistent breeze. They were rewarded with 12 to 15 knots all the way to Turtle Bay.

The other six boats that sailed the whole way on the first leg were Michael Terides’ CS 36 Wanuskewin, although that was mostly because the boat's en gine broke down; Viva, Pierre Blouin and Marie-Josee Dion's Amel Super Maramu 52; Venture, Michael Chobo tov's Jeanneau SO 49; Talion, Assistant Poobah Patsy Verhoeven's Gulfstar 50; Swan Fun, Joe Heinzmann's Oaklandbased Swan 55; and K2, Bryan Martin

and Nancy Virostko's Corsair 36.

For the third of the fleet that finished last, the final 100 miles of the first leg to Turtle Bay turned out to have fine wind — as much as 25 knots in gusts.

The 240-mile second leg to Bahia Santa Maria started out with an unusu ally consistent, mild breeze and spinna kers across the horizon. The wind con tinued to build and held into the wee hours of what was a spectacular moon lit night. As the wind eventually died, only one boat sailed the entire way, Patsy Verhoeven's Talion. No surprise there, as the Assistant Poobah is hard core, having sailed every leg of the past 16 Ha-Ha's despite handling all Ha-Ha communications and other duties.

The 175-mile third leg of the Ha-Ha is always special, for by then the fleet is sailing in warm, tropical air and water, the stars are brilliant, and this year's moon was as big as a pizza pie. Usually, the first 12 hours are very light, followed by moderate winds in the early evening, followed by very light if any wind in the wee hours. Not this year. The fleet had moderate winds for the first half of the leg, with an unusual gangbuster breeze in the early hours of the next morning, near the finish.

Many skippers reported hitting their top speeds ever. Bryan and Nancy's 16.5 knots with their Corsair 36 tri K2 probably topped the fleet. Some boats arrived in Cabo so early that they had to motor in circles for a few hours until it was light enough to see where to drop the hook.

Twenty boats sailed the entire third leg: the Hunter 41 Tranquility; Cal 33 Teaser II; Freedom 36 Evening Sky; Cre alock 37 Dolfin; J/122 Resolute; Cal 40 Azure; Jeanneau 42DS Touche; Jean neau 43 August Dream; Beneteau 44 Tenacious; Island Packet 440 Amazing Grace; Jeanneau 45.2 Silver Linings; Outbound 46 Thursday's Child; Jean neau 49 Venture; Gulfstar 50 Talion;

While this Night Watch dining photo of Paul Kamen on 'Swan Fun' might not be as famous as Rembrandt's painting of the same name, it's still evocative.

Super Maramu 52 Viva; Hylas 54 Voy ager; Swan 55 Swan Fun; Corsair 36 K2; Seawind 1160 Cuba Lista; and Sea wind 1260 Queso Grande

There is always some odd cruiser who, during the Ha-Ha time of year, makes numerous stops along the Baja coast and proclaims something to the effect that "people who do the Ha-Ha don't know what they're missing" be cause there are only three Ha-Ha stops.

As the Grand Poobah of the Ha-Ha, my attitude is that people ought to make their way down the coast of Baja at whatever speed and in the manner they wish. Take a month — assuming you and your crew have the time — and stop everywhere along the way. Terrific. Do the Ha-Ha? Fine. Whatever works best for anyone.

That said, the Poobah would like to of fer a gentle reminder of what people, particularly those with kids, miss who don't do the Ha-Ha; the Last Cheese burger in Paradise Kick-Off Costume Party at West Marine, where they can make 400 new cruising friends while getting 20% off (almost) everything in the store; getting presented with stuffed swag bags that include bios of every entry in the fleet; the glorious fireboatinitiated start off Shelter Island, which was on the front page of the San Di ego Union-Tribune; plus daily roll calls, weather reports, and plenty of inter-fleet VHF communication day and night.

In Turtle Bay, non-Ha-Ha'ers miss the big welcome from local Ha-Ha friends of a quarter of a century, for whom it has been one of the biggest events of those years. During the morn ing nets, there is almost nonstop shar ing of boat and systems knowledge, as well as boat and system parts. Such a big fleet is filled with a surprising amount of resources. Did we mention free sail repair from Ullman Sails?

There is also the world-famous Cruisers vs. Locals baseball game in Turtle Bay, where women and children are always safe. Tranquility reported that the highlight of first mate Beth's Ha-Ha was actually hitting the ball, thanks to some accurate pitching. Due to Ha-Ha fleet donations, the kids in the dusty village of Turtle Bay may be the best-equipped in the world.

The following day was the laid-back Beach Party, another great opportunity to make friends, and where the women have beat the men in Tug o' War for the past 17 years. The Poobah's hot dog stand at the Beach Party raised hun dreds of dollars. The money was used to partially pay for the initial colon can cer treatment of young Turtle Bay local Victor Gerado, whose mother Maria has been a dear Ha-Ha friend since the be ginning.

There was also plenty to do 240 miles down the coast at the Bahia San ta Maria second stop, including group surfing. Other small groups climbed the peaks for spectacular views of the bay, the mangroves, the sand dunes, and the not-too-distant Mag Bay. Small groups also wandered among the man groves or along the endless beach, col lecting sand dollars.

For the kids in the fleet — Jadsen, 11; Marin, 9; Rosie, 6; Elena, 9; Archer, 5; Margot, 8; Olivia, 9; Jordan, 10; Ad die, 10; and Mae, 8 — the BSM high light was the Poobah's Diving Olympics off the back of Profligate, and the après competition short swim to the floating Candy Island, sponsored by the Mexi can Dental Association. (Other kids in the fleet were Piper, 12; and Maxim, 8, who was present but had to sit the com petition out with a broken foot.)

But the highlight at BSM is always the surreal live rock 'n' roll party on the bluff the second day, with the band having traveled 10 hours from La Paz, by highway, by ferry, and by car on lowtide sand to play for tips. As always, lo cal host Victor had countless beers for sale and the local women cooked up seafood platters.

There were few slips in Cabo, but conditions in the anchorage proved so lovely that by the second day, space in the marina went begging.

On arrival night in Cabo, the Ha-Ha participants were warmly welcomed by Squid Roe for the silly but fun Cheated Death Again dance party.

As last year, the Ha-Ha scored the best venue on Medano Beach, the up per terrace of Mango Deck, for the "beach party." As a special bonus, there were 15% discounts on everything, and

no charge for an elevated view of the entire fleet at anchor and the arches in the distance.

The one bummer was when the Poobah had to call of f the From Here to Eternity Kissing Contest in the surf due to a lack of lustful applicants. But wait! Then Sue Drake of Island Summers ap peared on the Upper Terrace, soaking wet. "You can't call off the contest; my partner and I have been practicing in the surf for the last 15 minutes."

The "everybody is a winner" awards ceremony finale was on Saturday night, with 500 beers provided by the marina.

So while it's true that people in the Ha-Ha miss a couple of nice anchorages on the Baja coast, they also get a whole lot that people who don't do the Ha-Ha miss. In fact, the Ha-Ha is so packed with activities, all of them optional, that once the event is over, many partici pants say they felt as though the Ha-Ha had been two months long, not just two weeks.

And just one last thing: Almost every Ha-Ha participant will tell you that the very best thing about the Ha-Ha is the numerous friendships that are made through the group experience. Bonds that in many cases will last cruising seasons in Mexico, across the Pacific, or even lifetimes. Sure, people sailing down Baja alone make friends, too, but the pool is much smaller, and therefore with fewer ideal matches.

Thank you, Elon! Starlink proved to be a smashing success for those who had it, which about a third of the fleet did. Tim Dick reports that he experi enced almost no outages all the way from Marina del Rey to Cabo San Lu cas, and even across to Puerto Vallarta. That the Starlink service is geofenced about 12 miles offshore appears to be a myth, as it worked far offshore for most participants.

How helpful can Starlink be to an of f shore sailor? Viva reports they caught their first-ever fish while sailing, but had no idea how to kill and filet a tuna. "We killed it thanks to a rubber ham mer, and thanks to Starlink we were able to watch a YouTube video, phone in one hand, fish in the other, on how to filet it. In less than an hour, we had an ocean-to-plate seared-tuna salad, a major highlight of the trip for Viva."

Of course, that's just the beginning. Imagine you're offshore and are hav ing problems with your engine or any of your systems, and now you have the same internet knowledge resources you would have on land. It's even better than watching football or movies off shore.

Participants Tell the Ha-Ha Story Best

Here's what a few of them had to say:

Rachel Lynn, Fairweather Mariner 39 — "We three Ha-Ha newbies had beautiful sailing and a great adventure. We helped four individuals with medical issues, with one being an at-sea medi cal intervention, where we threw medi cal supplies from our boat to another boat. It was a perfect throw by Capt. Bob."

Stainsby Girl, Catalina 470 — "A crewmember had a few fingers crushed setting the whisker pole mid-day on leg three. Rachel Lynn gave medical as sistance at sea, and he later got good treatment at American Medical Center in Cabo. The injury wasn't as bad as first thought, as he lost some flesh but suffered no broken bones."

Sheila Gordon of Evening Sky — "I was sailing along one night and I thought I somehow got hit by a piece of seaweed. In the light of morning, I discovered it was actually a squid. We put it on a hook and landed a 26-inch tuna."

Resolute, J/122 — "Night sailing was sometimes scary to new crew on our performance J/122. We wrapped

a spinny sheet on the Saildrive. Good Times followed us for 40 miles, but with still no safe anchorage nearby, I dove over the side to remove the tangle."

Charlene, who claims to be 60 but who could pass for 30, on the Davidson 44 Imagine — "We ran out of alcohol, even though we started with four bot tles of vodka, lots of rum, and a case of beer. So we had to barter gas for vodka, tuna for beer, beef jerky and some kind of regulator for some other alcohol. Yes, we'll do the Ha-Ha again, because if the four of us could do it on a boat with one shitter, we can do anything."

Jennifer, Freedom 36 Evening Sky — "There were so many adventures in just one event. The biggest was when we came into Turtle Bay late at night with me at the helm, and the engine died. Joe, who hadn't slept in three days, and had Back to the Future hair and eyes spinning in his sockets, got the main back up. We had never anchored under sail before, but necessity was the mother of invention. Although the next morning we couldn't believe how far out we were from the rest of the fleet."

Dana Torok, Outbound 46 Thursday's Child — "This is the second time I've done a Ha-Ha with my parents,

having grown up sailing with them. Speaking as a 30-year-old, I can tell you there's a world of difference doing it on a Catalina 38 like we did the first time, and this time on the Outbound 46. This time I had a door. And hot water. What luxuries!"

Cisco Ramos, Encore, Andrews 56 — "After being diagnosed with MS, I was ready to give up — until I got into sail ing. I started sailing with a lot of fears, too, as 20 years before my younger brother and I got onto a jet ski in Cabo and ended up in a school of jellyfish. Having faced my fears, I now feel com fortable on the ocean. Everybody on our boat had an impact on my life, and the MS program has given purpose to my life. I absolutely want to do another HaHa, as I'd never seen bioluminescence before, or stars to the horizon, or a full moon on the water."

Wild Grace, Hunter 356 — "I got re ally great and interesting crew from the Ha-Ha Crew List."

Escapade, Sabre 40.2 — "We lost one crew right before the start, but three crew turned out to be the perfect number. We had one heck of a sail on the third leg."

Tenacious, Beneteau 44.8 — "We sailed two of the three legs and lost one shoe, but gained two yellowfin, two do rado, and a great experience. (Speaking of lost walking aids, young Maxim Grillo of Wilder broke his foot shortly before the Ha-Ha, so he was limping around on crutches — until BSM, when his mother lost one of his crutches over board!)

Azure, Cal 40 — "The parties were awesome!"

Encore — "Our team of MS Warriors became MS Sailors. We enjoyed great boat handling and often averaged over 10 knots. We'll do it again next year."

Big Idea, Gemini 3200 — "Great trip. We started catching mahi and tuna on the first leg!"

Ed Lecco, Voyager, Hylas 54 — "We had the time of our lives and made so many new friends that we'll bump into again in Mexico."

Amatheia, Downeast 32 — "We're go ing to sail back north just so we can do another Ha-Ha."

Teaser II, Cal 33 — "I kept my little boat simple, and she was perfect. I had a great battle with the red Benny, 44.7 before they finally took off. We had a good talk and took photos of each oth er's boats. 'Man, your boat is fast,' they said. We had a great time and hit 12 knots on the last leg."

Sandy Lazzari on the F/P 44 cat Tiamat — "This is my second Ha-Ha, having

done my first 20 years ago at age 26. I'm the happy-go-lucky kind of crew because I've done so much sailing on windy San Francisco Bay. If everything goes wrong, I'm good. The kids on the boat, Olivia, Archer, and Elena, were great because they were so excited about everything. The night chatter on the VHF was also fun, as I could easily tell who was falling asleep. And we caught so many fish: 37 skipjack, 20 yellowfin, two dorado — and that was just on the third leg, when we also had 15 escapees, three snapped 80-lb lines, six lost lures, and one snapped handline."

Liz Barsell, Voyager — "Ed and I are going to do the Ha-Ha again next year, and after that, I will retire as an estate attorney and we may cruise the world. Our scary moment was getting the spinnaker wrapped at nightfall. We called friends on the VHF and they told us to jibe and recreate what caused the wrap. It worked like magic."

Dolfin, Crealock 37 — "Our toilet stopped working while leaving San Diego. We, Patty and I, are in our mid-70s, and our crew used buckets of water the

rest of the way."

Queso Grande II, Seawind 1260 — “We, a crew of two plus one dog, are super-glad we joined this well-organized and fun rally. Even all our dinghy beach landings were successful. We didn't break anything, but we did catch too many fish. In fact, our only 'discussion,' ahem, was whether we should be fishing while flying the chute.”

Dakota, Bayfield 40 — "We saw our first turtle at sea — with two blue-footed boobies on its back."

Amazing Grace, Island Packet 440 — "We had unbelievably good winds and weather. Lots of firsts, lots of great people, and an excellent job of putting the event together."

OutRun, Ericson 36C — “It was Karina's first sailing trip. She says the HaHa is a special and spectacular event, and now she gets landsick instead of seasick.”

Pip Ziman, Jeanneau 42 DS — "I crewed in the last Ha-Ha, and all I wanted was to do it on my own boat. So we did, and our 42 DS, which I'd bought 11 years ago to do the Ha-Ha, was perfect for the trip. I had great crew in my

wife and friends of 40 years. Doing the Ha-Ha together has elevated our relationships to the next level.”

But does Ha-Ha participation have lasting value?

We'll leave that evaluation to Michael Pordes of Favonius: "My wife and I and our (then) 15- and 13-yearold boys did the Ha-Ha 22 years ago. The influence of the Ha-Ha, and later cruising the Mexican coast, on their lives was tremendous, as the level of maturity and self-sufficiency they developed cannot be overstated. They both finished college early, have successfully navigated careers, are married, and have two children of their own."

So maybe the Ha-Ha does have lasting value.

Baja Ha-Ha XXIX will start in the last week of October 2023, and because of new rules in Mexico. will have a slightly different itinerary to also include a stop in Ensenada. Details to come in Latitude as well as at www.baja-haha.com.

SEASON CHAMPIONS, PART I —

As the world crawled out from un der the pall draped over it by COVID-19, the enthusiasm for sailing and yacht racing emerged with some adaptations but plenty of energy and engagement. It feels to us as if the tide is rising.

At this time of year, we're privileged to profile those competitors whose energy and resilience lifted them to the top of their local fleets.

BAMA Cup — Bottle Rocket, Seacart 30 David Schumann, SFYC

David Schumann had a successful first full year of racing his trimaran. "We not only won the BAMA Cup series, but also the BAMA Racetrack, the OYRA series and the SSS Doublehanded series. I think the keys to this success were lots of sailing days and constant boat development."

The boat came from Malaysia and was optimized for the relatively light winds there. "We initially had a lot of work to do to make it work for San Francisco conditions. From there we spent lots of days testing different configurations — we basically had to build our own polars and crossover charts. When we initially got the boat, a lot of people were saying that it should not be sailed outside the Gate, and also that I would never sail it by myself. We managed to do both those things this year, doing the OYRA series and the Vallejo 1-2 race, with me handling the singlehanded leg."

The trimaran was the only boat to finish the SSS Corinthian Race, so that was a memorable one. "Any time you get to go around the Farallones it is going to be a favorite, so add fully crewed Faral lones to the list.

"Drake's Bay and Half Moon Bay are fun races for the adventure aspect. I really enjoyed the Westpoint Re gatta — it pro vided some re ally fast reach ing, which is always hairy in the Seacart.

"I also think BA MA's Race track is a great idea providing a lot of fun, and maybe other organizations should do something similar. The BAMA Racetrack is a course in the Bay that you can start at any point

and sail whenever and as many times as you like. You submit your GPS tracks, and the fastest boat on corrected time wins. So this allows you to try a bunch of different strategies in different condi tions."

The Seacart is powered up — a 2,700lb boat with the sail area of a J/125. "We

course."

Bottle Rocket's core crew were Trevor Baylis and Paul Allen. "We generally race fully crewed with four. We had a lot of great people join us for the fourth position or to fill in, including Julia Pax ton, David Liebenberg, Andy Hamilton, Rufus Sjoberg, Austin Book, Mackenzie

have to always stay vigilant about chang ing conditions. When we get that wrong, things can get sketchy fast. One example is when we were doing the BAMA Race track: We intentionally ran a full main and J2 because the lower part of the course had winds in the 12- to 14-knot range. By the time we got to Blackaller, where we had to bear away, the true wind was blowing 26 knots. With the full main, the boat does not bear away in those conditions without pitchpoling, but stopping to reef would have cost enough time that this Racetrack attempt would have failed. (Our elapsed time was 54 minutes, so there is not time for reefing or changing jibs.) We kept sniffing at the maneuver, but we were getting very close to the pier, doing around 17 knots. Fi nally one of our crew yelled, 'Lull in two!' The wind briefly dropped to 20, and we were able to bear away to a downwind

Cooke, Hogan Beatie, Ian Rogers, Jan Heinemann and my wife, Rosemaria Schumann."

T ruls Myklebust, commodore of BAMA, has awarded the Pineapple Sails Yacht Club Trophy to the club with the top-three-placing entrants on corrected time in the Doublehanded Farallones. This year, those were Karl Robrock's Moore 24 Snafu, Andy Schwenk's Ex press 37 Spindrift V and Gary Troxel's Beneteau 423 Tiki Blue, securing the trophy for Richmond YC. "RYC has won this trophy at least the last four years in a row," commented Truls.

BAMA CUP (7r, 0t)

1) Bottle Rocket, 37.6 points; 2) Greyhound, F-22, Evan McDonald, BYC, 20; 3) Lookin' Good 3, F-28R, Raf Yahalom, BAMA, 17. (20 boats) More info at www.sfbama.org

LAUNCHING WITH ONE DESIGNS & BAMA

Express 27 Championship Series & Long Distance Series — Under the Radar Greg

'Radar' Felton, SFYC

Greg Felton (his nickname is Radar, after Radar O'Reilly in M*A*S*H) commit ted to sailing every race in the Express 27 series. "Under the Radar was the only boat to make every race, and that wasn't always easy.

"The Enci nal Race was especially challenging, a Saturday in the middle of the sum mer. My boat was in Tahoe, and I had a race on the lake the next day. Special thanks to De rik Anderson, who let me sail his boat with my sails. Between the Bay series and events in Tahoe, we sailed over 50 races this year."

Radar's cr ew included 43 people. His brother, Tim Felton, and his son, Jenner Felton, were the most frequent. Other contributors included Jerry Lucas, Chris Davison, Randy Smith, John and Alex Verdoia, Richard Stockdale, Mark Carlisle, McCall Huston, EJ Rowland, Traci Thomas, Tad Lacey, Mel McCor mack, Kurt Rasmussen, Mike and Sean Sullivan, Nick Gibbens, Noah Weis sich, Deanna Robear, David Wasick, David Young, JM Morassutti, Bob and Katie Stern, Michael Thornton, Matt Buffleben, John Collins, Derik Anderson, Nadia Wallace, Ross Groelz, Caitlin Rob inson, Steve Katzman, Laurel Schmidt, Will Anderson, Kim, Victoria and Kirsten Felton, Renee Fields, and a of couple last-minute friends of crewmembers.

"I'm absolutely open to input and learning, and I expect others will be too, for us all to perform at our potential. We've had a lot of really productive, positive discussion on board and have collectively done better than any of us ever could have performed alone."

His favorite part of this season was the variety of firsts. "This was our first season in this fleet, so we were doing a lot of learning and making improvements to the boat and our techniques. I've spent most of my life on the bow. This was the first time I've had to arrange crew, sandwiches, entry forms, etc. It was the

first time racing for many people on the crew list, in fact the first time sailing for a few of them — fun to teach and watch people learn!

"Though I've raced on the Bay for 50 years, it was my first time in several fun and lunatic races (e.g. Three Bridge Fi asco, Delta Ditch Run, etc). I'll be back! It's fun to get first place now and then, too.

"Not everything went as planned. In the last race of the Nationals, with a very comfortable lead that would have secured us the championship, a lifeline failed and sent three of the crew swim ming. Though we got back to them quick ly and efficiently hauled them aboard (I strongly recommend having a throw bag within reach — it was stellar!), the unplanned detour dropped us to 12th. We recovered to fifth by the end of the race but that was only good enough for third place overall. I think the story has been worth it!

"The Express 27 is a fantastic boat, comfortable and fun for skippers and crew. The fleet is active, and I'm hop ing we'll get more people out next year. If you've been looking for the perfect boat…"

EXPRESS 27 CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES (27r, 12t)

1) Under the Radar, 0.92 points; 2) Motorcycle Irene, Julia Paxton, RYC, 0.89. 3) Hot Sheet, David Wick, RYC, 0.83. (30 boats; 9 qualifers)

EXPRESS 27 LONG DISTANCE SERIES (11r, 5t)

1) Under the Radar, 0.89 points; 2) Motorcycle Irene, 0.88. 3) Abigail Morgan, Ron Kell, CYC, 0.84. (30 boats; 10 qualifers)

More info at http://express27.org

Moore 24 — Mooregasm Steve Bourdow, SCYC

Like the Express 27 series, the Moore 24 Roadmaster series rewards partici pation in addition to scoring well. The series counts regattas in the series in a high-point system that records up to 100 points for each day of racing. "If you win a three-day regatta, you get 300 points, two-day 200, and so on," explained this year's master Roadmaster, Stephen Bourdow.

"Each boat can count its best scores from the main traveling series plus des ignated regional events. There's a sepa rate award for a doublehanded series, primarily long-distance races like Three Bridge and the Ditch Run.

"Mooregasm narrowly edged out Firefly this year, despite Firefly's solid win at the National Championship. Mooregasm

had two wins at High Sierra and St. Francis YC, and a solid third and fourth at PCCs and Nationals, the two three-day events. Combined with third at the Three Bridge, and a first at the Three Buoy Fiasco regional event in Santa Cruz, we were able to edge out Firefly by just 5 points — a very narrow margin indeed.

"The Roadmaster title came down to the last race in the last regatta of the season, the Great Pumpkin at Richmond. While Firefly sailed extremely well there, Mooregasm eked out just enough points to hold onto the lead."

Steve's favorite event was the High Sierra Regatta at Huntington Lake. "We typically race well there in the light to moderate conditions, and this year was no exception. But, with the addi tion of Karl Ro brock and Ali Fuat-Yuvali to our team, our boat handling was quite impec cable, enabling strong recovery from mistakes to combine with excellent boat speed and height, to win four out of five races.

"Huntington is an amazing place to race — it's beautiful, always a solid br eeze, great tactical challenges, big turnout. But what never ceases to amaze me is how great a job the relatively small set of volunteers from Fresno YC do. They seem to love sharing their little slice of heaven with all of us. We've built a lifetime of family memories on the High Sierra and Commodore's Cup regattas. My kids don't race, but they always loved taking the dogs and camping up on the lake for these regattas.

"Nationals on the Berkeley Cir cle delivered all that one would expect. Carnage on Day 2 saw nearly every top boat get knocked down at some point, and Mooregasm was no exception. It was only the third time in 10 years we've been knocked down. Karen Gosling's expert bow handling enabled a relatively calm recovery despite the chaos of 23 knots true and nasty chop. A broken halyard led to several subsequent races where the jib had to go up on the spinnaker halyard and vice versa. While it wasn't the fastest look, the crew handled it with ease and preserved some solid results."

Ali Fuat-Yuvali, Karl Robrock, Nick Adamson, Karen Gosling and Sarah Bourdow were the primary crew this

SEASON CHAMPIONS, PART I —

season. "Andy Hamilton made a guest skipper appearance for the final regatta, essentially helping us to preserve the Roadmaster win."

MOORE 24 (17 regattas)

1) Mooregasm, 999 points; 2) Firefy, Joel Turmel, RYC, 994. 3) Watts Moore…, Chris Watts, SCYC, 902. (48 boats) More info at www.moore24.org

Knarr — Niuhi Randy Hecht/Russ Silvestri, SFYC

"Team Niuhi, Knarr #128, is very happy to have won our third consecutive Knarr season championship, a feat that has only been accomplished twice before in the very long Knarr history that has included many of the Bay's best sailors," said Randy Hecht.

"The keys to our success start with our con sistent and very talented crew, who have sailed together for many years — co-skipper Russ Silvestri (a twotime Olympian), Ryan Treais, Spencer Cole and myself. This year, we added Mateo Vargas to sail with us in the events lead ing up to the IKC in Copenhagen.

"The second success key is our play book. Each team member knows his role and trusts the other team members to do their jobs.

"The third key is we have put in the time in to learn how to sail these heavy boats consistently fast in all conditions. Our final key is we intentionally sail clean and find lanes that minimize ma neuvers."

Going into the 2022 season, Niuhi targeted the StFYC Woodies Invitational and the inaugural S.F. Knarr Champion ship regatta. "Our team came out on top in both of these hard-fought regattas.

"For 2023, our goal is to keep the momentum from past years and become the first Knarr team to win four season championships in a row. With all the great sailors in the venerable Knarr class, this will not be easy."

KNARR (21r, 6t)

1) Niuhi, 51 points; 2) Viva, Don Jesberg/Ethan Doyle, RYC, 59. 3) Three Boys & a Girl, Chris & Jon Perkins, StFYC, 65. (23 boats) More info at www.knarr.us

Alerion Express 28 — Zenaida

Fred Paxton, RYC

The Alerion 28 fleet's 2022 series included 17 events, of which eight were designated as counters for the season championship. Each boat's best six counted as its score for the season. The counting races ran from April through Octo ber. "Our last season counter sailed on the Cityfront deter mined at least the top three places," says re peat fleet cham pion Fred Pax ton.

"Our fleet captain, Mike Quinn, chose events that used almost all the S.F. Bay venues, distance races, YRA double handed races, RYC Intraclub races, the YRA Summer Series, StFYC's Joe Logan and an Alerion race day on the Circle."

Fr ed's favorites were the distance races. "We started at the top or center of the Berkeley Circle and sailed to Black aller or Harding Rock, followed by a long run.

"My scariest moments wer e when one of the faster boats would go bang a corner of the course and I would have to decide to cover them or stay with the fleet.

"Bill Claussen, Jim T itus, Chris Crammer and Chuck Eaton were consistently going the right way and hitting almost all the wind and current shifts."

Fred says that his edge in the Alerion fleet is his main crew member, Arnie Quan. "He does all the string pulling and sail adjusting, and I just focus on sailing the boat. The times that Arnie can't make a race, I've been most fortunate to have one of my boat neighbors at RYC, Howard Elfant, who's been crewing for me in almost all the RYC beer can races.

"If I was of fering any advice for racing an Alerion, it would be: Go out early, plan on having a good time, and don't pinch."

ALERION EXPRESS 28 (6 regattas)

1) Zenaida, 8 points; 2) Allegro non Tropo, Bill Claussen/James Titus, RYC, 11; 3) Eagle, Chuck Eaton, StFYC, 20. (15 boats/8 qualifers) More info at https://sfbayalerion.com

J/24 — Evil Octopus

Jasper Van Vliet, RYC

Another repeat fleet winner is J/24 skipper Jasper Van Vliet. "This year the competition was not as close as previous years due to an unfortunate injury to our closest competitor, and also due to many of our other close competitors be ing focused on the Pacific Cup campaign of WildCard," mused Jasper. "When raft ing up in the middle of the Bay during a complete calm, you can still get hurt if you get your foot stuck between boats when a wake comes and tosses the boats around. Crunch!

"Our crew was very much the same as last year: Ellie Tubman on bow, William Pochereva on mast and everything else, and Jessica Ludy on trim. Then we have John Pytlak, Charlie McKenzie, Diana Otis, Jessie O'Dell, Mays Dickey and Alex Schultink rotating through. Randall Rasicot skippered the last race of the season for me while I was in Annapolis. All are effing awesome.

"Evil Octopus now has an Evil Twin on the East Coast, so we need a deep bench to keep both boats staffed and competi tive.

"What's our favorite race this year? It's always the Jazz Cup. Why? See the picture, it explains everything."

J/24 FLEET 17 (24r, 4t)

1) Evil Octopus, 35 points;

Little Wing, Robin Van Vliet, RYC, 50; 3) Hot Water, Anthony Jacuzzi, 70. (8 boats)

More info at www.facebook.com/j24sf

Olson 25 — Sketch

David Gruver/John Collins, SFYC

"The best part about our little boat is the partnership between co-owner John Collins and me," writes Dave Gruver. "We

LAUNCHING WITH ONE DESIGNS & BAMA

have complementary skills both sailing the boat and caring for the boat. John is a well-known bowman in the Bay Area with a lot of experience across all disciplines: match racing, team racing, one design, handicap and offshore sail ing. His engineering background helps ensure as we continue to tweak the boat that all the work is done right.

"We have focused on making the boat easy and efficient to sail, allowing us to get our heads out of the boat and onto the racecourse. I can hold my own when it comes to working on boatspeed and on-the-water tactics.

"Spending time on the water on this silly little boat has been nothing but grins and giggles since day one. There is no question in our minds that buying Sketch in 2018 was the very best dumb thing we have ever done.

"We are also fortunate to have sailed with a lot of highly skilled, experienced sailors over the years. And we convince, threaten or blackmail them to come race with us. It makes for a fun boat, and the results have been good all year long. They deserve all the credit for keeping us at the front of the fleet."

Joining Dave and John this year were

ably the most challenging. It was two races in the South Bay with a huge flood that shifted to ebb by the second race. I got two crap starts, and we had to come from behind to win both rac es. Luckily the boatspeed once again made us look far smarter than we were.

"Race wins and losses aside, it has been great to see the re surgence of the O25 fleet. We are consistently get ting boats out for one-design races and were able to hold our National Cham pionship on the Bay this October at SFYC for the first time since 2016. The O25 is a great boat for the Bay and a PHRF weapon when the wind is under 15 knots."

Getting of f to a good start helped Mark Allen win the season. "I am new to the area and was able to connect with a former U20 owner, Trent Watkins, and his son Cooper, who is on the junior sailing team at RYC. Trent knows the boat well and has great local knowledge, so we were able to concentrate on mak ing the boat go fast and pointed in the right direction. We completed the [RYC] Midwinters in first overall, and that set us up for a great year. We only had one major hiccup reading the course wrong and sailing to the wrong mark. However we did it very well!

"Before moving to the Bay Area from Utah, I had my regular crew of Peter Sharp and Robert Pincus, whom I have been sailing with for about nine years. We travel to many of the western regat tas and make the trip to San Diego for the NOODs. We had a great regatta and wrapped up first place and the Pacific Coast Championship with a race to spare — first time I have been able to do that in a regatta. We also sailed together in the North American championship, finishing second for the third time (we did win in 2014). Trent and Cooper did all the races with me except for the NOODs and NAs.

"We didn't really have any drama this year. We typically got good starts, let the boatspeed take us to the front, and then controlled things from there.

"The YRA event in August was prob

OLSON

25 (12r, 3t)

1) Sketch, 13 points; 2) Synchronicity, Steve Smith, HMBYC, 16; 3) O'mar, David Scott, BYC, 18. (6 boats)

Junta had a fright during the Great Pumpkin pursuit race. "While rounding Alcatraz we were in a port-starboard situation with a much larger boat that decided he didn't need to give way. We

SEASON CHAMPIONS, PART I

collided after a crash tack and rubbed some paint. Right after that we were rolled by another larger boat that took out our Windex.

"I am able to trust my crew, and we always have fun on the boat — can't wait to do it again."

ULTIMATE 20 (13r, 0t)

1) Junta, 41 points; 2) Udecide, Phil Kanegs berg, RYC, 35; 3) Uhoo!, Mike Josselyn, RYC, 31. (11 boats)

Folkboat — Freja Tom Reed, StFYC

"This year marked the 80th anniver sary of the launch of the first Folkboat in Gothenberg," writes fleet captain James Vernon. "Having arrived from Denmark in 1953, the legendary Bay Area sailor Knud Wilbroe encouraged others to import boats. Three years later, the S.F. Bay Folkboat Association began the leg endary Wednesday Evening Series (now hosted by StFYC). The fleet held its first season championship in 1958.

"The 2022 season showed that this re markable fleet continues to thrive on the Bay. Due to some cancellations, our 64th

season champi onship consisted of slightly fewer than our usual 30-35 races. It was just as well because Tom Reed in #111, along with his crew Tommy Jr. and Dave Kresge, totally dominat ed proceedings.

Remarkably, this was Tom's 10th sea son championship (and we are leaving aside those he won in the Knarrs). He was lightning-fast all year and only the light winds in October slowed him down and saw him finish outside the podium places.

"Sadly, #122 is now up for sale. Eric Kaiser, who grew up in the fleet, and crew go to race Knarrs.

"Come join the fleet just in time to qualify for next year's International Regatta, when you can race against the best crews from Europe."

FOLKBOAT (26r, 5t)

1) Freja, 25.5 points; 2) Polperro, Peter Jeal, BVBC, 45; 3) Faith, James Vernon, ACSC, 53. (10 boats)

More info at https://sfbayfolkboats.org

Rick Van Mell of the Islander 36 fleet writes, "Our main event for this year was our Nationals Regatta held on October 1 with seven boats entered and an additional four boats represented by I-36 owners who worked the race com mittee or crewed on one of the other boats racing. Rich and Tom Schoenhair's Windwalker was the winner, with Kit Wiegman's Cassiopeia in second and Stephen Douglass's Renaissance of Tahoe Vista in third. The usual Nationals venue, Golden Gate YC, was unavailable, so Island YC stepped in to host the tworace regatta on the Estuary." See www. islander36.org for more info.

In the January issue, we plan to intro duce our readers to the season winners from the Yacht Racing Association and the Singlehanded Sailing Society.

— latitude/chris

Serendipity

has many forms: per haps running into an old college flame right after a breakup, small talk at a bar bringing a job opportunity, or a gap on the starboard layline when you've overstood out on the left side. For me, it happened on August 12, 2022, when on the second-to-last night of the 5O5 Worlds Rob Woelfel casually mentioned he had worked as a salvage diver. The next two-plus months would bring a crazy adventure, as four friends and competitors came together to save and rehabilitate a boat that had started an other sailor's racing dynasty.

This is the story of Rosebud, a Santa Cruz 52 commissioned by Roger and Isobel Sturgeon in December 1997. The boat is the 15th in the production run of 27, and a former Big Boat Series cham pion. It nabbed the cover of the October 1999 Latitude and led to the build of two other great Rosebuds: the famous and successful TP52 and STP65. While the two newer Rosebuds are still sailed in the Northwest and in the Mediterra nean under new owners, the first SC52 version had disappeared, long forgotten since the last time it was seen racing on San Francisco Bay in 2005.

I became part of the story of Rosebud in 2016 as the victim of a never-ending conference call on my commute back from Palo Alto to Alameda. It was dur ing that call that I discovered San Le andro Marina — what must have been a formerly big marina now mostly used for watching planes land in Oakland, relaxing after a visit to the dispensary, and cleaning out your Lyft. Much to my surprise, there was a big rig that sure seemed out of place in the marina: a tall, triple-spreader mast that I recog nized quickly. It was a Santa Cruz 52. A fuzzy, zoomed-in photo showed the boat's name was Morgana, and she had fallen into disrepair. I was intrigued.

What must happen to send a boat like an SC52 to be forgotten in a marina?

How does it end up in San Leandro, so far away from the waters where it would sail? A month or so later, I dropped by the harbor office to see if I could find out more. Sure enough, the slip fees were up to date and, while they could not give me the owner's name, they were happy to let me check out the boat.

The boat was on an end-tie, two fin gers from the mouth of the marina. The woman who walked me down to the boat said that the marina was going to close, and I'd soon find out why.

The boat was a time capsule. It looked as if it had finished its last race and then been left to sit for 10 years. It was covered with lichen and dust from thousands of 737s landing nearby. The halyards were all still pulled forward to the pulpit, with the exception of the topping lift, which had been skyed. Two carbon spinnaker poles were on the foredeck. The racing main had been left on the boom! You could see through the windows that gear and personal items were down below, but it looked as if no one had been aboard in years. The bot tom of the boat had a long beard and mussels all over.

So began my fascination with the boat. Before long, I learned that it was the former Rosebud and that its sec ond owner had raced the boat in San Francisco to modest success for a few years in the early 2000s before stopping sailing altogether. The boat had been in San Leandro since 2007 and had been forgotten while the owner dealt with family and personal issues. To add to the challenges, the San Leandro Marina was silting in for Rosebud's 9-ft draft, and at low tide, there was only 18 inch es of water at the front of the boat!

But for the time being, what could I do? I had found the owner's contact, but was unable to connect with him. And, what would I be able to take on as a 37-year -old with a new family? Some thing needed to be done, but I wasn't in a place to do it.

Fast-forward five years, with count less flights into and out of Oakland, each time seeing the boat in the marina beg ging for a rescue. I found bathymetric charts for the harbor, plotted the king tides required to get the boat out, and remembered enough high school trigo nometry to figure out how much a boat must be heeled to gain 10% of draft. (Bad news: It's basically 20 degrees!) I saw that the marina would close in

January 2023 and every boat still there would be destroyed. The salvage re mained more than I could put together by myself, but it needed to happen!

And then I found myself having a pint with Rob after yet another lightair day at the 2022 5O5 Worlds. "You were a salvage diver? Whoa, let me run this past you…" Before long, we were in it together. Rob would be the expert in extraction; I would find a way to se cure ownership. And it got better. Bruce Edwards was sitting at the other end of the table and texted me the next day: He wanted in. And during the light sail out to the racecourse the next day, Rob mentioned this to his helm, Mike Holt, and he was in as well. The syndicate was formed.

As soon as we were back from Ireland, it was full steam ahead. Bruce hatched a great plan to secure ownership — showing up at the owner's house with cash and a bill of sale — and started

working on that plan. On the second visit, Bruce was able to make contact, and the owner was receptive! Before too long, we owned the boat but, not unlike the dog who finally catches the car, now we had to get it out of the marina!

The siltation was worse than we had imagined. At low tide, the boat sat on a cradle of mud. At all but the highest tides, more than 3 feet of the keel was still in the dirt. The plan quickly co alesced around three key areas.

First, the boat needed power to get out. That meant the diesel needed to be running strongly and we needed to have a powerful RIB on standby. We had a mechanic come work on the Yanmar and get the old fuel out of the tanks. Rob dove on the boat and found the running gear operational, and cleared the thruhulls. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the aux iliary fired right up. When the time came, we had a Zodiac RIB with a 150-hp outboard to provide some extra oomph.

Next, we needed to get the boat as light as possible. There was a collection of personal gear aboard, old computer parts and years of stuff that had been piled on after the boat had last sailed. In total, we think we removed 2,000 pounds of gear and equipment. Before long, the boat was floating higher on its lines and looked much more lively just floating at the dock.

Finally, we needed a very accurate survey of the bottom of the harbor. A 2018 bathymetric survey had been performed for the marina when they announced its impending closure, but even that was now four years old and might be off by more than a foot. So we circled a date on the calendar that had a very low tide and planned to mark the channel in a small dinghy then. Little did we know that that day, October 10, would also end up being our extraction day.

A couple of things came together to make October 10 the day we chose. First of all, we were all in the area, as the 5O5 PCCs were the previous

weekend in Santa Cruz. There was a 7 a.m. low tide of only 1.0, giving us a re ally good feel for the depth at a given water level. Finally, that low tide was followed by a 7.8-ft high tide just after noon, meaning that if we were happy with our plan at lunchtime, we could go for it.

Rob, a natural fit for this role as a national champion rower at Cal (tru ly, a Renaissance man!), and I as his coxswain proceeded to paddle around the marina in an 8-ft dinghy using a chunk of PVC to measure the depth. If we could find about two feet of water in our one-foot tide, then we knew we could plot our path out of the marina. We then connected multiple sections of pipe together to mark our channel, with the goal of running the boat right against that pipe to make sure we were in the right spot.

It was close. A lot of places had only 18 inches of water, but we felt that with just the right amount of high water and ample power, and if we nailed just the right location, we might be able to pull the boat out. Of course, the worst pos sibility was getting stuck halfway out, high and dry at the next big low — it's a bad look to have a 52-ft boat on the dirt with the keel out of the water, tipped over 70 degrees right next to the final approach into OAK!

To make the boat draw a bit less, we then found a large chunk of dock float ing in the marina that we could use as a counterweight. With the boom extended and supported by the main halyard (a decayed piece of highly compromised Vectran), we tied the mainsheet to the piece of dock and used that to heel the boat. If you're trying this at home, we all highly recommend using docks as 'Rosebud' with dock providing heel.

counterweights: They're heavy, they float, and they are abundant in abandoned marinas! We think that the boat achieved about 20 degrees of heel at most — not much change to the draft, but every little bit would count.

Heeling the boat also provided one possible emergency strategy. Should we get stuck while going straight ahead, a last-ditch approach would be to use maximum power to pull the boat sideways out of the channel, with the bottom of the keel lying sideways against the shoal.

Sure

enough, noon was upon us and the water had risen seven or more feet since we had surveyed the bottom that morning. With the water still rising another inch or two over the next 30 minutes, it was time.

We fired up the diesel. As you'd expect from a non-stabilized engine that had been sitting for 17 years, it started right up. We had power!

We got the RIB in position in front of the boat, planning to be towing as well as using the boat's own power.

We cast off the bow line.

And, unbelievably, the boat blew right off the dock!

Shit! Let's go. Rob and Mike drove the boat while Bruce and I attempted to tow from the RIB. Before long, it was clear that the boat was picking up speed and was clear of the bottom. Hitting all the PVC markers we'd laid just hours before, Rob and Mike turned left along the abandoned southern docks of the marina, skirted the rocks to be in the deepest possible spot at the harbor

Back in October 1999, 'Rosebud' made the cover of Latitude.

mouth, then turned hard right into the main channel.

We all were laughing. Did this just happen? Was it really that easy? An incredible sense of relief, accomplishment and fun. The boat was motoring to deep water with San Leandro behind it. Rosebud was on the move once again!

We had arranged for the boat to be hauled out at Berkeley Marine Center. I've sailed with yard GM Ruben Gabriel for years and knew that he would be excited about this project. Ryan Nelson, whose Rogue Rigging shop is at BMC, is a good friend and fellow 5O5 sailor, so we all wanted to work with him to sort out the rigging.

As you can imagine, the bottom of the boat appeared to be in rough shape. There was a lot of growth from sitting idle for 17 years, but epoxy bottoms are remarkable. After hauling out and some serious work with a pressure washer and scrapers, the bottom is clean and smooth. There are no blisters on the boat, and Ruben and the team now have the bottom sanded and prepped

for a new racing bottom.

The engine running gear is straight and the cutlass bearing and prop are both in great shape and getting cleaned up by the staff at BMC.

These boats were built incredibly well, and the workmanship shows. Rosebud was basically dry down below during all those years in the marina, and the electrical and other systems need only some small updates and replacements.

The rigging is a bit more complicated. Seventeen years is a long time for stainless rod and aluminum spreaders to hang out together in San Francisco Bay and in the lee of the Oakland Airport.

There's plenty of corrosion on the spreader tips, and they'll need to be replaced. Fortunately, Buzz Ballenger knows this rig well from its original build and is working with us to get it back up to speed. Ryan is testing the rod to see what, if anything, needs to be replaced.

Shockingly, the exterior has cleaned up phenomenally well. Mike's wizardry with a pressure washer and magic eraser has the decks gleaming once again. The hull gelcoat is in great condition and we will quickly learn our lesson for taking on ownership of a 52-footer once we move on to waxing the boat!

So, what's next for the mighty Rosebud? There will be quite a bit more refitting to happen before the boat hits the racecourse. We have electronics to replace, running rigging, halyards and 10 winches to service. We need to slowly go through the sail inventory and confirm what is usable and what's not. And we need to get the interior dialed in with clean cushions, and galley and stereo

working so that we can enjoy the comfort of this big boat!

Once we've completed the refit, the boat will likely sail some fun events here in S.F. and eventually make its way to the Pacific Northwest. My home is in Bellingham, and Bruce is also headquartered nearby. Mike and Rob, both Tahoe residents these days, are eager to come and take on some cruising in the San Juans. In the future, I'm sure that many more races are in the cards, perhaps reprising Rosebud's last Pacific Cup in the coming years, with a team of dinghy sailors and friends.

Rosebud stands out to me as a testament to the camaraderie and "find a way" attitude in the sailing community. It's a great experience to have four friends coming together to take on a project like this, assisted by friends in the industry helping to make the big work happen. If you'd like to track our progress on this crazy journey, give a follow to @rosebud_sailing on Instagram. Or drop by and say hello next time we're in the boatyard.

— blaine pedlow

Where was Lee Helm? We had agreed to meet at the bookstore at 11 o'clock, but there was no sign of her. This was not like her at all. Usually she turns up everywhere, invited or otherwise, so it was hard to imagine that she'd miss a firm appointment.

The occasion was shopping. The prior weekend I had complained about my usual December dilemma: what to buy for someone who has everything. "Books!" she replied. "Kids' books! Kids' books about sailing!" As if it should be obvious. "And like, age of giftee no prob. The books are good at autonomous navigation; they will find their way to age-appropriate offspring, nieces, nephews, grandchildren. They will be re-gifted as necessary if du plicates. It's the best way to promote sailing and maybe, like, spark a life long passion or a nautical career."

Lee, it tur ned out, was planning a trip to one of our local brick-and-mor tar bookstores, and invited me to meet her there so we could check out this year's offerings. But it wasn't like her to be late. Where was she?

The stor e had a huge section de voted to "young readers," and a small shelf of sailing books hidden in the "sports" area. But not much intersec tion of the two genres in evidence.

I asked one of the stor e employees for assistance.

" Salty Dog ," she said with much en thusiasm as she handed me a slightly worn, used copy from a hard-to-notice shelf of used books. "This was my fa vorite when I was a kid. A young boat builder gets a puppy and starts build ing a wooden cruising boat."

"Looks like a 26-ft L yle Hess de sign," I said as I admired one of the illustrations.

"Over the next year," she added, "the boat takes shape and the puppy grows up. The artwork is wonderfully de tailed and almost photo-realistic, right down to watching the seasons change through the boat shed window. There are three sequels: Aloha Salty , when they are accidentally stranded on the beach in Hawaii, Salty Sails North , in which they sail to Alaska, and Salty Takes Off , in which the dog falls out of an airplane, lands in snow, and — spoiler alert — is rescued unhurt the next day. Based on a true story!"

"This one is definitely a keeper," I said after examining the art.

"At the other extr eme for realism," the store employee continued, "is

Captain Abdul's Pirate School . By Co lin McNaughton, who knows why pi rates are funny. It's full of the usual comic pirate stereotypes but with un expected plot reversals. These same 'lovable' pirate characters appear in a companion book, Jolly Roger and the Pirates of Abdul the Skinhead , by the same author but with a completely unrelated plot line."

My stor e assistant did not have copies to show off, used or new, so I would have to look for this one online.

first book, set on a lake in the English Midlands. It might be a little slowmoving for today's kids: It's adventure without magic, without scientific ge nius, and without superpowers — but that makes these books even better for bedtime readings. If the first one is a hit, you can buy them all 12."

"We love the true story of Little Black Dog ," a woman shopper inter jected. "The mascot of the schooner Shenandoah , home-ported on Mar tha's Vineyard. The orphaned puppy has to win over the affection of the boat's skipper to become an on board fixture."

"Books about sailor dogs ar e al ways a good formula," noted the store employee.

"Maybe I like this one because I once sailed on the Shenandoah ," the customer admitted. "But I think it stands on its own."

"That's two sailing-dog stories, but don't forget the cats!" added yet an other shopper who had apparently been eavesdropping on our conver sation from the start. "In Henry the Sailor Cat , a Siamese stows away for a daysail on a very plain MacGregor Venture 21 — although in the book this boat conveniently has a wooden mast to make it easier for the cat to climb."

"I can't speak for the kids these days," another shopper volunteered, "but I loved the Swallows and Ama zons series when they were read to me at bedtime, the better part of a cen tury ago. It's a series of 12 books by Arthur Ransome, the first in the series written in the '30s. The legend is that public readings were a staple of enter tainment for the families sheltering in the London tube stations during the blitz."

He was an older gentleman, but not nearly old enough, I surmised, to be one of the kids in the London under ground when bombs were falling. Al though he did have more than a hint of Limey accent.

"Maximum escapism for those times," I proposed.

"Yes, indeed. The stories are about teenagers and their preteen sib lings given far too much responsibil ity, usually due to accidental circum stances, and how they deal with it. Nothing to do with either a swallow or an Amazon, mind you; those are just the names of two of the boats in the

"Hate to think what that does to the varnish," I said.

"The cat helps with a person-over board emergency. And another cat book, The Cat in the Kayak , is another stowaway story. It's loosely based on a classic Talmudic fable about learning to appreciate what you already have at home."

"Oh, and ther e's a good Downeas ter story," added the woman from Shenandoah , " Burt Dow, Deep-Water Man . Best if read out loud with a Maine accent. Burt survives an im probable fishing trip in his leaky old skiff."

"I know that one!" said the Brit. "The boat has a very big bilge pump and an ancient 'make-and-break' en gine. Jolly good exercise for both the reader and the listener to research what a 'make-and-break' engine is, and how it creates the ignition spark with an induction coil."

The next book that the stor e sales person pulled off the shelf was one that brought back memories for me: Pagoo , the biography of a hermit crab. This one I remembered from

"Blame it all on that Disney remake of 'Little Mermaid'. My daughter is obsessed with them, and this book is her mermaid encyclopedia. It's sort of a tabloid style, with short notes, interesting 'facts,' and unrelated bits of mermaid lore scattered throughout."

WHO HAS EVERYTHING

Can you guess which illustration goes with which book?

childhood. It almost tracked me into marine biology, but I was more inter ested in cars and airplanes back then.

"Don't for get the nonfiction genre," added another Arthur Ransome fan. "You know, ships around Cape Horn, cabin boy comes of age, lots of good examples out there. But you know, I have two favorites aimed at young readers: Dare the Wind , about the woman captain who navigated the McKay clipper Flying Cloud to recordbreaking passages, and Cabin Boy , another true story about a 13-yearold who signs on as cabin boy on a packet bound for China. The kid is Robert Bennet Forbes, who later be comes a major shipping magnate, but you know, that part's not included in this little book."

I thought I had enough for my shopping list, but then yet another customer pushed a new book called The Secret History of Mermaids into the assortment already in my hands.

"Mer maids are in this year!" he ex claimed. "Blame it all on that Disney

remake of Little Mermaid . My daugh ter is obsessed with them, and this book is her mermaid encyclopedia. It's sort of a tabloid style, with short notes, interesting 'facts,' and unre lated bits of mermaid lore scattered throughout."

these days, and with navigation and chart retailers almost all gone, I think the only place to browse for serious maritime literature is the marine con signment shop. So I wandered around the bookstore, chanced to walk down an aisle devoted to history books, and glimpsed a book called The Big Oys ter . It's a fascinating history of New York City, told through the lens of the oyster fishery, once one of the world's most productive. I must have been standing there reading for a half hour when Lee finally found me.

"Better than those bloody uni corns," sighed the Brit.

This last suggestion put my list well over the top, so I thanked all my consultants and moved back to the adult sailing books. But the store, huge as it was, was something of a desert for sailing literature. With good used bookstores thin on the ground

EXTENDED CRUISING ACROSS THE PACIFIC

What it’s really like to liveaboard a small boat among the islands! This true story is inspirational and reads like a good novel. A great gift to captivate any Sailor, Dreamer or Armchair Adventurer. Amazon eBook now on sale $2.99. “Highly recommended”– Latitude 38

"I'm all set!" I announced. "Got some great help, found some great books, and have some good leads I'll have to follow up online. Up for lunch?"

"Like, for sur e," she answered.

It wasn't till a few weeks later, when The Big Oyster was delivered to my door with Lee's holiday card, that I figured out her strategy: Arrive late, see which book I had latched onto, and check me off her list.

— max ebb

"It's the best way to promote sailing and maybe, like, spark a lifelong passion or a nautical career."

THE RACING

the wind came forward.

Great Pumpkin Return to Epicness

Richmond Yacht Club's Great Pump kin Regatta attracted a mess o' boats to the race courses and a mass o' bodies to the Saturday night Halloween party.

Saturday's buoy racing was held, as usual, on three racing areas: Southamp ton, the Olympic Circle, and the deeper water west of Berkeley.

On the Deep Water Course, a short age of drop marks led to the intention of using fixed government marks. The race committee called for YRA 8 (a red ship channel buoy) for the windward mark in the first race, but it was mostly a onetack beat. The fall breeze simply would not cooperate and align with the avail

races — the day served as their District Championship.

An epic Halloween party followed the racing. It felt to us like a return to old times — not just pre-Great Pandemic, but pre-Great Recession. Shark Sand wich, which RYC members are coming to regard as their "house band," kept the dance floor packed.

The breezeless morning of Sunday, October 30, led to exactly one hour of postponement before the start. This made it easier to calculate the adjusted start times in the pursuit race. In the absence of any Cal 20s, Santana 22s were first to start at 12:30.

T he startline was set up between the Richmond Harbor and Rac coon Strait. All skippers get to choose which way to round Angel Is land and Alcatraz.

Some who had planned to go counterclockwise saw the early start ers in Raccoon Strait becalmed and tacked over to starboard for a clockwise round ing instead. But most of the top fin ishers stuck with the counterclock wise choice.

Colin Moore's Wylie Wabbit Kwazy won on this pursuit race course for the fourth time (some unknown combination of Great Pumpkins and Big Daddys). "I usually go counterclockwise because it's a reach or spinnaker run for most of the race," Colin told us. "I saw the northwesterly coming in. We went to the right through Raccoon, hugging Angel Island until the end. Boats that went to Point Stuart got into a wind hole. Wind shadows from bigger boats made us unstable; we almost capsized."

Finishing second was the Olson 30 WYSIWYG, which went counterclockwise too.

"We were close to Colin until the Wab bit set the kite at Alcatraz in 15 knots," said WYSIWYG's skipper, Hendrik Bruhns. "Can't catch a Wabbit down wind." The Olson hit a top speed of 10.4 knots under spinnaker.

The Moore 24 racers on Wet Spot won the challenging trivia contest (they got only one answer wrong out of 19).

— chris / latitude

RYC GREAT PUMPKIN FLEET RACES, 10/29 (3r, 0t)

PHRF A — 1) Velvet Hammer, J/125, James Nichols/Will Paxton, 3 points; 2) Destin, Land mark 43, Romeo Uriarte, 6; 3) Bodacious+, 1D48, John Clauser/Bobbi Tosse, 12. (3 boats)

PHRF B — 1) Swift Ness, J/111, Nesrin Ba soz, 5 points; 2) Nuckelavee, Melges 32, Mark Kennedy/Pearl Prisco, 5; 3) Family Hour, Hen derson 30, Bilafer family, 10. (5 boats)

able marks. With only three inflatable marks, the RC used one for the startline pin and one for the finish line pin. That left one for a windward mark. So the second and third races were windwardfinish.

On the more sheltered Southampton course to the north, the fleets waited out a one-hour postponement. The volun teers moved marks around a lot chasing the fluky wind angles. They started the first race for some of the fleets, then they had to shorten the course at the first mark when the wind died.

Around 1:30, the breeze then went from nothing to 12-13 — but felt like more. The J/24 fleet had requested five

B oth groups sailed into dense fog that clung to the surface of the water, reducing visibil ity. Alcatraz disappeared completely — which was super-disorienting. Ghostly ship traffic materialized out of the gloom. One northbound tanker blew five horns repeatedly at boats transiting from the east side of Angel to the east side of the invisible island that was Alcatraz.

In the low fog west of Alcatraz, sailors reported 18 knots of wind, and one saw up to 24 knots (apparent).

A big shift in Southampton Channel between Raccoon Strait and Richmond clocked the apparent wind angle from west to south. Almost everyone going clockwise had to douse their kites when

PHRF C — 1) Jeannette, Frers 40, Bob Novy, 5 points; 2) Spindrift V, Express 37, Andy Schwenk, 6; 3) Basic Instinct, Elliott 1050, Memo Gidley, 7. (6 boats)

PHRF D — 1) 'io, Antrim 27C, Buzz Blackett, 4 ponts; 2) Blue Dream, Melges 24, Ryan Conner, 8; 3) Abracadabra, Antrim 27, Ian Chamberlain, 9. (5 boats)

PHRF E — 1) Red Cloud, Farr 36, Don Ahrens, 4 points; 2) Joy Ride, Express 34, Cindy Evans, 9; 3) Another Girl, Alerion 38, Cinde Lou Delmas, 10. (8 boats)

PHRF F — 1) Son of a Son, J/70, David Fried, 5.5 points; 2) Rampage, J/70, Tom Thayer/Robert Milligan, 7; 3) MiniMax, Melges 20, Lance Kim, 10.5. (5 boats)

PHRF G — 1) Heart of Gold, Olson 911S, Joan Byrne/Axel Mehnert, 8 points; 2) Arcadia, Mod. Santana 27, Gordie Nash, 8; 3) Lickety

As seen from Alcatraz, clockwise and counterclockwise boats pass in the fog during the Great Pumpkin pursuit race. The foggiest parts of the course were also the windiest. Turn the page for more photos from the regatta.

PHRF H — 1)

J/88 — 1) Inconceivable, Steve Gordon, 5 points; 2) Split Water, Mark Howe, 9; 3) Hijinks, Logan Ashcraft, 11. (4 boats)

EXPRESS 27 — 1) Get Happy!!, Brendan Busch, 6 points; 2) Under the Radar, Greg Felton, 6; 3) Wile E Coyote, Dan Pruzan, 10. (14 boats)

OLSON 25 — 1) Synchronicity, Steve Smith, 4 points; 2) O'Mar, David Scott, 5; 3) Leap Year, Corey Quillen, 10. (4 boats)

J/24 — 1) Downtown Uproar, Darren Cumming, 9 points; 2) Little Wing, Robin Van Vliet, 12; 3) Evil Octopus, Randall Rasicot/Jasper Van Vliet, 16. (6 boats)

MOORE 24 — 1) Firefy, Joel Turmel, 7 points; 2) Mooretician, Peter Schoen/Roe Patterson, 12; 3) The Flying Tiger, Vaughn Seifers, 12. (10 boats)

WYLIE WABBIT — 1) Mr. McGregor, Kim Desenberg/John Groen, 5 points; 2) Just a Hare,

For more racing news, subscribe to 'Lectronic Latitude online at www.latitude38.com

November's racing stories included:

Se eral tots rom the Route u Rhum J/24 North Americans San Diego Lipton Cup Dee Smith Wins 2.4mR Worl s

National Sailing Hall o Fame In uction

Pre ie s o December Races, Midwinter Series, the Route du Rhum, and more.

Marcos McGee, 6; 3) 24K, Greg & Lisa Byrne, 9. (4 boats)

SANTANA 22 — 1) Alegre, Chris Klein, 5 points; 2) Byte Size, Anna Alderkamp, 8; 3) Zingaro, Jennifer McKenna, 9. (7 boats) U20 — 1) Udecide, Phil Kanegsberg/Denise Hammond, 5 points; 2) Rush, Daniel Irwin/John Andrew, 6; 3) Junta, Mark Allen, 9. (6 boats)

RYC GREAT PUMPKIN PURSUIT RACE, 10/30 MONOHULL — 1) Kwazy, Wylie Wabbit, Colin Moore; 2) WYSIWYG Olson 30, Hendrik Bruhns/ Guillaume Carnivet; 3) The Flying Tiger; 4) Get Happy!!; 5) Velvet Hammer; 6) Hot Sheet, Express 27, David Wick; 7) Wet Spot, Moore 24, Mike O'Callaghan; 8) No Name, J/100, Zach Berkowitz; 9) Safety Third, Moore 24, Alex Simanis; 10) H-Pod, J/100, Tom & Cam Hutton. (159 boats)

MULTIHULL — 1) Bottle Rocket, SeaCart 30, David Schumann; 2) HMB Boys & Girls Club, D-Class cat, Alan O'Driscoll/Bryan Wade; 3) Ocealys 3, Diam 24 OD, Fred Bouju. (10 boats) Full results at www.richmondyc.org

SSS Vallejo 1-2

On October 15, the 37 singlehanded sailors in the Vallejo 1 saw 15 knots of breeze almost the whole way, almost nervous-making at times. Despite a small wind hole near Red Rock, all boats finished by 2:30 for a very fast race from the GOC mark on the north Berkeley Circle to Vallejo YC. Paul Sutcheck's Cal 20 Slainte corrected out to first place overall.

VYC welcomed the sailors, who found slips or rafted up in the harbor and enjoyed the convivial atmosphere. Vol-

unteers offered a steak sandwich dinner and sent the (mostly) doublehanders off on Sunday morning with a hearty breakfast.

A dying ebb at the start of the race back to Richmond helped in the light air of Mare Island Strait. Spinnakers blossomed, then dropped before Carquinez Strait. At the right turn coming out of Mare Island Strait, the wind was forward and moderate for the usual beat to the finish at RYC. For a time, the breeze was even strong enough for crews on doublehanded boats to sit on the windward rail. But by Point Pinole, usually a windy stretch, the wind had softened, and sailors shifted their weight to leeward. The flood built, separating the fleet into those who escaped and those who languished. The persistent overcast finally lifted around 4 p.m., while boats were still finishing.

"The day offered absolutely perfect light-air conditions for an Olson 25 and the 155% genoa," said David Scott, the skipper of Vallejo 2 overall monohull winner O'mar. "Leaving Vallejo, we had a speedy spinnaker ride that set a good pace. Many boats favored the channel side of Pinole Shoal while JP Camille and I committed to the nice speed we were enjoying on the left of the course. We struggled a short bit at Point Pinole, as faster boats were overtaking, but we continued to stay left and found more speed and some timely lifts.

"As we got to the Brothers, the giants Timberwolf, Zaff and Arcadia (et al.) were well within sight, so we knew that our

performance was good.

"The win may simply be the result of good luck encountering favorable conditions, not fretting about current or better pressure, and sailing the shortest distance to the finish."

— chris / latitude

Great Pumpkin, clockwise from top left: J/24 District Championship action in Saturday's buoy races; Sunday's winner, 'Kwazy', was the first CCW boat on the west side of Alcatraz; GRU and his Minions sailed in costume on a J/80; Moore 24 pursuit race start (the numeral pennants read 6-0, the post ponement time). For photos from Saturday's costume party, see October 31's 'Lectronic Latitude.

Sergi Molins; 2) Timber Wolf, Dave Hodges/John Kernot; 3) Freedom, Will & Jib Martens. (7 boats)

SSS VALLEJO 1, 10/15

SPINNAKER 108 1) Timber Wolf, Farr 38, Dave Hodges; 2) Freedom, Worth 40, Jib Martens; 3) Zaff, J/92, Tim Roche. (6 boats)

SPINNAKER 111-159 — 1) Arcadia, Mod. Santana 27, Gordie Nash; 2) Rubicon III, Cont essa 33, Rod Percival; 3) Uno, Wyliecat 30, Bren Meyer. (11 boats)

SPINNAKER 162 1) Slainte, Cal 20, Paul Sutchek; 2) Zeehond, Newport 30 MkII, Donn Guay; 3) Dura Mater, Cal 2-27, Jackie Philpott. (5 boats)

SPORTBOAT — 1) Outsider, Azzura 310, Greg Nelsen; 2) Dragonsong, Olson 30, Sam McFadden; 3) Bad Hare Day, Erik Menzel. (7 boats)

NON-SPINNAKER — 1) Bella, Alerion 33, Aidan Collins; 2) Sobrante, Alerion 28, Paul Des calso; 3) Bullet, Express 37, Larry Baskin. (5 boats)

MULTIHULL — 1) Rainbow, Crowther 10M, Clifford Shaw; 2) Greyhound, F-22, Evan Mc Donald; 3) Bottle Rocket, SeaCart 30 GP+, Da vid Schumann. (3 boats)

SSS VALLEJO 2, 10/16

SPINNAKER 108 1) Zaff, Tim Roche/

SPINNAKER 111-159 — 1) O'mar, Olson 25, David Scott/JP Camille; 2) Arcadia, Gordie Nash/ Ruth Suzuki; 3) Uno, Bren Meyer/Milly Biller. (12 boats)

SPINNAKER 162 1) Zeehond, Donn Guay/Ed Paul; 2) Slainte, Paul Sutchek/Eric Thompson; 3) Dura Mater. (3 boats)

SPORTBOAT — 1) Outsider, Greg Nelsen/ Stephen Buckingham; 2) Bad Hare Day Erik Menzel/Michele Sumpton; 3) Dragonsong (7 boats)

NON-SPINNAKER — 1) Bullet, Larry & Miri am Baskin; 2) Bella. (4 boats)

MULTIHULL — 1) Bottle Rocket David Schumann/Trevor Baylis; 2) Greyhound, Evan McDonald/Ryan Adler; 3) Flux, SeaCart 30 GP+, Jeremy Boyette/Andy McCormick. (4 boats)

Full results at www.jibeset.net

TYC's Joan Storer Memorial Race

The Joan Storer Memorial Regatta was even more special this year, as John and Kelley Storer and their handsome dog Woody joined us at the after-race party.

John Storer is Joan Storer's son. He graciously sponsors this race in honor

of his mother Joan Storer, a past TYC member who passed away in 1989.

Joan was an avid racer and strong proponent of women in racing. The only requirement for the race this year was that there must be a woman at the helm, and so there were.

This year's Joan Storer Memorial Re gatta on October 22 saw a blustery day on the Bay. Six boats entered the race, but only four braved the gusty winds to race.

The wind was out of the northwest at the beginning of the race and veered north after the first boat started. Winds of 12-15 knots gusted to 22 at times.

The pursuit race course in the North Bay was ISO-S, R-14-S, GRC-S, TYC-S and finish.

The first boat to start was Ian Mat thew's C&C 29-1 Siento el Viento, skip pered by Elizabeth Bishop. She led the way around ISO, R-14 and GRC, but then was overtaken by Susan Hoehler's J/105 Joyride. Pellie Anderson's J/109 Kind of Blue followed closely behind Siento, but did not pass her before the finish line.

Special recognition goes out to the entire crew of the Santa Cruz 40 Osprey,

who came over from Richmond to race and party. We enjoyed heavy appetizers, a hosted bar, and live music. Some of our Paradise Cay neighbors who know John stopped in to visit and reminisce about Joan back in the day when the yacht club was in its original location.

— marielle stern

TYC JOAN STORER PURSUIT RACE, 10/22

1) Joyride, J/105, Susan Hoehler; 2) Siento el Viento, C&C 29-1, Elizabeth Bishop; 3) Kind of Blue, J/109, Pellie Anderson. (4 boats)

Full results at www.jibeset.net

Cal Maritime Wins at Kennedy Cup

The Cal Maritime Academy Keelhaul ers traveled from their Vallejo campus to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD, to defend their title in the Kennedy Cup, intercollegiate sailing's Big Boat Cham pionship. Of the 10 teams competing, the perennial contenders from the Pa cific Coast Collegiate Sailing Conference (PCCSC) had traveled the farthest for the seven-race regatta, held in Navy 44s on November 5-6. CMA was the only team there from the western US.

The Keelhaulers defeated the hosting Midshipmen with the final score of 14 to the Naval Academy's 26. Kyle Collins, class of 2023, skippered, with Justin Zmina, '23; Django Knafo-Tomlinson '25; Brock Paquin, '22; Clay Myers, '25; Cyrus Khaleeli, '24; Cooper Smith, '24;

Ben Louttit, '26; Madeline Rivera, '22; and Cianna Coyle (reserve), '26, crewing.

For the complete scores, see https:// scores.collegesailing.org.

— chris / latitude

Mercury Fall One Design Regatta

The Fall OD Regatta had a smaller than expected turnout, with six boats. The weather was great, and the sailing conditions varied, which made it plenty interesting.

Race 1 had light wind out of the south. Conditions tempted some to go left and some to go right up the first beat. Ben Bradley chose the right, and easily led from start to finish on the single lap course.

Race 2 had a little more wind on a twice-around course. The fleet stayed pretty close on the half-mile windward leg. Mike Burch got in the lead and fin ished first.

Race 3 had more wind and a three-lap course. Don Whelan got the lead at the first mark, and continued in the lead, but after rounding the second windward mark and setting the pole, he lost sight of Randy Smith to leeward and forced Smith to alter course. After Whelan did his turns, Mike Burch and Kenny Dair

were ahead starting the final lap. Burch finished first.

Race 4 on Sunday mor ning had a surprise for us, with a brisk northerly wind about 8-10 mph. The starting line was set up near the breakwater, with the wind direction about 300 degrees. The fleet mixed it up on the first beat, with Dair leading at the first mark and Whelan at the second mark. Smith went hard right on the second beat and led at the next mark. Before the next leeward mark, the wind lightened up and started to transition to the west. The race com mittee recognized the transition and shortened the course, finishing boats at the leeward mark after two laps. Smith was first. Within a few minutes of finish ing, the westerly breeze came in with a blast at 20-25 mph. Without much delay, the fifth race was abandoned and the fleet raced to the hoist.

It was a fun series, with Mike Burch finishing two points ahead of Randy Smith for the win.

The final results of the Travel Tro phy came down to this last event. Mike Burch's winning the Fall OD put him in a tie with John Ravizza at 16 points. Mike and John each had two first-place finishes, but Mike had a second-place

— don whelan

CBYC FALL ONE DESIGN, 11/12-13 (4r, 0t)

1) Jade, Mike Burch, 8 points; 2) Fast Break, Randy Smith, 10; 3) Bushwhacker, Don Whelan, 14. (6 boats)

Full results at www.cbyc.org

Wheel of Trouble in GGYC Midwinter

The first race in Golden Gate YC's Seaweed Soup Regatta started in a southwesterly on November 5. The race committee sent all of the fleets up Crissy Field to the Blackaller Buoy as the wind ward mark, and to Blossom Rock as the

SDYC INTERNATIONAL MASTERS REGATTA, 10/21-23 (11r, 0t)

J/105 — 1) Augie Diaz, Coral Reef YC/Bis cayne Bay YC, 46 points; 2) Terry McLaughlin, Royal Canadian YC, 50; 3) Tad Lacey, SFYC, 51. (11 boats)

Full results at www.sdyc.org

StFYC FALL DINGHY, 10/22-23

5O5 — 1) Mike Holt/Rob Woelfel, 5 points; 2) Howard Hamlin/Steve Bourdow, 10; 3) Mike Mar tin/Adam Lowry, 15. (12 boats)

I14 — 1) Brad Ruetenik, 5 points; 2) Kirk Twardowski/Matt Skafel, 12; 3) John Clark/Hoel Menard, 12. (6 boats)

C420 — 1) Lucas Kasper/Nathan Friedman, 4 points; 2) Beckett Shinn/Parker Stacy, 12; 3) Jack Wicker, 14. (13 boats)

I420 — 1) Aidan Gurskis/Kenzo Peraire, 8

'Uno'

leeward mark.

Some of the bigger and sportier boats in the first two divisions hugged the shore on the run but became becalmed down by the Aquatic Park Municipal Pier in the lee of Fort Mason. This gave PHRF 3 the chance to catch up, leading to boats from three divisions attempt ing to round Blossom Rock at once. The red-and-green ship channel buoy sat in a raging river of ebb and a patch of light air. In order to avoid colliding with one

BOX SCORES

points; 2) Leo Robillard/Sawyer Bastian, 8; 3) Mika Sternberg/Matthew Commons, 13. (10 boats)

RS FEVA — 1) Alyssa Belogorsky/Mila Kane, 5 points; 2) Ren Hirose/Myima Canty, 6; 3) Helene Smolenski, 15. (10 boats)

RS TERA — 1) Sebastian Barker, 6 points; 2) Keira Faye, 10; 3) Bea Littler, 13. (14 boats)

ILCA 6 — 1) Tor Svendsen, 8 points; 2) Toshi nari Takayanagi, 13; 3) Ethan Sargent, 16; 4) Talia Hamlin, 16. (16 boats)

OPTI CHAMPS — 1) Beckett Kern, 4 points; 2) Harrison Doyle, 12; 3) Bea Melet, 15. (18 boats)

OPTI GREEN — 1) Finn Kroeker, 4 points; 2) Roselyn Chang, 9; 3) Matias Ryan, 12. (6 boats) Full results at www.stfyc.com

another or the big metal buoy, boats wove masterfully through the crowd or gave up places in the race to avoid it entirely.

Skippers shouted at one another to give room. On the inside of the wheel was Gordie Nash's Arcadia, which was hit by two boats and knocked into the buoy. Sailors cringed at hearing the loud crunch that resounded through the fleet. After contact, the J/120 Mr. Magoo dropped out of the race and

SDYC LIPTON CUP, 10/28-30 (11r, 0t)

J/105 — 1) Tyler Sinks, SDYC, 38 points; 2) Scott Harris, Coronado YC, 43; 3) Peter Levesque, NYYC, 45. (11 boats)

Full results at www.sdyc.org

TYC RED ROCK REGATTA, 10/29

1) Joyride, J/105, Bill Hoehler; 2) Cinnamon Girl, Beiley 26, Mariellen Stern/Melodie Schum acher; 3) Lion, Olson 25, Lon Woodrum/Steve Nimz. (5 boats)

Full results at www.jibeset.net

LMSC SUMMER/FALL RACE SERIES (16r, 0t)

SUNFISH — 1) Roy Jordan, 58.5 points; 2) Bob Cronin, 53.75; 3) Russ Klein, 51.75. (4 boats)

EL TORO — 1) Art Lange, 26 points; 2) Paul Zander, 16. (2 boats)

headed home. Protest flags flew. Arcadia exonerated themselves for hitting the mark with a 360° turn just before the finish line. Heated words were exchanged at the dock.

By the end, the wind had clocked more to the west and picked up in velocity, and the last beat was more square to the finish in front of GGYC's clubhouse. The five-race series will continue on December 3. See www.jibeset.net for stand ings or to sign up.

College Match Race Champs

On November 11-13, San Diego YC hosted 10 college sail ing teams from across the country for the College Sailing Match Race National Championship. SDYC provided a fleet of matched J/22s. Spectators could watch from the waterfront.

Looking as if they took a swim, Jack Egan and his crew of Yalies topped the College Sailing Match Race National Championship, hosted by SDYC in J/22s.

Rule 69 in Rolex Big Boat Series

Yale University took home the title for the Bulldogs for the second straight year. Local San Diego sailor Jack Egan, class of '25, skippered the Yale team, with crew Nicholas Davies, '24; Megan Grimes, '24; and Christophe Chaumont, '23.

Day 1 got 6-8 knots of WSW wind for the first stage round robin. Stanford and Yale each led with a record of 6-0. Wiley Rogers, AnnaClare Sole, Jack Baldwin and Konstantinos Michalopoulos sailed for Stanford.

"Going into the day, our goal was to get comfortable in the boat and nail the basics," said Stanford sailing coach Augie Dale. "The breeze was fairly shifty, so being in phase was super-important around the marks."

Day 2 started with a short postpone ment before the wind settled into a 7- to 9-knot westerly.

After another short postponement on Day 3, the racing began in an unusual southerly. The wind then clocked west and held for the rest of the day's races.

Yale and Charleston battled for the championship title. Yale beat Charleston 3-0.

"In the semi-finals," said Ian Barrows, coach of Yale University, "we had a close final race with two lead changes. I was proud of how they kept their heads down and kept on improving on little things. In the finals, the team did a great job with their down speed maneuvers in the prestart and were able to start ahead."

Stanford, the only West Coast school, finished the regatta in eighth place.

— latitude / chris

A Rule 69 infraction has resulted in a protest committee's booting a J/105 from the Rolex Big Boat standings. "The StFYC Organizing Authority received a report of misconduct after the regatta concluded," regatta chair Susan Ruhne told us, "and, since our International Jury had returned to their homes, appointed a new panel to handle the matter. Their decision was posted on November 2."

The finding is against the owner/skip per of J/105 #3 Ne*Ne Tim Russell and his crewmember Arne Vandenbroucke for misconduct under RRS 69.1(a). That rule requires competitors to not "commit gross misconduct."

Ne*Ne had been scored third in the 29-boat fleet, as we reported in our Rolex Big Boat Series feature in the October issue. But now Ne*Ne has been rescored "DNE" in all seven races. (DNE stands for Disqualification Not Excludable.) This moves Bruce Stone and Nicole Breault's Arbitrage into third place. Tim Russell planned to hand over the third-place award to Stone at the J/105 fleet's an nual awards party in late November.

"Leading up to this event, there had been increasing tension between another competitor and myself," Russell wrote to us. "A prank was done during BBS after he filed another invalid protest against us. The intention of the prank was an attempt to lighten things up between us. The joke resulted in neither injury nor harm to property, which was part of the intention. It was completely, and only, intended as a joke. Looking back, I regret doing it. I have apologized to all parties involved, including the race committee, protest committee, and my competitors.

I fully accept the protest committee's decision, and take the scoring penalty as a painful punishment, as a result of my actions.

"Now that the ruling is over and this sailing season is complete, I look forward to 2023, to get ting back to respectful competition on the water, and jovial camaraderie on the dock."

To read StFYC's com plete letter, see https:// yachtscoring.com/event_ documents/15026/ Rule_69_hearing_results_. pdf

— chris / latitude

Euro Pogo Class 40 Moves West

It was Andrew Rist's dream to have what he called an "eight-day boat" to get to Hawaii. He thinks his new acquisition will be, in golf parlance, a par 8. He found a 2014 Finot-designed Pogo 40 S3 whil ing away COVID in Charleston, SC.

Iskareen's German owner, Arnt Bruhns, sailed her in the Fastnet, the Transat and the 2020 Caribbean 600. He had taken her to Charleston to stage her for the Atlantic Cup — but then along came the pandemic.

We asked Andrew what he planned to do with the boat. He joked, "Oh, go cruis ing." Not really. It's spartan down below. A jetboil is the only galley, a bucket the only head (though it does boast a carbonfiber seat and cover).

In reality, Andrew's goal is to sail her to Hawaii in the Pacific Cup, then con sider Caribbean and Atlantic adventures. The Sequoia YC member will keep her in Redwood City temporarily, then move her to San Francisco, where there's more room for her 9-ft keel.

Cute, sure, but what does a bear hugging a tree have to do with sailing? Turn the page to find out.

THE RACING SHEET

Andrew's previous boat was a sporty little Open 5.70 — another Finot design. "This is basically the same boat, only twice the length — but in reality, 16 times the boat."

When the 40-footer arrived at Svendsen's, she didn't need much — basically unpacking and a bottom job. "She's in really good shape."

He'll call the boat Möve, German for seagull. The umlaut will be in the shape of a gull. The plan was to splash the boat about a week before Thanksgiving.

— latitude / chris

Race Notes

StFYC hosted the Big Sail on November 16. Stanford won the Grandmasters Alumni, Women's and Varsity divisions. Cal won the Masters Alumni and Alumni divisions. It's the only regatta where you'll see a bear hug a tree! (Cal won the

Big Game later that week.)

Subtitled "The story of the best worst idea," a new documentary examines the Race to Alaska. The movie is available to stream. Access it online at https:// r2akthemovie.com

US Sailing has opened nominations

for the 2022 Rolex Yachtsman and Yachtswoman of the Year. "These sailors are US citizens who are proven stewards of the sport, demonstrate sportsmanship on and off the water, and achieve the highest level of success in prominent international, continental and national championships in a calendar year."

Nominations are open through December 15 at www. ussailing.org/rolexyoy.

After 26 years of hosting 12 editions of the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race , Sir Robin Knox-Johnston will step down as chair, backing away from the day-to-day running of the business. Managing directors Chris Rushton and Laura Ayres will now lead Clipper Ventures. The next edition of the Clipper Race will start in 2023 (the exact date is TBA). Keep track of the event at www.clipperroundtheworld.com

— latitude / chris

SAN DIEGO 2832 Cañon St, San Diego 619.226.2422 sandiego@quantumsails.com

SAN FRANCISCO 1230 Brickyard Cove Rd, #200, Pt. Richmond 510.234.4334 pacific@quantumsails.com

LONG BEACH 5122 Bolsa Ave #110, Huntington Beach 562.799.7444 nwheatley@quantumsails.com

BEACON MARINE 3695 Harbor Blvd, Ste 305, Ventura 805.232.1513 splomteaux@quantumsails.com QUANTUMSAILS.COM

CHANGES

With reports this month from Dogfish's "a little help from my friends" refurbish (and a few Dairy Queen moments); the yearly rendezvous of far-flung friends at Santa Cruz Island; the fourth installment of Taliesin Rose's cruisers' guide to off-the-beaten-track post-Ha-Ha destinations; and a Christmas stocking full of Cruise Notes.

Life Under the Baja Stars (Part 1) Oakland

pre-purchase survey for clients. In a few minutes, I'll hop into a taxi to catch a flight and start my journey back to Dogfish.

Back in 2020, I was figuring out my path and adjusting to sailing life on my own. That first season taught me so much — that I loved the sailing life on my own, I could do it on my own, and the cruising community was still my place, even when life got a little rough. My next challenge was how to keep my little program going logistically and financially on my own, something I had never thought to plan for. The challenges of being a singlehand ing young(ish) cruiser for me were not just about sailing the boat by myself, but also figuring out how to maintain my boat and fund the nomadic life with double the workload on half the budget.

Marga and 'Dogfish' have come a long way in the past couple of years.

I wrote my last update to Latitude in fall 2020, from a little palapa restaurant in Bahia de Los Angeles called Guiller mo's, where the shade was relief, the WiFi was slow, and the wave lets lapping on the shore provided the soundtrack. Back then I was wrap ping up my first year as a singlehanded cruiser, cut ting my teeth as a solo sailor after my longterm partner and I split suddenly, all to the backdrop of COVID.

Two years later? Well, I'm once again writing from a waterfront palapa — so it can't have gone all that badly! I'm jotting down this update from La Paz, where a mild norther is making my empty Paci fico tinkle ever so slightly on the glasstopped wooden table. Frank Sinatra is crooning on the speakers, and I'm feeling a bit wired from having just wrapped up a

I realized I needed a better cruising job. At the suggestion of several friends, I decided that I would build upon my years as a shipwright and become a marine surveyor. My thinking was that I could be a traveling marine surveyor, specializing in cruising boats.

So in November 2020, I put the good ship Dogfish on pause in the cheapest boatyard in Mexico: the Cabrales Boat yard in Puerto Peñasco, in the northern Sea of Cortez. And I set about becoming a NAMS marine surveyor and setting up my new business, Dogfish Boatworks. While I waited on paperwork and tests to go through, I completed some upgrades on the boat, sitting patiently under her vinyl wrap in the storage yard. I built a new bunk into the V-berth, to make a more comfortable guest berth, gain storage, and have a great new work bench. I moved my freezer to a new compartment where it would stay cooler in the hot summers, and completed a service to my Yanmar engine to keep her in top condition.

I got very lucky in my decision to come to the Cabrales Boatyard. I came for the price, but stayed for the people! The yard owners are a wonderful family, and the cruisers who collect here are one fine bunch of folks working on all sorts of proj ects and refits. I reunited with my good friends Mike and Katie on their Gulfstar 50 Alegria and also Dave and Marla on their Tartan 37 Cavu. I made new friends with Dave and Pati on Milagros, a Swiss cou ple who are fellow Kelly Peterson 44

We began calling ourselves the Boat yard Nobodies. After a day of toiling away in the Peñasco dust, our little gang drank Coors Light in the evenings around Liquid's fire pit. Why Coors? Same reason as Peñasco — it was the cheapest option around! For a break from the yard, we camped in the sand dunes of the near by Pinacate World Heritage Site. I had my 35th birthday under Dogfish, where I served the whole yard cocktails from a menu written into my red bottom paint with a Sharpie.

Being a Boatyard Nobody is not for

IN LATITUDES

the faint of heart. Dust and grime col lected under our fingernails and in all the small crevices of our boats. We were of ten freezing in the nights, and sweating in the days. We ate tacos at a little stand right next to the train tracks, and when the freight trains came through our mo lars would shudder. At night, the lights of the strip clubs surrounding the yard would throw lurid glows onto the masts of the storage yard. When the winter winds (and dust storms) blew, our landed boats vibrated on their stands, and when the rare winter rains came, we huddled under

tarps and were happy for the cleansing of our dirty little world.

There were days when one of us had a setback in a project, like when Milagros's new chainplates finally arrived — every one the wrong size. Or when Cavu was splashed, only to have to be hauled right back out because a fisherman had laid a giant net across the harbor, un marked, which then severely tangled in Cavu's prop, strut, and rudder, causing major damage. When bad things like this happened, we called it a Dairy Queen Moment, and would walk the few blocks

to buy the injured party a little Blizzard treat. Like Coors Light, Dairy Queen was most of the time also the cheapest option in Peñasco. What a town!

To offset all the tacos and Coors and Dairy Queen, we started a yoga group called the Cabrales Olympians. We be came some fit-looking cruisers! Turnout got very high once it started getting hot again, as the cruisers' lounge where yoga was held had the best air conditioning around.

In April, my new business was ready to launch. I made my website and put an an nouncement out that I was a new NAMS sur veyor for hire. My friends Jamie and Behan on Totem, who were also working away on their projects in the yard, were a huge help in put ting the word out for me. And just like that, I got very busy! For the rest of 2021, I was cutting my teeth in marine survey ing, with lots of surveys in the boatyard, and also ones that I traveled for all over Baja, mainland Mexico, and the US. I also offered online con sults for folks looking at vessels, and owners who needed repair advice.

It tur ns out surveying and consulting were a great choice for me. The work marries my love of boats and writing. And I can use my many years of experience working on boats, in boatyards, and cruising to give my fel low cruisers the kind of surveys I would want for my own boat.

I took some breaks from work for trips to South Africa and Colorado to visit fam ily and friends. By the end of 2021, my cruising kitty was feeling better stocked, and I turned my eye toward recommis sioning Dogfish and getting her ready for more adventures. It was time for Phase 2 of my business plan: making my marine surveying business mobile by sail. A lot of the Boatyard Nobodies had splashed and I was feeling that it was time to return to the sea.

After returning from some Colorado holiday winter family time, I started on some final fixes to Dogfish, including

installing new lithium batteries and as sociated components. I also made new solar panel mounts and replaced lower gear seals on my not-dead-yet outboard. I ponied up for a Starlink satellite internet dish, planning to see if it would help me

T rue Blue, Iguana and Ardea Friends, Old and New End of Summer "Cruz-Dezvous" Marina del Rey and Beyond

Nearly every year since the mid-'80s, a group of us Marina del Rey yachties has gone on buddy-boat excur sions to Catalina Island's Isthmus Harbor, Emerald Bay, Avalon, and Cat Har bor. We've also done sev eral beer can and MDRto-San Diego races, and cruised the Caribbean's Leeward Islands on shared charter boats.

work more efficiently while sailing. I did another round of traveling surveys, com pleted the never-ending list of recommis sioning jobs, and in spring 2022, I was ready to launch! I had my plan all laid out, with a friend coming in to crew for two weeks. We would sail down to Puerto Escondido for some more survey jobs I had lined up.

It was then that I had my own Dairy Queen moment! My rig inspection re vealed many cracked swages in my sixand-a-half-year-old standing rigging. I hemmed and hawed over how to proceed; whether to fix only the swages currently cracked (about 11 of them), whether to get new swaged rigging shipped down from the States, or whether to order me chanical fittings and do the job myself. At this point, I was feeling pushed for time to sail down to my surveys, and generally feeling ready to get the heck out of this port already.

Navigating COVID supply and price issues, and with generous offers of help from my friends at Berkeley Marine Cen ter, Rogue Rigging and CC Rigging, I end ed up buying all-new Hayn Hi-Mod me chanical fittings and wire from Fisheries Supply. My friend Scott, who was origi nally coming to Dogfish for his first-ever boat trip, generously agreed to help with the project prior to our departure. It's a real friend who is up for sweating away on your boat for half his trip when he has never even been sailing before!

— Marga 11/4/22 (www.dogfishboatworks.com)

Next month: more cruising, more survey work; and riding out Hurricane Kay.

Originally based in Marina del Rey's 'D' ba sin near Pacific Mariners Yacht Club, we've owned various sailing vessels, including a Santana 22, Fantasia 35, a couple of Catalina 38s, and most recently a pair of Beneteaus. One of the current owners re sides in Santa Barbara. Another is home ported in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Changing jobs, homes, boats and girlfriends through the years hasn't de terred raft-ups, dad-and-daughter week ends, island cookouts, bachelor parties, and milking lots of buffaloes. (Ed. Note: "Buffalo Milk" is the official mixed drink of Catalina Island.)

Around 2003, the spontaneous gettogethers eventually morphed into an annual trip to Catalina's Emerald Bay. As the years flew by, sons and daugh ters grew up, moved away, and had kids; boats were bought, sold or upgraded; and a couple of friends unfortunately crossed over the bar.

This resulted in a "core of four" origi nal members: Rick Clemenson, Roger Selkowitz, Mike Esperanza and myself. But we're happy to accommodate newer additions. For 2022, that included firsttimer John Roberts, who drove in from La Quinta, and Bear, who has joined us for several Catalina trips over the years. Did I mention that Bear is a dog? A big dog?

This year, we decided to change things up a bit with a trip to Santa Cruz Island instead of Catalina. After lots of logistical juggling of work schedules, homeport de partures, and expected routes, we chose Prisoners Harbor, at the end of August.

I accompanied Rick on his Beneteau 50 T rue Blue, along with other 70-some things John and Roger. We departed MDR on Saturday, August 27. The plan was to rendezvous at Prisoners with Iguana, Mike and 'Puchi' Esperanza's Beneteau B411, which had departed Sausalito a week earlier; and Ardea, a Tartan 37

Why Prisoners? We appreciate the his tory of all the places we visit, and Prison ers has an interesting one. In the 1830s, after the native Chumash had relocated to the mainland, the presidio at the harbor served briefly as a Mexican penal colony, hence the name. One story involved an escape in which the prisoners built a raft supported by inflated animal bladders. As the story goes, sharks attacked the blad ders, and then the men. Amazingly, one man managed to reach the mainland.

The large wharf at Prisoners was built in the 1860s, and the trademark twin brick buildings were built in the 1880s and used for wool storage. At one time there were more than 60,000 sheep and nearly as many cattle on the island.

T rue Blue's first stop was Channel Is lands Harbor in Oxnard. After dinner at the Pacific Corinthian YC, we returned to the boat to find that the main 60-gallon water tank had somehow drained itself.

This is not an unusual start to one of our trips.

There is no potable water available on Santa Cruz Island, so we couldn't just ignore the problem. After a night of fid dling around with the watermaker, float switches, pumps, spigots, water hoses, electrical panels, bilge diapers and yes, even the "kitchen sink" — all to no avail — we decided to stay an extra day. But the next day, whether through planet align ment, rising/descending zodiac signs or some sort of obscure nautical voodoo, the problem fixed itself. We made a pact to keep an eye on it.

On Monday, we topped of f the fuel and

water tanks and bashed all the way under D-sail in sunshine to Prisoners with 12+ knot winds and choppy seas on the nose. The anchorage was glassy-calm, with a slight amount of roll. The rolling in creased later in the afternoon but wasn't beam-ends intense; in fact, it was less radical than many Catalina anchorages. Unlike at Emerald, there was no surge.

Iguana's trip down was divided be tween motoring and flying the A2 kite. After stops at Santa Cruz, Monterey, and Morro Bay, they were able to fly the kite in a daytime rounding of Pt. Conception, arriving at Coho. They dropped off crew in Santa Barbara and sailed most of the way to Prisoners, arriving early Tuesday.

Simon and Sue on Ardea showed up a couple of hours later, having sailed most of the way from Santa Barbara.

A planned outing to Cueva Valdez and

the Painted Cave was scrubbed after re ports of winds reaching 35 knots.

While most of the state baked under triple-digit temperatures inland, the sum mer heat wave delivered daytime temps at Prisoners in the 80s. Wednesday night featured warm breezes aloft and T-shirt weather, almost tropical.

T rue Blue took off for our return trip on September 1. We had 27-knot wind off the port quarter, making for a rip-roaring reach back to Channel Islands Marina. The other boats soon followed, and we capped the rendezvous off with BBQ and a galley sword fight with tongs to enter tain the troops.

Not all cruising involves sailing to far away ports. For us, yachting closer to home aboard small boats has provided a way of making and maintaining friend ships, in our case for nearly 40 years. We're all quite a bit older now, have many more aches and pains, take bushel bas kets full of pills, and move more slowly. But we haven't lost our passion for sail ing. We're always up for a trip to the is lands and truly enjoy the spiritual boost only the ocean can provide.

— Andy Kopetzky 9/8/22

Taliesin Rose — Bavaria 46E

Fennell Family

The Route Less T raveled (Part 4 — Nicaragua)

Port Townsend

El Salvador had been a beautiful place to spend the rainy season, but as the summer storms of 2018 began to dissi pate, we found our feet getting itchy and knew we had a sweet spot to head south after the storms had eased off and the winter gap winds piped up.

We'd been getting frequent reports on conditions in Nicaragua after the civil un rest in the spring. All reports were "peace ful," so we made a plan to head south for "The Land of Lakes and Volcanoes," and waited patiently for the bar to open for the season so we could make our getaway. Once we got the "all clear" from the Rallyto-El-Salvador organizers Bill and Jean, we arranged for the bar pilot to guide us out with two other boats at the end of October. We said our goodbyes to the Es tero and left the dock with a warm dinghy send-off from the other cruisers who were staying behind.

The outgoing crossing required prepa ration and fortitude: planning to arrive on station at high tide, timing the wave sets as they approached from the sea, and trying to pick the smallest waves to dart through. Once the pilot gave the go-ahead, pulling back was not really a good option. So we crossed our fingers

and toes, pointed the bow straight at the approaching white water of the cresting wave, and Rowan put the hammer down. Surfing in the same direction as a breaking wave, as we did when we en tered Bahia del Sol, is a bit more con trolled, with more room for maneuvering. Going the opposite direction, staring up at a breaking wave, at some point you just have to hold your breath and hope you break through the other side. You can't duck-dive a sailboat, and if you turn turtle, well, that's no good. Taliesin Rose launched through the first big one and slammed through a couple more — and then we were through to deeper water and the open ocean. Thankfully, the rig ging absorbed the impact with no dam age. Another boat that attempted cross ing the same day wasn't so lucky and had to return to the estuary for repairs. We waved goodbye to our amigos and pointed our bow toward the Golfo de Fonseca.

The Gulf of Fonseca is an incredible yet often overlooked natural wonder with a complicated and conflicted human his tory. Indigenous communities have been calling the area home for at least 4,000 years. Evidence of the Lenca people and their ancestors can be found in at least 10 significant archaeological sites on the islands and surrounding areas. These sites, as well as the natural beauty, diver sity of coastal environments, and rich and relatively untouched flora and fauna, are all factors that have qualified the Golfo de Fonseca as a candidate for a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation.

Today the gulf is controlled by three neighboring countries: El Salvador, Hon duras and Nicaragua. But for hundreds of years prior, the area had been con tested by powers both foreign and local. In 1522, the large natural harbor was ex plored by Spanish conquistadors. Ruins of early missionary churches can still be found in the area today. During the time of European and American colonization of Central America (and well before the dig ging had begun in Panama), the United States had planned to dig a canal through Honduras — from the Caribbean, to the Gulf of Fonseca, to the Pacific Ocean.

After achieving independence from for eign powers, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua disputed control of the terri tory until 1992, when an international court ruled that all three countries would maintain some control of the area.

When we arrived by sailboat, the Golfo de Fonseca was serene and beautiful. The panoramic view was breathtaking. The inhabited islands of Meangëra, Concha güita and El Tigre rise out of the blue wa ter, covered with rich green jungle. As far

as we could gather, aside from our buddy boat, we were the only cruising boats in the entire gulf. There were plenty of fish ing pangas, though, and we received many friendly waves from the pangueros as we passed by.

Because the area is not frequented, cruisers are on their own to navigate the bureaucracy involved in checking into and out of places governed by three dif ferent countries. We had already checked out of one of them, El Salvador, before we left, as it was recommended and because the immigration office was conveniently located right at the marina.

When traveling from El Salvador south east along the coast, the logical order is to visit Isla Conchagüita, El Tigre and then Meangüera. We anchored for one night in front of the small fishing village at Con chagüita with no logistical issues. It was clear that we were a novelty, because we had a few young fishermen swim and paddle out to the boat in a wooden ca noe in varying states of inebriation. Our Spanish is rudimentary at best and their English was nonexistent, but after some fumbling physically and linguistically, we sent them on their way with some extra

provisions that they likely would not have access to living on the remote island. In the morning we took the dinghy to town, checked out the fishing fleet, stopped at the tienda for sodas and snacks, and walked through the tiny pueblo.

The next stop was El T igre. And talk about a place with a storied multination al history! Legend has it the island was named for the vicious pirates who inhab ited and operated out of El Tigre under Sir Francis Drake. In the 1800s, it was established as a significant shipping port through which massive amounts of pre cious metal passed. The remaining in frastructure at the port town of Amapala reflects the bygone era of a wealthy boom town with cobbled streets, colorful build ings, a large church and even a dilapidat ed casino.

El T igre also played a significant part in American history, though it's a history that was purposely obfuscated for US citi zens at the time (and mostly lost to obscu rity now). It was the site of a covert CIA base for decades, most notably during the Iran-Contra scandal and the Nicaraguan Civil War in the 1980s. I was surprised to learn from a Nicaraguan friend that the

film American Made, starring Tom Cruise, was actually a fairly true-to-life depiction of the shenanigans that Oliver North was instigating in this remote part of Central America. I was happy we were able to visit Amapala in peacetime.

For now, the world seems to have left El T igre and its people to their own devic es. As I imagine happens in many places that see conflict, folks have returned to living their daily existence, in this case fishing, going to market, offering services to the occasional tourist — all in one of the most naturally beautiful places in the world.

Despite our fears, checking into Hon duras at the pier at Amapala was one of the most efficient, professional, afford able (free) and rapid check-in processes of our entire three years cruising. The port captain and immigration offices were right next to each other, and as close to the anchorage as possible. Our passports were screened and stamped, our digital fingerprints registered into the system,

and we were welcomed graciously to Hon duras.

Amapala and the communities around the island seem to be waning from their colonial heydays, but it's easy to imagine the port and pier bustling with commerce and trade during a bygone era. These days, it's mostly tourists from the Hondu ran mainland who fuel the economy. We stopped at the bank to get some limpiras and quickly found a watering hole to sam ple our first of many Salva Vida cervezas. The next day, we got a tuk-tuk tour of the island and took in the beauty of the place.

We had hoped to stop at Isla Meangüera next, but it's governed by El Salvador. As mentioned, we had already checked out and didn't want to pay the fee to enter again for one day. So we made it a lunch stop, took in the views from the anchor age, and then set sail for Nicaragua.

We were buddy boating, and even though the weather was fine for a beauti ful overnight sail to our next port of en try, we chose to hang with our friends

and rest for the night at the Moneypenny Anchorage in the shadow of the towering Volcan Cosiguina. Cruising information on this area is limited, but the SV Sarana guide that we used religiously through Central America had given fair warning that it was not uncommon for boats to be hassled by the Nicaraguan navy when an chored at Moneypenny, especially when the vessel had not yet checked into the country.

We had an uneventful night on the hook and woke up before dawn to get underway. About an hour after sunrise, when we were well on our way out of the Gulf of Fonseca, we saw two large pangas on an intercept course at high speed. As they approached, the telltale gray paint job and lettering spelling out "marina" came into view, and we discussed with our buddies over the radio that we didn't think they were fishing pangas.

It was 7 a.m. and Rowan was rest ing below as the two boats hailed and boarded our buddies and then came to us. I quickly pulled in the hand line that we almost always drag on a passage. On the end of the line was a beautiful sierra mackerel, and I had just enough time to get it aboard before the Nicaraguan navy boat pulled up to our stern. I hol lered a greeting and asked the sailors if they wanted the fish and they eagerly ac cepted. They then informed us that they would be boarding our vessel.

I kept things light, in part because anxiety would not have been helpful, especially for the kids. I introduced the soldiers to our sailing cat, which they got a kick out of. They took a quick gander around, checked the throw pillows on the settee (I suppose that's where they thought we kept the cash), and went on their way. The second boat then came by. The officer in charge informed us that we needed to hoist our Nicaraguan courtesy flag — and sent us on our way.

The rest of the day's sail along the northwestern coast of Nicaragua was some of the most glorious sailing of our trip. It was a bright, clear day, the air was fresh from the recent rains, the water was a deep crystalline blue, and the breezes were perfect and comfortable. We basked in the radiance of the day and repeatedly remarked to one another what a perfect sail it was.

We approached the estero at Aserra dores and navigated the narrow channel into the dock at the beautiful Puesta del Sol Resort. Arriving here was a home coming of sorts; we had visited this exact place a number of times on surf trips, and our arrival meant catching up with our good friends who lived nearby.

CHANGES

Juanita, the manager at the hotel and marina, welcomed us war mly and arranged for the immi gration and navy officials to check us in. We quickly made ourselves quite at home on the estero. The veggie truck would come to the ma rina two or three times per week to deliver locally grown, fresh pro duce. The marina showers were luxurious compared to most. The laundry room was functional and never busy, and had a covered patio with clotheslines for drying laundry out of the wind and rain.

The Resort at Puesta del Sol is peaceful and beautiful, and the staff are friendly and kind. There is a restaurant and bar under a pa lapa overlooking the water, a gor geous pool, and a cruisers' lounge with Wi-Fi next to the marina. A short walk through the mangroves leads to the beach palapa, featur ing an infinity pool with a view of the Pacific Ocean. Very few cruisers fre quent this magical spot, so we often had the whole place to ourselves.

Don Roberto, the owner of the marina, was also our dock neighbor. Having been a cruiser himself, he lived comfortably on his motor yacht. Not only was he a won derful host, but we developed a lovely re lationship over the months that we lived there in the estero. Don Roberto hosted family movie nights, projected onto a screen, and on Saturday evenings, he would host all us cruisers for a dinner of traditional Nicaraguan food. We are still in touch with Roberto, who recently cel ebrated his 90th birthday!

Days tur ned into weeks, and we im mersed ourselves in daily life. Our friends at Rise Up Surf lent us a car, and most mornings we would head to the nearby beaches to catch waves while the girls played blissfully on the beach. We arrived in November and celebrated the holidays surfing and sharing meals with dear friends whom we had met over the years.

On Christmas Eve, we took the funds that we would nor mally spend on dinner fixings and presents, and used them to throw a party for the 300+ kids in the vil lage and surrounding areas. Held at the local school, it was complete with lunch, piñatas and party clowns.

Sundays were "fundays" and we would gather at a friend's house on the beach in the early afternoon with something to share, then spend the rest of the day cool ing off in the pool, resting in the handcrafted Masaya hammocks, sharing sto ries, and enjoying each other's company.

Vikki began teaching at a little

preschool for expat and local children, and Lucy and Emmy were her wonderful teaching assistants. Fairly regularly, we would walk just up the road to the village for gallo pinto, queso and fruit smoothies at Pedro's, or Nicaraguan BBQ with plan tain chips for dinner. We caught a few lo cal teams playing beisbol, and had even more fun going to Chinandega to watch the national teams play.

We took our buddies' sailing dinghy for sails on the estuary. We would meet up to go paddleboarding just off the docks, or take the dinghy upriver to tow each other on the surfboard, or over for a bonfire on the sandbar that was dry only at low tide. A couple of times we were able to take our local friends, young surfers who had never been sailing, out for sunset cruises in the ocean. It was a simple, tranquil and deeply fulfilling existence, and there is a part of me that will always wish I were back there.

We took the opportunity of having a set of wheels at our disposal to better explore the lakes and volcanoes for which Nica ragua is famous. We hiked to the rim of Volcan Cosigüina to view the lake in the caldera. A trip to León meant visiting the white church, mojitos at Big Foot Hostel, and "volcano boarding" down Cerro Ne gro. We found boutique hotels and food trucks in Managua. We explored the Ma saya Artisan Market, marveled at the lava at Masaya Volcano National Park, and

swam and basked on the shores of Lago Apoyo.

Granada was the most char m ing town, nestled on the banks of the massive Lake Nicaragua. We booked a stay in the meticulously restored Hotel Plaza Colón, which sits right on the main square with views of the brightly painted church.

One of the most delightful things to do in Granada is to take a tour around town in a horse-drawn car riage along the cobbled streets of the quintessentially colonial city. Our tour guide took us to various points of interest around the city and imparted historical facts along the way. Granada has been the fo cal point of industry and politics for centuries. Pirates raided the city numerous times in the 1700s. In the 1800s, during the Filibus ter War, Granada was the strong hold of the American mercenary and scheming tyrant William Walker, who took over control of Nicaragua by force, declared himself president, and held onto power for a year as he exploited the Ni caraguan people and tried to re-establish slavery after the practice had been abol ished for decades. Unsurprisingly, Walker was run out of town by united forces from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nica ragua and Costa Rica. A cad to the end, he burned the city during his retreat.

Granada survived all the turmoil and is currently experiencing a revival, with young entrepreneurs opening trendy hos tels and beautiful restaurants in restored haciendas. Nearby, a boat can take pas sengers out on Lake Nicaragua to the 365 isletas littered with beautiful and unique houses.

Granada was the end of our tourist ing and we prepared to leave Nicaragua knowing that we were leaving visits to na tional treasures like Ometepe Island, the Little Corn Islands, and beach towns of Rivas and San Juan del Sur for another time.

Pirates have been stashing treasure in Nicaragua for centuries, and though their methods were abhorrent, it's easy to see why Nicaragua is so attractive to treasure hunters. I would argue that Nicaragua's most valuable treasures are its natural beauty, rich culture, and the resilient and genuine people. Nicaraguans cer tainly taught us a lot about finding joy in everyday life and gratitude for the simple things.

We ended up visiting Nicaragua twice during our cruising adventures, for a total of six months in-country, and no matter

how many times we visit, we will always be wishing to go back. Such is the nature of calling more than one place home. But good things come to an end, so we prepared to say our goodbye-for-now and waited for a pause in the Papagayo Wind to get to lower latitudes. Onward to Costa Rica.

Cruise Notes

Allure, Christian Berg-Hansen's Hans Christian 44 Pilothouse, has been in Puerto Vallarta for the past year, getting ready for the "Big Triangle" departure in spring 2024. Christian works on the boat month-on, month-off, with the "off" month spent as the mate on an articulating tug delivering fuel from Washington to Alaska. Presently, "I'm continuing my ongoing deck caulking work one sticky tube at a time," he says. "I've really gotten it down to a science — the trick being enough blue tape to build an entire new deck."

Then there's that other "maintenance'" issue not so easily solved. "I have an ongoing battle with iguanas who enjoy lying out in the sun on Allure more than any

other guest — invited or not invited," he says. "If I could just get them to mind the toerail and keep them from scratching my varnish, I wouldn't mind so much.

"They definitely prefer my boat over others in the marina. I'd like to think they have great taste in classic beauties, but they're probably taking advantage of the one month I'm at work."

All the work and shooing are part of the plan for the "Big Triangle" departure. Christian and Emily Organowski plan to spend a year in Hawaii, then sail north to Alaska "to explore all the bays and

cross-country road trip listening to the book The Path Between the Seas on audio. Fast-forward three years, "And here I am, a Panama Canal veteran!" she says. Her ride on the Pacific-bound trip was Dennis Roquet's Beneteau 52 Roxxy, which will be based out of Washington whenever they finally get there. In more than 50 years of sailing and delivering boats all over the place, 'Rocket' has done the Canal both ways a half-dozen times. But this was Kelly's first.

"We were so fortunate to share our experience with my brother, Scott, and three

CHANGES

24-year-old friends who worked at Shelter Bay Marina, where Roxxy spent four months. These three kids lived in Panama their whole lives and had never had the chance to go through the Canal.

"We started late afternoon and went through the first three locks before spending the night in Gatun Lake. Our four new crew were our excellent line handlers thanks to a very patient pilot who spent time teaching and coaching us.

"My part of the process was dinner. Feeding seven hungry sailors from my little galley wiped me out. Not going to lie — I had a nice cocktail after we were tied to the mooring in the lake.

"Early the next morning, our new pilot came aboard with an appetite. So it was back down to the galley for a hearty breakfast and lunch!

life. Watching the enormous doors and locks in action, that are over 100 years old and still working to keep this passage open between the seas, was exciting enough. But knowing the history of the hard-working men who built it added so much to the experience. If a Canal passage is in your future, I highly recommend reading The Path Between the Seas before you go."

things up now and then, but Perry and Patti Chrisler took things to a whole new level in the past couple of years. After three Ha-Has on their San Diego-kept Beneteau 46 C'est Si Bon (and one more on a friend's boat) — and many years of summer sailing Southern California waters — the Scottsdale, Arizona-based couple were planning to head south again in 2020 when COVID reared its ugly head. When the boat

"Going through the Canal was one of the most incredible adventures in my

market turned suddenly hot, "We decided to sell C'est Si Bon and use those funds to explore other options," says Perry. First they purchased an RV camper to explore the beautiful parks and wilderness areas of our northern states. And secondly, they purchased a new Beneteau 46 and put it into the Moorings/Sunsail charter fleet.

"Their program will allow us to enjoy up to 12 weeks of charter per year, with the choice of more than 20 international bases," notes Perry. "After the Ha-Ha's and many fabulous adventures in Mexico, we were ready for far and exotic places. We already have three charters scheduled in 2023: Tahiti, Abaco, and St. Lucia. We have access to our size boat, or up to a 42-ft catamaran. Our first guests will be our daughters and grandsons. It's sure easier to take flights to distant locations and explore new waters."

Packet 40 in San Diego in June 2018,

renamed it C-YA, and left four months later. He's been sailing the Sea of Cortez, mostly singlehanded, ever since.

"What have I learned during all that time? Plenty. I have seen lots of dolphins lighting up the water after midnight, and seen Elon Musk satellites streak across the sky — twice. Have I heard middle-ofthe-night conversations while sailing sin glehanded for multiple days? Why, yes. I have had some good, clear discussions, and it turns out that sometimes the boat knows what to do before I do. Plenty more to learn about myself and C-YA in the fu ture as we head south."

igators consider what life will be like after this cruising milestone. The Rigney family — Eric, Leslie and sons Bryce and Trent — have been there, done that, sailing their Ventura-based Tayana 42 Kandu on a four-and-a-half-year, 37,000-mile voy age around the world. Then, after com pleting their circumnavigation in 2019, "We stepped off Kandu and haven't sailed her since," says Eric. Until recently, that is, when son Bryce got the family fired up

to get Kandu sailing again.

Look for more on how the family has pitched in to get the boat, as Eric puts it,

Though firmly reintegrated back into shore life, the Rigney family — (l to r) Trent, Bryce, Leslie and Eric — are "integrating" back into sailing.

"back to cruise-ready condition… minus the cruise," in our January issue.

far, afloat or ashore, the happiest of holidays. Thanks for keeping the faith and reading the magazine — and saving us from having to go out and get real jobs. If Changes in Latitudes has inspired you over the years, please consider sending in your own stories in the coming year, and perhaps inspiring a few other dreamers to cast off the docklines and go.

DINGHIES, LIFERAFTS &

ROWBOATS

The 18-ft 10-in ‘Helen Mae’ is hand made with eight kinds of wood, fiber glass, epoxy, lots of varnish. Four-oz. tanbark sails, oars, outboard motor mount (motor not included) and cus tom trailer. Video: tinyurl.com/3vkdcfh2 $10,000. Sebastopol, CA. (707) 824-9893 jerrykermode@gmail.com

Achilles 10-ft 2-in LSI-310E (2021) plus ePropulsion Spirit 1 (2021). Includes carry case and an extra prop for the ePropul sion engine. Used one month in Delta last summer, otherwise stored in my garage. $5,000. Redwood City, CA. jp53202@gmail.com

Brandn ew. Epoxy/wood construction. Arch Davis design. Includes trailer, sail, cover & oars. $10,000 OBO. Carpinteria. carpdory@gmail.com (720) 250-8060

24 FEET & UNDER SAILBOATS

L yle

Hess design, seaworthy rare sloop. LOA 23-ft, LWL 21-ft 10-in, beam 8-ft, draft 2-ft 8-in. Lapstrake hull, dualaxle trailer, 8hp outboard recently over hauled. Lots of sails. Good headroom. Various improvements. Downsized to smaller boat. $8,000. Phoenix, AZ. (602) 938-0711

Set for single handed racing. Two-speed winches, one mainsail, several 110 and 155 jibs, two spinnakers, faired keel, bottom epoxy coated, Honda 4hp, shock tandem trailer. Call for photos. $3,200. Merced, CA. daniel.scarbery@gmail.com (559) 2694015

Gaff-rigged sloop, strip plank Atlantic white cedar and steam bent oak frames. Bronze fastened. Built by internationally recognized violin builder, Scott Hershey. $15,000. San Diego. scarpy47@gmail.com (619) 694-7696

Beauti

ful one-of-a-kind pocket cruiser. VHF, depthsounder, and compass. Teak bowsprit and rub rails. New running rigging, new forestay with roller furler. Main, jib and spinnaker. New Mer cury Sail Power four-stroke. With trail er, new tires. $9,000. Richmond, CA. Destry.workshop@gmail.com (916) 5466212

Hull #1109. Ex cellent shape. 2017 Triad trailer with spare tire. 2.3 Honda. (3) suits of North Sails. Cross-sheeting cam cleats. New companion cover. Harken boat cover. J/70 spinnaker launch bag. Welded aluminum mast bunk. J/70 Third Hands with Keepers. $39,960. Sandpoint, ID. rimar@turbonet.com (208) 290-6544

DAVE’S DIVING

Seascape 18.

trailer in cluded w/foldable tongue, Yamaha 2.5hp 4-stroke outboard. B&G Vulcan 7 MFD, B&G V50 VHF radio, Simrad Tiller Pilot, 12V Blue Sea system, 50W solar panel, all-LED lighting. Garage-stored (21ft overall). Beautiful condition. Carbon fiber mast. Dual rudder, with storage bag. Mainsail, gennaker (red), roller-furling jib. Interior cushions. Lifting harness, lift lines, fenders, dock lines, anchor. Spinlock til ler extension. $29,000 OBO. Irvine, CA. ragusashop@yahoo.com (949) 261-5898

Rare. Chinese junk rig, bulletproof, fullkeel cruiser. Windvane, tanbark sail in excellent condition, like-new Yamaha T9.9, VHF, CQR, new interior, perfect singlehander, transferable slip. Go small. Go NOW! $12,999 OBO. Alameda, CA. lazystar@aol.com (650) 701-6452

Home built by my brother-in-law. Finished in 2001. All marine plywood on the exterior covered with fiberglass. We had it redone last year. Shoal draft boat with a cat ketch rig designed by Bruce Kirby. Sails are basically brand-new. Tohatsu motor has barely been used. Rebuilt carburetor two years ago and haven’t used it since. Trailer comes with it. Link for description. $12,500 OBO. Camas, WA. flylady21@icloud.com (503) 720-0096 www.tinyurl.com/3z8c58as

25 – 28 FEET SAILBOATS

New

standing rigging, bottom, topsides, and non-skid deck paint. Included equipment: new — deck hardware, furlers, Anderson winches, Harken pulleys, sails, water tanks, bilge pumps, battery, electronics. Some interior work and fittings needing completion. Lots of extras included. Hard dinghy available if required. $17,000 neg. Sausalito. jaygrant11383@gmail.com 4154136707

This is a great Bay boat. New set of sails used in one regatta. Second owner. Original engine with parts engines. Needs some love from a new owner. $6,500 OBO. RYC. tim.logan63@gmail.com (510) 219-7550

– 31 FEET SAILBOATS

Well maintained

race boat. Has won more races than it has lost. New racing instruments: wind, speed etc. 10hp Farymann diesel engine. Fully reinforced reverse-turn strengthening members. 3 jibs, 2 spinnakers. Full Delta cockpit awning/dodger. 8-ft Avon w/8hp Mercury. Best race record over the last 20 years on the Oakland Estuary. $12,000 OBO. Alameda. marinesurveyor32@att.net (510) 769-6753

Ra-

dar Autopilot, GPS. 3-cylinder Universal diesel engine. 150% genoa. Boat hauled December 2021 — two coats bottom paint, third coat at waterline. Updated rigging. Brick Yard Cove Marina. $24,650. Brick Yard Cove Marina. jbward59@aol.com (916) 985-2647 or (916) 508-7144

Sail #387. Hull in good shape, galvanized trailer in good shape. 2 mainsails, 2 jibs, one set in nearly new condition. More photos upon request. All proceeds go to Morro Bay Youth Sailing Foundation. $1,800. Morro Bay, CA. mcclishmb@gmail.com

Two mains — Doyle Dacron, one never used. Foil track headstay. #1 Pineapple carbon, #3 Pineapple carbon. Symmetrical spinnaker in great condition, and other sails. Six-hp Tohatsu recently serviced. Bottom job Micron 2019. New sail cover. Recently varnished deck teak and tiller. Garmin GPS, VHF/stereo. CA registration up to date. $13,000 OBO. San Francisco, CA. tlarocca@gmail.com (347) 406-4238

Built in Kerteminde, DK. Brought to San Francisco in 2007. Aluminum mast/boom. Very well maintained boat. Lots of extras, including new cover, electric engine, camping tent. $28,000 OBO. SF Marina. ericjkaiser@yahoo.com (415) 290-5870

Great Bay sailboat. Has S.F. Bay rig, roller jib, and wheel helm. All lines run to the cockpit for singlehanded sailing. Factory rebuilt Atomic 4 engine with low running hrs. Bottom maintained by Dave’s Diving Service. $5,000. Sausalito, CA. (415) 328-3709

Great condition, NO ENGINE. Ready for your electric conversion, new or rebuilt Yanmar, or to be a great liveaboard. We are the 2nd owners and have had it at South Beach Marina for approximately 10 years — used for local sails and professionally guided charters. She began developing intermittent engine problems last year. List Marine in Sausalito determined that the engine was a total loss. The partners decided to sell the boat as is instead of investing in a new engine. Other than the engine, all systems are in working order, although some minor rigging issues will need attention prior to a serious sailing adventure. $17,950 OBO. South Beach Marina. g_e_young@yahoo.com (415) 823-1403

Excellent condition. Mainsail and 3 jibs by Pineapple, spinnaker, furler, all lines run aft, wheel, Garhauer vang, autopilot, dodger, great interior, good bottom, diesel, folding prop. $16,900. Vallejo. Rhleijon@pacbell.net (530) 304-7038

PHRF racer and comfortable cruiser. Interior and exterior maintained in excellent condition by meticulous owner. Yanmar 1gm10 diesel with very low hrs. Garmin chartplotter, Raymarine VHF radio, emergency beacon and many other items. $10,000. Alameda. Jnovie@aol.com (415) 271-3441

WATERCRAFT MOBILE MARINE PROS

Specializing in: Stem to Stern Mechanical and Electrical Repair and Installation for Most Marine Watercraft (510) 367-8537 Watercraftmobile@gmail.com

VESSEL MOVING

No ocean too big, no trip too small, no ship too large, no mast too tall. Sail or power, we move them all! When you are ready give us a call. Professional Service • cappytom@aol.com • (206) 390-1596

Well maintained throughout its life. We purchased in 2019; since then it has had many upgrades including: swim platform, cutdown transom rail, new bimini with solar panel, new anchor rode (30-ft chain, 200ft rode), furler, water lines, raw water pump to sink, prop, three house batteries 180 Ah each, intake thru-hull, heat exchanger, alternator, mainsheet, main halyard and single-line reef run to cabin-top winch with new clutches, stainless mast base plate, mast wiring and all new LED lighting in mast, wind and depth instruments, black water system and rebuilt head. Has full winter cover. May be available with buoy. Call for additional information. $25,000 OBO. West Shore Lake Tahoe. ridgecowee@gmail.com (410) 714-0007

‘Encore’ is a beauty. Recent out-of-water survey. Check out Wooden Boat issue 12 for more build info. I would prefer that both boats go to the same buyer, but they have been apart before. By far the fastest boat I have ever sailed. Mylar main and jib, spare Mylar jib and a #3 Dacron jib. 2 spinnakers. $20,000. Treasure Island, CA. sawinery2004@yahoo.com (925) 2192279

‘Legacy’ is a beauiful racing boat, and so is ‘Encore’. Want to own a pair of dueling pistols? Check out Wooden Boat issue 12 for all the details. Recent survey out of water. Send an email and I will forward it to you. $20,000. Treasure Island, CA. sha32015@outlook.com (925) 219-2279

32 – 35 FEET SAILBOATS

Price Reduced!

Racing- and cruising-ready, ‘Big Buoys’ (FKA Ultimatum) is hull #153 and the winner of several regattas. Been regularly maintained and has many sails including recent jib, main and kite. $45,000. South Beach Harbor, San Francisco. colingmiller@sbcglobal.net (415) 3705675

Rare

setup — inboard diesel behind companionway. Fiberglass encapsulated lead keel, stripped and barrier coated 2022, new rigging 2022, new sails 2019, roller furling jib. Great layout. Must see, head-turner. More info on craigslist ad. $25,000 OBO. Berkeley. joe@seraphinsailing.com

This is probably the finest Hunter 340 in the nation! Brand-new Quantum furling in-mast mainsail. Brand-new Quantum furling jib. All lines led aft. Yanmar engine so clean you can eat off it. This is a fun, easy-sailing and perfectly sized sailboat. Clean and beautiful cabin. Berthed in Benicia. Most of her life in fresh/brackish waters in Brentwood and Benicia. Always maintained. Radar, GPS/mapping, selfsteering, self-tailing winches, full radio inside and cockpit, cockpit folding mast etc… We love sailing but split our time be-

Whether you love offshore, beer-can racing, or fast cruising, the Beneteau First Class 10 has outstanding performance. Designed by Jean-Marie Finot and Jacques Fouroux and made to go fast, she was a favorite of Fastnet racers in the late 80’s. With 34.33ft length and 9.67ft beam she displaces under 6900 pounds with a generous standard sail plan: 518 sqft upwind and a variety of spinnakers. Despite her light displacement and powerful rig, the First Class 10 is very safe. Structurally strong, the underwater lines give her great stability and is easy on the helm. A great boat for a crew that wants to move from a simple rig to something exciting! $27,000. Marina Village Pkwy, CA, 94501. (408) 205-9146 www.sites.google.com/ view/drop-beer/home

This

Bristol-condition boat is being offered with a possible liveaboard slip in the bay area. She is a comfortable fast cruiser, liveaboard, and competitive racer with a great sail inventory and many upgrades performed in the last 9 years. Twelve feet of beam and clever use of space give her an amazing and practical interior. Possible trade for a motorhome or van + or – value. $29,500 OBO. San Francisco. driente@aol.com (650) 714-7777 www. schocksantana35.com/

36 – 39 FEET SAILBOATS

Dick

Carter-designed Olympic sloop. Westerbeke 50hp diesel, dual steering, 12.75ft beam. Lines run below deck. Full standing headroom. Lewmar winches. Fast cruiser. $12,000. Oakland. cattail1956@yahoo.com (510) 537-9689

‘Anna Salen’, with a traditional galley/dinette, 2-cabin, single-head layout and a separate V-berth and aft cabin, is perfect for families and friends, with some privacy. ‘Anna Salen’s sail plan provides good performance in most wind conditions. The Ericson 34-2 is designed by Bruce King, as a racer/cruiser, with a traditional look and interior design. They have healthy sail area:displacement:ballast ratios, a moderate fin keel, and a semi-balanced shallow spade rudder; combined, they make ‘Anna Salen’ comfortable and fast With a fiberglass hull-to-deck joint, keel-stepped mast, and lead ballast keel, ‘Anna Salen’ will address your needs for performance cruising in a classic sailboat design. $34,900. Alameda, CA. t.reigelman@gmail.com (925) 683-0425

A Westsail-like boat, 11-ft beam, 5.3-ft draft, 41.3-ft LOA, 20,000+lb dis, Volvo MD3B frozen — needs replacing, sails old, dodger newer, very stout boat, polyester resin/fiberglass hull, wood deck 1.5-in thick. $7,000 OBO. ghenry1102@yahoo.com (510) 501-4927

Beautiful, strong cruising cutter Herreshoff designed, bowsprit and boomkin, cedar cold-molded hull, full lead keel, spruce spars, sails in great condition (mainsail with 3 reefs; stays’l, jib; 120% Dacron; 120% 1.5 oz. nylon; storm sail; trys’l); Aries wind vane self-steering; 10-ft fiberglass dinghy; sails beautifully; no engine; sail into and out of upwind Berkeley berth or use 16 ft oar; 4 anchors (45# 35# 25# CQR, fisherman); windlass. $39,500. Berkeley. kennoble40@gmail.com (925) 786-7878

Downeasters are known for being stout and seaworthy bluewater cruisers. They can be found all over the globe. My Downeaster 38 needs nothing and is ready to sail anywhere today. Here is a list of the major items: 1. Repowered with a Westerbeke 42b (42 hp), approx 1550 hrs. 2. Rewired with a house bank of 3 6-volt batteries, 1 engine 12V starting battery, 1 12V windlass battery. 3. Oversized Lofrans windlass with 300 ft of chain. 4. Solar panels and wind generator (I never really need to plug in). 5. Plumbed for a watermaker. 6. Full suit of sails, including a spinnaker. Sail away today! $38,000. Alameda, CA. dfharris02@gmail.com (919) 522-1685 https://tinyurl.com/ym7ac426

Great cruiser. Outfitted for offshore. Custom interior. Totally self-sufficient with solar-operated watermaker and FrigOBOat. Too much to list — get in touch for details. See YouTube video at URL. $59,900 OBO. San Carlos, Sonora, MX. alindyrosen@cybermesa.com (360) 758-

Condi-

tion: 4.7 of 5 Totally equipped for cruising off-grid – water and solar. Marina slip included! Fly cheap from Tijuana to condo on the Sea. Gorgeous lifestyle. Super electronics–needs nothing more. $74,500. Marina Palmira, La Paz, MX. davidjvidmar@gmail.com (541) 727-1409

The Blackwatch 37 is a predecessor of the Tartan 37 and is ready to be out on the water. She used to be a racing boat and was recently outfitted to go cruising. New in last 2 years: Autopilot, watermaker, electric toilet, windlass, anchor & rode, solar. $25,000. Tiburon. ilchianti@gmail.com (916) 995-7853

‘Candide’ is a Hawaii, Australia and Mexico vet. Yanmar diesel, ProFurl, Monitor windvane, IC-710 SSB, new Spectra watermaker, etc. Selling as is. $30,000 OBO. Brisbane. hogancanoes@aol.com (650) 728-9528 or (650) 773-3834

A solid/comfortable bluewater ketch with simplicity throughout. New rigging 2019, Hauled/paint 5/22 & quarterly diver cleaning. Westerbeke 40hp, roller furling jib, Dutchman system, dodger and all lines to the cockpit. USCG documented. $34,000. Coyote Point. christopherjette@gmail.com www.tinyurl. com/5ye5ctyr

40 – 50 FEET SAILBOATS

The J/120 S/V ‘Hijinx’ is now for sale. She has a sprayed race bottom (Trinidad Pro w/carbon). The keel and rudder have been templated and faired. New Ullman black Kevlar main and an older but large sail inventory. We’ve actively raced in Monterey Bay and podiumed in almost every regatta entered, including 1st SCYC Champion of Champions, 1st MPYC 2017 Año Nuevo race, 1st EYC Double Angle x 2, etc. Call Brad if interested. $129,500. Alameda, Sail California docks. sompy@yahoo.com (831) 239-2602

New stand-

ing rigging. Some interior and exterior work needing completion. New Raymarine Auto-pilot, water heater, all new thru-hull fittings. Solar panels, new cabin sole. Sails, deck hardware, fittings, and equipment included. Hard dinghy available if required. $25,000. Sausalito. jaygrant11383@gmail.com (415)4136707

‘Nimbus’ is an excellent racing and cruising family sailboat for San Francisco Bay. Fiberglass hull and deck, varnished mahogany interior with teak and holly sole. Accommodations: Large “V” berth forward with head to port. Hanging lockers to starboard. Main salon: two settee berths, center table stows out of the way. Double quarter berth to port aft of the navigation station. Galley: Stainless steel sink, icebox, stove/oven. Mast and boom aluminum with stainless steel rigging. Manual jib furling system. Mainsail with two reefs. Jib and spinnaker. Engine: Westerbeke 38. Nimbus sits in a 40-ft slip in the West Basin of the San Francisco Marina. Slip rights available, additional cost. $20,000. West Basin, San Francisco Marina. daphnej@pacbell.net (415) 385-4157

Many upgrades, repairs, and new items. For a full list email Steve. $50,000. Puerto Vallarta, San Blas, MX. koolekat1958@hotmail.com (250) 713-9785

‘Endeavor’ is a strong, sea-kindly vessel, designed by Henk Tingen and built in Holland in 1958. Purchased 1987 and brought back from near-extinction. We had 13 years cruising about the world; maybe now it’s your turn. Fall in love with your dream boat. Lots of good kit included, can be ready to sail to Norway in 2023! Contact C. Masters for complete list. $100,000. Ipswich, Suffolk, UK. svendeavor1958@gmail.com (206) 9603793

A classic Catalina design that supports coastal cruising, weekend getaways, and/or a place to stay. Owners have kept up appearance and operational systems. Inverter/charger provides 110V power throughout the vessel. In 2019, a new exhaust riser and two new AGM 4D batteries. A new sail cover and hatch covers were installed in 2020; in 2021 lifelines replaced. Documented records from the past few years of ownership. One of Catalina’s most popular designs, this boat is easy to sail and maintain, and has an active, large owners’ association. $69,900. Alameda, CA. tracy@atomictunayachts.com (925) 683-0425

Sloop.

Single Universal Diesel engine, 3-cyl, 4-cycle. Refrigerator. Double SS sink. Microwave. Toilet. Shower. Engine-mounted alternator. Titan VHF transceiver. Autohelm 4000 autopilot. Depthfinder. Three-cabin layout. U-shaped dinette. V-berth. Dinghy. Stereo. $39,900. Redwood City, CA. iamerv@gmail.com (916) 792-6389 www.tinyurl.com/2tfm96d8

Roomy, solid sailer in good shape with lots of equipment including: 75 hp Yanmar diesel with less than 800 hrs. Onan generator. New standing rig in 2020. New Harken roller furler in 2020. New headsail in 2020. Radar. Two heads, one with holding tank. Very spacious and comfortable cabin due to wide beam. Aft berth a double bed with adjacent head. Ketch rig with 110 genoa makes it feel comfortable, even in heavy air on the Bay. Great protected slip in Berkeley Marina possibly available. $50,000. Berkeley Marina. Suncoasttrans@yahoo.com (415) 9608414

SO440 fully loaded, option to continue in CN charter fleet for tax shelter. No sales tax on purchase transaction if you purchase its LLC. Teak decks, radar, liferaft, bow thruster, epirb, 410 hrs on 57Hp engine. $475,000 OBO. Sausalito. jkrensavage@gmail.com (650) 906-1713

A true racer/ cruiser, the German Frers-designed First 42 is equally at home on the race course or as a high-performance cruis ing yacht. Handsome traditional lines. Elegant and practical interior. New Yanmar diesel 2013. $65,000. Ventura. treibergk@gmail.com (805) 477-0000

‘Pocahontas’ – “Seal” design by William Garden. Italian wooden 37-ft ketch, 12-ft 4-in beam, 6-ft draft, 3-ft free board. In coveted 45-ft narrow slip, West Basin, San Francisco Marina. Boat and slip rights sold together. Needs work. $51,000. San Francisco Marina. octavend1@aol.com (415) 922-5520

Price drop! PPJ veteran, ‘Mandolin’, our seaworthy home 14+ yrs. Equipped for cruising, stable at sea, custom Hasse sails, me ticulously maintained. Galley renovated, rebuilt shower, refinished floors, many upgrades. See boattrader link for specs & photos. $127,900. San Diego, CA. www.tinyurl.com/2p8pu38k loriserocki@ yahoo.com

Cal 40 #66, ‘Sha man’ modernized sistership to Bermuda Race winner ‘Illusion,’ with all major up grades. New Ballenger rig 2007, B&G instruments, autopilot, Zeus 10 (2012), Gori Race prop (2021), Waterrat carbon rudder, full set of racing sails. Won her class in 2008 Pac Cup and 2012 Santa Barbara Race, second in class 2016 Singlehanded TransPac. Beautiful interior with premium woodwork, AGM batteries (450Ah 2016), Xantrex sine inverter, New port watermaker. Much more! Contact Tom for specs. $70,000. Point Richmond. tomburden1@gmail.com (831) 331-8737 tom-burden.com/cal-40-shaman-photos.html

Hull #73. Classic racer/cruiser. If a Cal 40 is on your bucket list this is very clean and mostly original example! Perkins 4108, electric head w/ macerator and tank. Smart charger, 2 batteries. Original “vintage” Tillermas ter autopilot and Signet instruments. Harken furling w/cruising yankee 138% and lightly used racing Dacron 150%. Kevlar #3, tallboy. Removable carbon sprit w/2 asymm kites, all original spin gear, poles, 4 kites included. Successful PHRF racer in SoCal. Harken primary self-tailers, halyards led aft w/clutches to cockpit. Stainless cabin top handrails, eyebrows shaved, teak toerail cap. Nice clean updated look. Nice interior foam and cushions. newly recovered cockpit cushions. $34,700. Dana Point, CA. defsailor@gmail.com (949) 510-7353

Type of vessel: ketch. Estimated speed: 10 kt power, 6-8 kt sail. Built Netherlands 1980. Time of lay-up: fall 2012. Hull: length 48-ft, beam 15-ft, draft 7-ft. Frames: varied dimen sional steel. Topsides single skin steel plate, 1/4 thick estimated; bottom single skin steel plate, 1/4 thick estimated; deck and bulkheads steel plate. Hull layout: V-berth, forward head, forward triple berth, settee/berth, chart station, galley, captain’s berth, engine/machinery/ maintenance room, after master bath, after head, straight inboard diesel engine auxiliary powered. New bow thruster (2010), electronics, autopilot, forward underwater sonar. Six-cyl Leyland diesel, midline, 350 gal water, 250 gal fuel. Pic tures at website. $54,900. Cleveland, OH. maudeij@yahoo.com.au (954) 235-2527 http://guapasailboat.com

51 & OVER SAILBOATS

‘Upside’ was built in Santa Cruz. She is an ocean racer/ cruiser. Masthead sloop with rod rigging. This boat is an amazing sailer: It’s very nimble and super-responsive, can do 360 almost on the spot. She is well maintained and ready for weekend club racing and longer trips to the islands today. It is a true turnkey. $64,900. San Diego, CA. nadav59@gmail.com (949) 554-9841 www.tinyurl.com/4znhuu9e

Extensive refit in 2000 — Lefiell mast, standing rigging, Yanmar 50hp, custom hard dodger, new fuel tanks, LP water heater, BBQ, windlass, roller furling main and jib, MPS, etc. Winner best maintained at SGYC 4 years. New house and start batteries, dinghy. See pictures info at website. Strong cruising boat and great live aboard. Call Ron. $119,000. San Diego. ron@griffinformation.com (619) 226-6071 www.tinyurl.com/yc7r4p8m

‘HIgh Five’: Cookson-built Farr 40 / Kevlar hull. Volvo Penta 40 hp; 250 hrs on engine and saildrive. Includes multiple sails. Extremely well maintained. Call to get more details. $50,000. Morro Bay, CA. goldconcept@sbcglobal.net (805) 5501118

Looking for an ocean view every day? Want the best sleep of your life and to live a lifestyle that feels like you are on vacation? Amazing waterfront home with 3 bedrooms for just under $250K in the Bay Area (San Francisco or anywhere else you’d like to take it). We have enjoyed these very things for almost five years and now it is your turn. $249,000. Alameda, CA. (702) 875-3144 www.sailingtevega.com

Lovely ocean-sailing vessel. Needs TLC. Excellent deal as a fixer project. Now in Emeryville, CA. Three cabins, two baths. Complete details and photos on website. All serious offers considered. $49,000 OBO make offer. Emeryville, CA. gmeader@gmail.com (415) 987-3948 http://maxfx.biz

Selling

my loved Newport, 30 hrs on rebuilt engine, recent bottom job. New shaft, refrig, diesel heater, self taling winchs, lots of sails,rod rigging,new glass in dodger,she is in good shape and sail ready $30,000 OBO. Emeryville. Thepaintgod@yahoo.com (415) 233-2845

Center cockpit, 80hp Ford Lehman w/3600 hrs. Aft queen berth w/windows. Yanmar 90 Amp genset. Lower teak decks replaced, Sitka spruce main, aluminum mizzen. $75,000. Berkeley. Tcparfitt@yahoo.com (707) 861-2954

Cutter

rig, New Zealand Yachts, center cockpit, aft cabin, cold molded kauri pine, Dynel cloth, Epiglass design: Jim Young N.A. Re-rigged 2018, New standing and run ning rigging, North main and jib, lazy jacks, Harken mechanical backstay ten sioner, B&G wind and depth instrumen tation, Simrad radar, Yanmar 4HJ, 50hp, ZF Trans, Fireboy auto fire extinguisher system, slipstream Aust. Feathering prop, toerails, handrails, caprail, companionway hatches, forward cabin top hatch var nished. Steering: mechanical, hydraulic. Natural gas stove/oven. New 300-ft 5/16 high-test chain, stainless plow anchor, Engel refrigeration, Lavac manual heads. $100,000 Reduced. Long Beach, CA. jimwaide@gmail.com (949) 838-5880

‘Vela’ is fully outfitted for the 2023 Transpac with updated sail inventory and rigging. She has successfully competed in several offshore events including a podium fin ish in the San Diego to Puerto Vallarta Race in 2022. ‘Vela’ is turnkey and ready to fulfill your dream of sailing across the Pacific in both comfort and style. Check out her YachtWorld listing. $299,000. Cabrillo Way Marina, San Pedro, CA. stevedd@pacbell.net (213) 925-7895

Fully load ed in mint condition — This boat was truly loved on! She is ready to take you any where in the world with safety, class and style. Please call for extensive inventory list. Must see her! $425,000. Alameda, CA. lrtravioli@hotmail.com (559) 269-7669

CLASSIC BOATS

MULTIHULLS

Looking for partnership on 30-50-ft sailboat, preferably East Bay. Equity and non-equity considered. Have 20+ years of experience sailing on the Bay and chartering internationally. I have partnered successfully on a 31-ft Beneteau for five years. Now I have a small sailing dog that I want to sail with me and the others are allergic. Looking for a clean boat in good condition that is sailed regularly, and responsible, nice sail partners. Berkeley. ddodgesf@gmail.com

Slips 30 -75 at great rates! Ameni ties: parking, bathrooms, laundry, pumpout, free wi-fi, keyless entry. Guest berths also available. Call for availability. 451 Seaport Court, Redwood City, CA 94063. crevay@redwoodcityport.com (650) 3064150 www.redwoodcityport.com/marina

BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES

Truly stunning Folkboat ‘Snabben,’ lovingly restored in 1996 by Michael Johnson, needs a little TLC. Beautifully detailed cabin, full galley, heater set up, sleeps three; looking for lov ing home; must see to believe! Truly price less! $11,000 OBO. Near Rio Vista, CA. janenebj@outlook.com (530) 906-2159

The Extreme 40 is a super-fast high-performance catamaran. Simple to maintain and affordable to run. Sailed with a crew of 4 or 5 or shorthanded with 2 she is ready to sail today and comes with an extensive inventory of sails, spare parts and a 40-ft work shop container. $69,000. Sausalito, CA. kylegundersen@gmail.com (415) 3417787 www.tinyurl.com/yc44abx3

CREW

I have some ocean experience, some racing experience and some Spanish. I can help with expenses, sail changes, driving, and cooking. Thanks, Michael. S.F. Bay. michael.s.121@att.net (707) 354-4326

Join us for an ocean passage in 2022. andy@sailingbiz.com (707) 953-0434 www.sailingbiz.com

BERTHS & SLIPS

29-ft wooden ketch modified from the classic H-28 design of L. Francis Herreshoff. Double-planked mahogany on oak fastened with cop per rivets. Survey, bottom painted April 2022. Hull, rigging in good condition, garboard re-fastened with bronze screws. Yanmar 3GM30F diesel needs new motor mounts. Full-length keel, seaworthy in Bay and coastal waters. Radar, Auto helm, depthsounder, manual windlass. $6,500 OBO. Berkeley Marina D-41. Wendel.brunner@gmail.com (925) 2603107

‘Moondance’ is in good condition, but needing the usual deferred maintenance I can no longer do. Universal diesel has been professionally maintained, however, and starts right up. She used to race, though I never did with her, and still has much of the rigging for it. She will need a bottom job soon after purchase, but zincs have been maintained. Firm in my asking price. $20,000. Alameda, CA. phillipatkinson1@gmail.com

Price reduced. New rigging, instru ments, bottom paint. Very well equipped and maintained. Easy to operate. Four private cabins. Bathtub. Gorgeous teak interior. 30hp diesels. Good sails. Strong, safe, comfortable cruiser. Call for details. $110,000 OBO. Oxnard, CA. nfcoetzee@hotmail.com (805) 320-5580

Light, fast cat built at Delta Marine in Seattle. Roomy, 2 full state rooms, galley up, Spectra watermak er, large spillover freezer, 10 Lewmar hatches, solar, SSB, spinnaker, Rocnas. Cruised Zihua to Peñasco last 6 seasons. $100,000 OBO. Puerto Peñasco, MX. svepiccat@gmail.com

PARTNERSHIPS

Dehler 34, 1986, tiller, Yanmar. An established non-equity sailing partnership: $275/ month includes fuel, insurance, two pre-assigned weekend days, four week days per month. No charge for vacant days. Maintenance fee $1000/year. For details call/text. South Beach Harbor. valtaft@gmail.com (650) 670-5300

Newly refurbished marina. Pos sible liveaboard. Close to parking. Easy ac cess to the Bay and just 20 min. commute time to the City. $49,500. Pollock Pines. gts1938@gmail.com (530) 412-3958

Galilee Harbor is a low-income cooperative commu nity in a marine service harbor. Ap plicant must own the vessel and meet requirements for membership. Please see our website for information and to get an application. Sausalito, CA. galileeharbor@gmail.com (415) 332-8554 www.tinyurl.com/2fc24m3y

Enjoy the benefits & save $60-$110/Mo. Private dock Alameda Estuary, Good security, peace of mind, easy access, close park ing, power, water, dock box included. $380/mo. Sorry, no liveaboards! Call Ed, 510-280-4994. $380. Alameda. capt.edpayne@att.net (510) 280-4994

I no longer need my 36-ft slip (#B28) at Pier 39. The slip has about 10 years left. Pay XFER fee ($1,200) and it’s yours. No text, just call or email. $1,200. Pier 39 S.F., CA. rwnicho@hotmail.com (415) 648-7960

Love

to sail? Make a great living in the Pacific Northwest running a fantastic charter business! After 34 years it is time to sell our dream job. We have already done the hard work for you. Dedicated client base, beautiful website, five-star reviews. Outstanding modern 55-ft sloop with moorage. USCG Coastwise trade endorsement. Great income if you are ready to take the helm of the best job in the world!. San Juan Islands, WA. islandsailor600@gmail.com

JOB OPPORTUNITIES

Are you someone who is skilled in boating and interested in providing patrol and public support to maintain safety on the Richardson Bay waters? Are you a selfstarter who excels at working with others to provide excellent customer service to the general public? Are you looking for a workplace with flexibility and a range of career opportunities? RGS is seeking a skilled Technical Advisor to fulfill our commitment and provide services of 20 hours per week to Richardson Bay Regional Agency as a Deputy Harbormas ter. $35.00 – 50.00 hourly. Bay Area, CA. kharapan@rgs.ca.gov www.bit.ly/DepHarbormasterRGS

Low hrs Yanmar diesel. NEW: worm drive steering, SS fuel tanks, solar panels, air head, Simrad plotter and more. Completed extensive boatyard over haul. Master Mariner race winner, Transpac vet. $11,000. Owl Harbor. sagieber@gmail.com (206) 384-1175

Looking for partnership on 35-50-ft sailboat, prefer ably Sausalito. Equity and non-equity considered. Have 35+ years of experi ence sailing on the Bay and 25,000 miles cruising internationally. Currently own and am racing in one designs but would like access to a boat for casual daysailing with my sweetie and/or with partners. Looking for a clean boat in good condi tion that is sailed regularly, and respon sible, nice sail partners. Sebastopol. pzupan@gmail.com (415) 250-7854

$450 per month. 40 x 13.5. 40ft in beautiful, totally upgraded Emery Cove Yacht Harbor. One month free rent with one-year lease. Call Heinz for more information. $450. Emeryville, CA. hj.dallmann@yahoo.com (310) 804-1196

Many at tractions on the Pier, clean private restrooms with showers and laundry facilities. Discounted secure park ing available. $4,400. San Francisco. sailingfearless@gmail.com (415) 7452292

Join our team! The Inside Sales Representative is responsible for maxi mizing product sales as well as expanding the company’s customer base. The Inside Sales Rep assists walk-in and phone-in customers on product selection, and performs sales/return transactions. Fulltime position. M-F. Min five years previous retail experience preferred. Mechanical aptitude and ability to communicate technical product knowledge. $24-$34/hr DOE. Phone Debbie Laws. Alameda, CA. dlaws@bay-ship.com (510) 599-1647

Berkeley Marine Center is looking for a new member of the team! We are currently looking for someone to work in our chandlery and boatyard office. Experience in retail or customer service is key, as the position involves communication with boatyard clients and chandlery customers. We are looking for a friendly and detail-oriented person who is interested in boats and ready for the fast-paced boatyard bustle. Work schedule is Mon-Fri, 8am-5pm, start date ASAP. Email us for details and to apply. office@berkeleymarine.com

The Canvas Works, on the water in Sausalito, specializing in custom canvas fabrication for marine and other applications, is seeking to fill a field and in-house technician position. This job is full time, weekdays 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Responsibilities: Install canvas covers and structures on boats, homes, and commercial buildings. Oversee and organize shop mechanical areas, supplies and equipment. Demonstrate proficient operation of hand and power tools. Safely operate company vehicles. Qualified candidates must have solid mechanical skills, be proficient using hand and power tools. Training available for job specifics. Contact Lisa for more details. lisa@thecanvasworks.com (415) 3316527 www.tinyurl.com/2p8dd8ae

!. We are seeking licensed captains for private charters on our three boats in Sausalito and Alameda. Our motto is “Best Day Ever” because we emphasize providing our guests with great customer service. Check out our reviews on Yelp/ Google. We train our team and maintain our boats to high standards for safety and comfort. Part- or full-time possible. Please send résumé to email below. Thanks!. joe@sfbaysail.com http://sfbaysail.com

Spinnaker Sailing in Redwood City is looking for someone to assist in the maintenance and repair of our fleet of 30 sailboats. Should be familiar with sailboat rigging, ship’s systems, outboard motors, light electrical, plumbing and diesel engine service. Consider either part time or full time. Pay rate commensurate to experience. Call or email Rich. Redwood City, CA. rich@spinnakersailing.com (650) 3631390 http://Spinnakersailing.com

Posi-

tions available! Two Harbors Harbor Department, on the west end of Catalina Island. Looking for experienced boat operators for seasonal harbor patrol positions (March – October). Harbor patrol assigns and facilitates the use of 700+ moorings on the west end of Catalina Island and assists with transporting passengers to and from shore. USCG license required for passenger transport, seasonal mooring included for patrol personnel with liveaboard vessels. Inquire at website. Jrconner@scico.com (310) 510-4254 www.tinyurl.com/wheb7kvn

SLO Sail and Canvas is hiring for multiple positions in our busy sail loft in beautiful San Luis Obispo, California. We specialize in building boat covers, trampolines, and sails for sailing dinghies, one-designs, and beach catamarans. The following job opportunities are open for immediate fulfillment: Sailmaking Department Manager, Manufacturing Assistant — Industrial Department, Production Sewing & Prep — Trampoline or Boat Cover Department, and Office Assistant. To learn more about each job opening, visit website. erik@slosailandcanvas.com (805) 4796122 ext.9 www.tinyurl.com/fpdkrmt

Join the captains at Club Nautique and start teaching US Sailing’s most comprehensive curriculum of sail and power courses, both offshore and inshore, in the nation. We have openings now for USCG-licensed captains who exhibit exceptional communication and boating skills, and the willingness to train and work in a professional environment. Fulltime and part-time positions available. schooldirector@clubnautique.net (510) 865-4700 x313 www.clubnautique.net

Spinnaker Sailing in Redwood City is looking for ASA-certified sailing instructors to teach out of our Redwood City Marina location. Part-time, flexible schedules, midweek and/or weekends. Please contact Rich or Bob by phone or email. Redwood City Marina. office@spinnakersailing.com (650) 3631390 www.spinnakersailing.com

Inspire Sailing Berkeley is looking for sailing instructors to join our growing team! USCG OUPV License is required, though if you are interested in getting your captain’s license we can help out there too. We have opportunities to teach aboard both tiller- and wheel-steered sportboats as well as larger cruising boats. We focus on the education of adults in a fun, welcoming and safety-oriented environment. Located in the heart of SF Bay, we are just minutes from the best sailing grounds, not miles! Do you enjoy racing? Our performance program is going strong and we need racing- and spinnaker-experienced captains as well. US Sailing and ASA Instructors welcome! Competitive pay! Free boat use! Fun!. Berkeley, CA. careers@inspiresailing.com (510) 8311800 www.tinyurl.com/bdhdzn6c

Club Nautique

has an opening for a full-time Fleet Service Staff in Sausalito. No experience necessary. We will train the right candidate. Job responsibilities include: Cleaning both the interior and exterior of sailboats and powerboats. Fueling and pumping out boats, which requires driving them to and from the fuel docks. Working with the standing and running rigging. Inspecting the vessel and its systems to ensure all are in good working order before and after charters. Assisting members with questions and troubleshooting issues before charters. Sausalito. jnassoiy@clubnautique.net (415) 3328001 http://clubnautique.net

South Beach Riggers is located in Sausalito, California, and has been in the rigging business for over 30 years. Currently we are looking for a motivated individual to join our skilled team. Our sailboat riggers are responsible for effectively and efficiently installing, maintaining, repairing, and replacing sailboat rigging and sail systems. An ideal candidate would be familiar with boats and nomenclature, mechanically inclined, and experienced in the use of basic hand tools, air tools and electric power tools, but we are willing to train the right person. If you are interested in working with and learning from an experienced leader in the marine industry, please contact us today! Compensation based on experience. Free parking, waterfront location. Sausalito. southbeachriggers@gmail.com (415) 331-3400

Wanted: Licensed Captain with towing endorsement for TowBoatUS./Vessel Assist on the San Francisco Bay and Delta. Preferred if you live by SF waterfront, Alameda or Bethel Island areas. Philipdelano@gmail.com (925) 382-4422 http://vesselassistsanfrancisco.com

Custom canvas business ISO sewers! More sewing/making experience the better and willing to train for the right can-do attitude! Quickly growing company looking for another great fit in our team. Great benefits and culture. PT/FT. Point Richmond. david@compass-canvas.com (415) 2993415 http://compass-canvas.com

PROPERTY FOR SALE OR RENT

Volunteer docents wanted to staff educational science exhibitions. Volunteer or contract graphic designer wanted. Photographers and photography wanted. Ask about other volunteer positions. info@sailingscience.org (510) 3905727www.sailingscience.org/

Rubicon Yachts is seeking a professional yacht broker/salesperson for its new Alameda, CA office. Yacht sales experience required, must be a self-starter, membership in CYBA is a plus. Contact owner/broker Mark Miner. Alameda, CA. mark@rubiconyachts.com http://rubiconyachts.com

360-degree S.F. city views from the thirdfloor eagle’s nest and perfectly framed Estuary views from the dining, kitchen, and living rooms with wraparound deck and 50-ft deep-water dock. The 2,351 sq ft tri-level floor plan features beam and wainscoting detail that connect the chef’s kitchen with breakfast nook to the formal dining, optional third bedroom and glass-walled living room on the main floor, while the second floor features two generous en suite rooms with updated baths and bonus office space and oversized closets. Two-car garage includes two Tesla chargers and two power walls with the latest solar tech. Minutes to Richmond Yacht Club, ferry, miles of trails at Miller/Knox Park and 580/80 fwys. $1,795,000. Point Richmond, CA. nathan@jinesrealestategroup.com (510) 220-4714 www.1303Sanderling.com

As mentioned on Calaverashistory.org., this property is rich in history, dating back to the late 1800s. Located right on Hwy 12, this property has unlimited potential for a multitude of uses. The property boasts an impressive 46.24 acres, with a charming barn, cozy main home, and ample parking. This could be your next vineyard or wine tasting. Put in an orchard or an amazing wedding venue. Currently there are between 200-300 established olive trees; the rest is being used as pasture. Two natural ponds, three wells, and speckled with beautiful oak trees. $1,250,000. Valley Springs, CA. cindy@cindyborgerding.com (209) 3040952 www.tinyurl.com/5n73v3y7

SOUTH OF THE BORDER

TRYING TO LOCATE

MISCELLANEOUS

40-ft double-spreader, tapered mast section #4430 with running and standing rigging. Four North Sails, four Barient winches. Lots of hardware and much more! $2,500. cblair1015@yahoo.com (209) 704-4982

At the gorgeous Cielo Y Mar condos. Located in Punta Mita, 35 minutes from Puerto Vallarta, available to rent from private owner. On the beach, 10 feet from the water, they offer spectacular views of ocean and mountains, the biggest infinity pool in the area, an endless beach, great surf breaks, great fishing, tremendous views of whales, bird life and the islands. While uncrowded and tranquil, just a fiveminute walk to several waterfront restaurants. Choose from a spacious, beautifully furnished one- or three-bedroom unit, or an amazing two-story penthouse with lovely shade trellis on the top floor. To reserve, call or email Dona de Mallorca. puntamitabeachfrontcondos@gmail.com (415) 269-5165

NON PROFIT

The Bay Area Association of Disabled Sailors strives to make sailing accessible to people with disabilities. BAADS is always on the lookout for donated boats to support its mission. Help an all-volunteer organization while receiving a charitable tax deduction. boatdonations@baads.org (415) 5329831

ISO owner of a Lake Union Dreamboat bought at auction from Oyster Point Marina after she sank. I have fittings that I want to return. Peninsula. Sheilaholmes@mac.com

Enjoy breathtaking sunsets from this lovely 3BR, 1BA home perched above the gentle shore of Beal’s Cove, perfect for kayaking adventures, watching wildlife, and relaxing by the sea as the afternoon light floods the windows. You’ll love exploring all the islands have to offer during the day and retreating to the cottage in the evenings to catch the gorgeous pink, purple and orange hues of a Harpswell sunset. marcia@homesandharbors.com 866-8350500 www.tinyurl.com/43475rkj

GEAR

Dramatic waterfront Alameda 3BR/2.5 BA townhome with a private 44-ft deep-water slip attached to the property. An impressive 2,054 sq ft with multiple living spaces all designed to overlook the glistening Ballena Bay. $1,249,000. leah@leahtounger.com (510) 701-6497 www.tinyurl.com/3wdmepyu

This is a matched pair of 30-inch Nebline propellers. 1.75-inch shaft. 28inch pitch. Both are undamaged, moderately cleaned. Sold as a pair. $1,000. Napa. trevor-steel@hotmail.com (707) 637-3140

2022 20-in 4-stroke Mercury ProKicker with electric start and power tilt. Nine hrs on engine. Comes with fuel tank, rolling outboard stand, cover, and starter battery. Email first preferred. $2,800. San Rafael. greg.burgess@gmail.com (415) 384-1536

West

Marine dinghy (Avon) 280 Air w/6hp Mercury 4-stroke engine. Under 20 hours, Oars, pump, boat cover included. Garaged 95% time. Selden gennaker pole, 99/99 10-ft, 5-in w/bow ring. Excellent. $2,999. Redwood City. sprocket@cupertinobikeshop.com (408) 888-6120

Season's Greetings

Live life to the fullest! Sail on!

DeWitt Art Gallery & Framing (510) 236-1401 pam@jimdewitt.com Online Stores: www.jimdewitt.com www.DeWittAmericasCupArt.com

ADVERTISERS' INDEX

American Battery 84 www.americanbatterycompanyofhayward.com

ATN 40 www.atninc.com

Baja Ha-Ha Sponsor Page 56.57 www.latitude38.com/headingsouth

Ballad of Calypso 42 www.balladofcalypso.com/

Bay Area Marine Services 84 www.bayareamarineservices.com

Bay Maritime Group 15 www.bay-ship.com

Berkeley Marina 6 www.berkeley-marina.com

Berkeley Marine Center 40 www.berkeleymarine.com

Boat Yard at Grand Marina, The 18 www.boatyardgm.com

Brisbane Marina 41 www.brisbaneca.org/marina

Club Nautique 12 www.clubnautique.net

Compass Canvas 38 www.compass-canvas.com

Cruising Specialists 14 www.boats.network/cruisingspecialists/

Cruising Yachts 17 www.cruisingyachts.net

Defender Industries 13 www.defenderus.com

Denison Yachting 107 www.denisonyachtsales.com

DeWitt Studio...........................104 www.jimdewitt.com

Dream Yacht Charters 29 www.dreamyachtsales.com

Emery Cove Yacht Harbor 37 www.emerycove.com

Fisheries Supply Co. 77 www.fisheriessupply.com

FlopStopper 84 www.flopstopper.com

Gianola Canvas Products 85 www.gianolacanvas.com

Grand Marina 2 www.grandmarina.com

H&M Marine / Beta Marine Engines / Hirschfeld Yachts 36 www.betamarinewest.com

Helms Yacht & Ship Brokers 34 www.helmsyacht.com

Helmut's Marine Service 41 www.helmutsmarine.com

Heritage Marine Insurance 39 www.heritagemarineinsurance.com/

Hood Sails 33 www.hoodsails.de/en

Hotel Coral & Marina 93 www.surfnet.com/coral/

Hydrovane 63 www.hydrovane.com

Inspire Sailing 41 www.inspiresailing.com

Keenan Filters.............................22 www.ktisystems.com

KISS-SSB/Radioteck 103

www.kiss-ssb.com

KKMI - Full Service Boatyard 108 www.kkmi.com

KKMI Chandlery 3 www.kkmi.com

Lind Marine 35 www.lindmarine.com

List Marine Enterprises 44 www.listmarine.com

Makela Boatworks .................... 103 www.makelaboatworks.com

Marina Bay Yacht Harbor 43 www.marinabayyachtharbor.com

Marina de La Paz 76 www.marinadelapaz.com

Marina El Cid 76 www.elcid.com

Marina Riviera Nayarit 62 www.marinarivieranayarit.com

Marina Village 30 www.marinavillageharbor.com

JUST YOU AND THE SEA…

ADVERTISERS' INDEX – cont'd

Mariners Insurance 28 www.marinersins.com

Moorings, The 21 www.moorings.com

Modern Sailing School & Club 43 www.modernsailing.com

NAOS Yachts............................. 11 www.naosyachts.com

Napa Valley Marina 24 www.napavalleymarina.com

NAVTEC 39 www.navtechydraulics.com

Outboard Motor Shop 77 www.outboardmotorshop.com

Passage Nautical 5 www.passagenautical.com

Port of Sonoma 37 www.portofsonoma.com

Punta Mita Beachfront Condos 105 www.latitude38.com

Quantum Pacific ......................... 85 www.quantum.com

Raiatea Carenage Services 95 www.raiateacarenage.com

Richard Boland Yacht Sales 106 www.richardbolandyachts.com

Richardson Bay Marina............... 32 www.richardsonbaymarina.com

Richmond Boardwalk 38 www.richmondboardwalk.com

Rubicon Yachts 7,8,9 www.rubiconyachts.com

Sailrite Kits 31 www.sailrite.com

San Francisco on the Bay 45 www.sfonthebay.com/list-38

Schaefer Marine......................... 39 www.schaefermarine.com

Seacoast Marine Finance 44 www.seacoastmarine.net

Seattle Yachts 27 www.seattleyachts.com

Society of Accredited Marine Surveyors/SAMS 36 www.marinesurvey.org

South Beach Harbor 16 www.sfport.com/southbeachharbor

Spaulding Marine Center ............ 20 www.spauldingcenter.org

Spectra Watermakers 94 www.spectrawatermakers.com/us

Sunsail Charters 25 www.sunsail.com

Svendsen's Bay Maritime Group 23 www.bay-ship.com

Swiftsure Yachts 19 www.swiftsureyachts.com

The Canvas Works ..................... 73 www.thecanvasworks.com

TMM Yacht Charters 32 www.sailtmm.com

Trident Funding 4 www.tridentfunding.com

Twin Rivers Marine Insurance 103 www.boatinsuranceonly.com

Ullman Sails San Francisco & Monterey Bay 26 www.ullmansails.comVallejo Marina 77 www.vallejomarina.com

Vee Jay Marine 42 www.veejaymarine.boats

Ventura Harbor Boatyard ............ 76 www.vhby.com

West Coast Multihulls 63 www.westcoastmultihulls.com

Westwind Precision Details 85 www.boatdetailing.com

Whale Point Marine Supply 10 www.aceretailer.com/whalepoint

Whiting and Associates 84 www.norcalmarinesurveyors.com

Workaholics Adrift 76 Yachtfinders/Windseakers 68 www.yachtworld.com/yachtfinders

COME SEE IT! Alameda, CA

2021 DUFOUR 390 EXCESS 11 37' EXCESS CATAMARAN 2022 | CALIFORNIA $CALL FOR PRICING

DUFOUR 390 $39' DUFOUR 2023 | CALIFORNIA $CALL FOR PRICING EXCESS 15 48' EXCESS CATAMARAN 2023 | CALIFORNIA $CALL FOR PRICING

DUFOUR 530 54' DUFOUR 2023 | CALIFORNIA $CALL FOR PRICING

619.822.2715 3330 949.791.4220 562.594.9716 310.821.5883 EXCESS 12 38' EXCESS CATAMARAN 2023 | CALIFORNIA $CALL FOR PRICING

San Diego, CA Newport Beach, CA Long Beach, CA Marina del Rey, CA

510.469. 206.686. 5400 DUFOUR 360 36' DUFOUR 2023 | CALIFORNIA $CALL FOR PRICING