'Lectronic Index

Previous 'Lectronic Edition

Photo of the Day: Anybody Like Lobster?

August 15 - Caribbean

Today's Photo of the Day is of Cherie Sogsti and Greg Retkowski of the Morgan Out-Island 41 Scirocco. During a trip from Panama to Florida last year, they stopped at the Turks & Caicos where they picked up these extra large 'bugs'. Given what you find today, it's hard to believe that lobster this size used to be common along the coast of California. Maybe it's time for the California Coastal Commission to rethink its opposition to creating new sea life habitats.

Photo Courtesy Scirocco

McNeill and Zephyrus Nipped at Fastnet Finish

August 15 - Cowes, Isle of Wight

Mill Valley's Bob McNeill and his R/P 86 Zephyrus V were nipped at the finish of the classic 605-mile Fastnet Race - from Cowes, England, across the Irish Sea to Fastnet Rock and back - by Neville Crichton's R/P 90 Alfa Romeo by just 10 minutes after 57 hours of racing. Crichton's New Zealand-based Alfa Romeo, which has taken line honors in 53 of the 54 races she's entered, led the Northern California boat to Fastnet Rock by about 90 minutes, but McNeill and crew battled back to take the lead a short distance from the finish. In very light winds, whichever boat got the fortuitous puff pulled into the lead. Z5 was inside, and the puff was outside, enabling Crichton to win line honors in this most prestigious event. Neither boat will correct out, however, even in their Super Zero class.

Z5 finishing the Pacific Cup last year
Photo Latitude/Richard

Indications Are That It Could Be The Biggest Baja Ha-Ha Ever

August 15 - Tiburon

"Currently we have 74 paid entries for late October's Baja Ha-Ha Rally from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas," reports Ha-Ha Honcho Lauren Spindler. "That's compared with just 52 entries on the same date last year, a year which produced the largest Ha-Ha fleet - 107 boats - ever. So either a lot more folks are signing up early, or there are going to be a lot more entries." 'Lectronic will publish a complete list of paid up entries on Monday.

If you think early November should be spent getting a tan on a tropical beach, you think just like these Ha-Ha folks after the rally in Cabo.
Photo Latitude/Richard

Your Chance to Race on the TransPac Winner Alta Vita

August 15 - Santa Cruz

Bill Turpin and crew of his Santa Cruz-based TransPac 52 Alta Vita, which just corrected out first in the TransPac, are offering a crew position on Turpin's boat for the August 29th San Francisco-to-Santa Cruz Windjammer's Race. All you have to do is be the top bidder on the charity auction, the proceeds of which will support Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Santa Cruz. The bidding will be on eBay, so go to eBay and search "Windjammer Race". The bidding starts at $750. You don't have to be a good sailor, but you have to be in good shape because they intend to go for the course record. TransPac 52s, you should be warned, are capable of sailing as fast as 30 knots, so you'll want to bring a couple of changes of shorts.

Don Street's Iolaire Up For Sale?

August 15 - London

It's hard to believe, but apparently Don Street has put his 1905 Harris Brothers Yawl Iolaire up for sale for £110,000 in London. Folks familiar with the bombastically colorful character know that his engineless yawl has almost been as much of a personal appendage as his bottle of Heineken. Street has sailed Iolaire over 250,000 ocean miles, and used the travels as the basis for many charts of the Caribbean, books, and sailing articles and lectures. For further information on the yacht, visit davidjonesclassics.com.

Fiji No Paradise For Blair Grinols

August 15 - Fiji

"Sixty-three degrees, that's the temperature here in Fiji this morning," writes Blair Grinols of the Vallejo-based 46-ft catamaran Capricorn Cat. "And the breeze is blowing 10 knots, so with the wind chill factored in, it is probably 55 degrees. If anyone dares to call this 'wonderful weather in Fiji', I'll probably go off the deep end. The kids are leaving this evening, so I plan to immediately start preps to get out of here. My time here in Fiji has been the worst 3-1/2 months of cruising in my seven years of cruising! And it's not just the weather. A couple of weeks ago a dinghy was stolen from one of the cruisers in Musket Cove. Two other boats were subsequently burglarized, including Keith and Susan Levy's Catalina 47 C'est La Vie from Richmond. All is not well in this paradise. In the harbor anchorage, I anchored with just barely enough room between us and the boat beside us - but some idiot squeezed in between us. I protested so loudly that he moved. While I was gone off the boat, another squeezed in! I guess I'm feeling blue because the family is all gone now and it will be pretty lonely for the next few weeks till I get back up to the Marshall Islands - where I had such a great time - and can fly home."

YOTREPS

August 15 - The Pacific Ocean and Cyberspace

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

Weather Updates

August 15 - Pacific Ocean

San Francisco Bay Weather

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

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

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

California Coast Weather

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

Pacific Winds and Pressure

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

Pacific Sea State

The site for the Pacific Ocean sea states has moved to http://www.mpc.ncep.noaa.gov/shtml/PacRegSSA.shtml.
For views of sea states anywhere in the world, see http://www.oceanweather.com/data.