California Youth Represent Team USA at European 420 Championships
A group of young California sailors is in Europe this week, representing the United States at the European Championships for the 420 class. Eighteen-year-old Marco Puertas is among the 12 Bay Area youth in the 15-strong contingency from California. His father, Lorenzo Puertas, sent us the following news and photos.
“The six-day regatta in Portoroz, Slovenia, includes 243 sailors from 22 nations from around Europe and the world. European sailing powerhouses Spain, Italy, France, and Great Britain are here, along with small teams from Japan, New Zealand, Brazil, and Australia.
“Team USA sent 23 boats to this year’s European Championship, including a dozen teens who have grown up sailing on the San Francisco Bay. These sailors, from the High Performance Center (HPC) at Tiburon Yacht Club, are a sort of Bay Area ‘All Star Team.’ The Bay Area group includes kids who started in Optis and have been sailing for years at yacht clubs around the Bay.
“HPC Coach Udi Gal is a four-time Olympic athlete and coach, and a former world and European champion. He is one of five Team USA coaches in Slovenia this week, along with Head Coach Steven Keen, Ian “Bunny” Warren, Ilan Tashtash, and David Bargehr — all former Olympians.
“So far conditions on the Adriatic have been sunny and warm, with light breezes of 5-10 kts.”
Marco Puertas has been sailing on S.F. Bay since he was 6, and racing at Encinal Yacht Club since he was 8. He’s currently a sailing instructor at Encinal YC, and trains with coach Udi Gal at High Performance Sailing at the Tiburon Yacht Club.
Congratulations and good luck to the sailors competing for Team USA this week. *Note, all members of HPC are members of the Tiburon Yacht Club, in addition to their home clubs on the Bay.
Bay Area HPC:
1. Sawyer Bastian, 19, StFYC
2. Naomi Lowenthal, 18, TYC
3. Oscar Melet, 15, StFYC / SFYC
4. Gavin Murphy, 16, StFYC
5. Blake Oberhauer, 17, StFYC / SFYC
6. Marco Puertas, 18, Encinal YC
7. Leo Robillard, 17, SFYC
8. Beckett Shin, 17, StFYC
9. Camille Stang, 17, StFYC
10. Ryan Tonkovich, 16, StFYC / SFYC
11. Jack Wicker, 15, StFYC / SFYC
12. Aaron Ziegler, 17, Encinal YC
Southern California:
1. Katlia Sherman, 16, California YC
2. Helena Salas, 16, California YC
3. Jackson Rushing, 16, California YC
“Marco’s worked really hard to qualify for the US team, with the support of so many people in the Bay Area youth sailing community,” Lorenzo writes, adding that Marco and his family are “grateful for all the S.F. Bay yacht clubs and their countless volunteers that support youth sailing — teaching, hauling boats, organizing regattas, and funding youth sailing on the Bay.”
If you’d like to get your young person into sailing, take a look at some of the opportunities mentioned on our website: Youth Sailing
Caption Contest(!)
Welcome to July’s Caption Contest(!). We dug this one up just now. Clearly we had to wait for it to take root and grow …
Remember to check out June’s winners in this month’s Loose Lips.
Schedule Your Next Haul Out with San Francisco Boatworks
A Step Taken in Oakland Waterways’ Long-Awaited Cleanup
When Latitude 38 reader Denis Carroll looked out across the Alameda Estuary at approximately 12:30 last Tuesday, he first thought he was watching a sand dredge heading out on its rounds. But a closer look revealed the barge was carrying multiple boats on its deck. Denis sent us a couple of photos of the the Lind Marine barge and looped us in with his query to Brock de Lappe, longtime advocate for clearing derelict vessels out of the Estuary.
Brock forwarded a release titled “OPD/Lind Marine Estuary Cleanup.”
“Today the Oakland Police Department Marine Patrol Unit, under the direction of Port Security Officer Kaleo Albino, removed 17 derelict and abandoned vessels (ADV) from the Oakland Marinas. These boats were loaded onto a barge by Lind Marine and will be taken to the Lind shipyard on Mare Island for scrapping and disposal. This effectively prevents any of these vessels from becoming illegal anchor-outs on the Estuary. Funding was provided by a SAVE grant from the California Division of Boating and Waterways.”
“I have been advocating this approach for years,” Brock replied in his email. “OPD [Oakland Police Department] is hopeful of receiving a large grant from the NOAA marine debris removal program this fall. That will provide the funding to remove sunken and beached boats on the Estuary … far more difficult.”
“Far better than crushing boats in the parking lot at the Jack London Aquatic Center,” Brock adds. “They now have shown the value of using Lind Marine resources.”
A TIP From the Baja Ha-Ha First Timer’s Guide
The 84 entrants who have already signed up for the Baja Ha-Ha will soon receive their entry packets with this year’s burgee and the new First Timer’s Guide to cruising Mexico. The guide is packed with tips for anyone getting ready to cruise Mexico.
One of the tips is about TIPs — Temporary Import Permits — important for anyone who has bought a used boat that may have an uncanceled TIP from a prior owner.
The First Timer’s Guide states: You can check on the Banjercito website here. Enter your hull number in the first box and leave the second box blank. The website only looks for TIPs issued after 2005 by Banjercito. If you suspect there could be an older aduana TIP, a Banjercito at a Mexican consulate will check for you. Not all Mexican consulates have Banjercito; only Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Sacramento, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Dallas, Houston, Austin, Denver and Chicago do. Or call the Banjercito across the border from Otay Mesa at +52 (664) 624-5515 and have them check.
If there is an uncanceled or expired TIP on your boat, you cannot get a new one until that one is canceled.
Some boats, such as the Catalina 42 Mk I Vela owned by David Holmes, discovered they have an uncanceled TIP in San Diego and were unable to continue south last year. Read David Holmes’ story here.
See the new First Timer’s Guide and more on Heading South here.
Two Brothers, Two Antrim Designs — One Pac Cup Showdown
“We’re racing for pink slips,” said Jim Partridge of the upcoming Pacific Cup, where he’ll be sailing against his older brother, Cree. “Whoever wins gets the other guy’s boat,” Jim added, only half serious — we think.
The competition between the Partridge brothers will see them going head to head in their Jim Antrim-designed custom boats, both of which were built at Berkeley Marine Center. Cree, who owns BMC, will be sailing Glass Slipper, officially described as a boatbuilder’s 40-ft carbon fiber sled, born from the same hull plug as the Antrim-designed Class 40 California Condor. “This boat is a culmination of everything that I’ve ever done in the past,” Cree, 77, said of Glass Slipper.
Jim Partridge, 75, will be sailing Rapid Transit, his 49-ft canting-keel racer with “lots of carbon in the hull,” according to Antrim. “Cree is 9.5 feet shorter — I’ve got the waterline, that’s why we’re going to beat him across the channel,” said Jim. Not only will two Antrim designs and two brothers be facing off against each other, but Jim Antrim himself will serve as navigator aboard Glass Slipper.
“I wish I could be on both boats,” Antrim said of the Pac Cup. We asked him if he had any predictions for the race, and he was kind enough to indulge us.
“I think Rapid Transit will get to Hawaii first. (It had better!) As to who wins on corrected time … I frankly think both boats have a bad rating. I think we might correct better because Rapid Transit is more complicated with its canting keel, and you need more high-end people to sail it.” (The always cagey Jim Partridge joked, “Cree stole some of my crew.”)
The unique brotherly competition in this year’s Pac Cup represents a kind of apex in West Coast sailing: Decades of achievement in high-level design (via Jim Antrim), boatbuilding (via Cree Partridge), and racing will be on display on the more than 2,300-mile course from San Francisco to Hawaii.
Originally from the Palos Verdes Peninsula in Los Angeles, the Partridge brothers grew up surrounded by boats. “The three of us got together and bought a boat when we were young kids — a Sabot. And wow, it just kept going from there,” Cree told us in mid-June, as Glass Slipper was on the hard in preparation for the Pac Cup. “We had our family fishing boat, and on both sides of the fishing boat at the marina were sailboats. So anytime they were going out, they would grab one of us ‘meatheads’, and we gladly did it. That’s how it all started.”
Cree knew that he wanted to make boats, he said, “since I was a little kid building boats in my parents’ front yard with penny nails and old shingles and things that I could grab from construction sites. I was always, always, always interested in building.”
We’ve spoken with Cree Partridge numerous times over the past several years on subjects ranging from green hydrogen powering boats, unique vessels built at BMC, the past, present and future of Berkeley Marina, and boats, sailing, and just being on the water. Cree has a soft, deep voice and a big, white mustache. He speaks thoughtfully about all things. He has sailed and raced all over the world. He has built dozens of boats. This might sound a little over the top, but he oozes knowledge, experience, and passion, but in a calm, unassuming way.
Read the rest of Cree and Jim Partridge’s sailing story and Pacific Cup rivalry in Latitude 38’s July issue: Brotherly Love in the Pac Cup.
Westwind Yacht Management — Washing, Waxing and Varnishing
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