FA C T O RY U P G R A D E

LETTERS readable — and often verges on the literary. I also can't say often enough how much we appreciate Latitude for being such a great and accessible mag. Tom Fowle BAADS, the Bay Area Association of Disabled Sailors San Francisco Tom — Thanks for the kind words. We hope you folks at BAADs are looking forward to another great season of sailing.

Catalina 36 MkII Perserverance

"Replacing my factory 110 jib with the UK Carbon 125 was an eye-opener. It makes my Catalina 36 MkII handle far better. The flatness of the sail almost completely eliminates weather helm while close hauled in 25 knot winds on San Francisco Bay. It is a big WOW! – totally worth the investment. My autopilot 5000 handles the boat with much greater ease as well. I will buy more of these for sure!" – Jeff Berman, Catalina 36 'Perserverance'

DEDICATED SAILORS WANT DEDICATED SAILMAKERS

Proven performance – racing, cruising, or somewhere in between! SAN FRANCISCO 451 W. Atlantic, Ste. 115 Alameda, CA 94501 (510) 523-3966 Sylvain Barielle, Synthia Petroka, Jason Crowson sanfrancisco@ukhalsey.com

www.ukhalsey.com Page 84 •

Latitude 38

• February, 2006

⇑⇓CANADIAN WATER As for the Canadian who wrote in to say that global warming was causing the waters of the Pacific Northwest to evaporate and coastal rocks to be exposed and/or moved, the only rocks he must be familiar with are the ones in his booze balls! There is all kinds of water up here. In order to avoid the rocks, a mariner just has to use current charts, stay sober, and stop whining about global warming. After all, 'climate change' is just the natural function of the earth going through normal cycles. Didn't we all learn in high school science that "nothing can be created or destroyed?" Sooner or later it all recycles into something. As for remote and/or busy places to cruise, the Pacific Northwest has the best in the world. You can find busy and civilized places to cruise, as well as more primitive and uninhabited areas too. The people are wonderful everywhere, in the right places the shopping is excellent, the majority of passages are close to shore, there are plenty of safe harbors, and it's safe from pirates — except those representing the governments. Although I now have a large power yacht, I thoroughly enjoy your 'blow boat' magazine. By the way, if the fellow concerned about this trip north around Cape Mendocino has too many concerns, he should drop into Eureka and buy the local fishermen a beer or two. Soon enough they'll share the information he'll need to have the most comfortable rounding of the Cape. Dennis McMurtry In The Deep Waters Of Vancouver, British Columbia Dennis — We live in a self-absorbed age, so we suppose people can be forgiven for believing that any variation in the current condition of the earth is necessarily wrong or unnatural — as if the many cycles of global warming and cooling that occurred prior to the existence of man and the internal combustion engine never happened. The terrible truth that we're all going to have to make peace with is that the world really doesn't evolve around each one of us, and, unlike what we've always assumed, we're not the masters of our universe. Please pass the rum. Having said that, the concept that "nothing can be created or destroyed" is no reason to dismiss concerns about climate change — no matter if they are the result of man's actions or of a natural cycle of nature. We humans need a stable mix of relatively moderate temperatures in order to survive. For example, if the temperature at the poles dropped to 200° below and the temperature at the equator rose to 200° above, it would soon be curtains for our species. The main mechanism that keeps the poles from getting ultra cold and the equator ultra hot are the winds and underwater rivers that mix and 'average out' the temperature extremes. If, for some reason — natural or man-made — the moderating influences of the winds and underwater rivers were thwarted, we'd ultimately all end up being roasted or frozen.