CALIFORNIA’S MULTIHULL LEADER
no choice but to drop out. I remember grandpa getting on the ship-to-shore radio and talking to Ted Hood about it. Two years later Indigo had a new bronze centerboard and did the Transtlantic Race to Germany. She finished first overall! My grandfather, The Ted Hood-designed 'Indigo' on her S.K. 'Scrubby' Wellman, way to taking honors in the 1968 Transwas 78 at the time. atlantic Race. Ted Hood would agree that centerboards and swing keels are great — when they work. Josh Pryor Ruby, 64-ft steel sloop San Francisco
COURTESY JOSH PRYOR
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1190 SPORT With one pre-ordered 1190 Sport already under construction, you can expect to see this 39’ performance cruising catamaran sailing off the shores of San Francisco Bay as early as May next year. Building of the incredible strength and popularity of the 1160 range, this larger, lighter model has been designed as a true offshore cruising catamaran. With the addition of high aspect daggerboard and retractable rudder packaged with a full wardrobe of performance sails, this sports cruiser is going to be hard to beat.
CORSAIR 750 SPRINT MKII “One of the best, most fun, exciting boats the Corsair Marine ever built”. End of the year special, our demo boat with performance sails, motor, and trailer $59,950
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www.helmsyacht.com TOM EELKEMA (510) 872-4454 teelkema@gmail.com Page 26 •
Latitude 38
• November, 2015
GARY HELMS (510) 865-2511 garyhelms44@gmail.com
⇑⇓ WEATHER GOING NORTH It's 10 days after the conclusion of the SoCal Ta-Ta and it's been a pretty rough trip back up to San Francisco Bay for the Roberts 44 Gypsy Soul. I'm curious as what weather forecasting service — buoyweather.com or what? — the Grand Poobah uses. At this point Gypsy Soul has made it as far north as Monterey. The skipper and crew headed north from there early yesterday, but met with such bad conditions that they turned back. The crew then jumped into a rental car for the trip back to the Bay. Wendy Rybicki Gypsy Soul, Bruce Roberts Offshore 44 Emeryville Wendy — We use all kinds of weather services depending on where we are and what kind of weather we're concerned about. For the big-picture view of the world and regions, we like earthnullschool.net. For an overview of more specific areas — such as the coast of California and the Pacific Coast of Mexico — and for very early indications of possible tropical storm threats in Mexico and the Caribbean, we like Passage Weather. We think EEB.mike is best for Mexican hurricanes as they are happening. We like like buoyweather.com, too. For the Ha-Ha, we use Commander's Weather. Coming up the Central California coast, we'd probably use a combination of NOAA and Passage Weather. The thing to remember about bashing up the coast of Central California, like bashing up the coast of Baja, is that you should think twice before taking off when the wind is on the nose, as it usually is, and much over 17 knots and seas over six feet. And if it's over 22 knots, just forget it — unless you need to prove something to yourself. If you insist on sailing into those conditions, you'll make slow progress while beating up the crew and boat. Nor will you do much better if you're motoring, unless you're on a very large boat. If you wait a few days — all right, it can be a week — you can usually make progress north in much more pleasant conditions. The Wanderer and Doña de Mallorca faced a similar 'do we stay or do we go?' decision when they got to Cabo a few months ago while doublehanding from Puerto Vallarta to San Diego. We ended up spending six days in steamy Cabo in August, which was not our idea of fun. But it was better than pounding our boat and ourselves every 10 to 20 seconds for five days. There are times when you don't have the luxury of being able to sit