I took delivery of my new boat late in the summer. It is a JPK 39 FC. I live in the US but the French shipyards have a lock on this type of boat. I wanted:

1). Strong performance. Not just speed but also a well-thought-out deck plan. I am done with wonky rigging solutions on large catamarans or all-encompassing cockpit enclosures on mono hulls. I wanted a boat that lets me trim. My lack of ability will be the only hurdle not the design of the boat. I chartered a mono with the main sheet attached mid-boom. Horror show to weather. I also wanted the boat to have that feeling that I was almost racing.

2). Folding or lifting keel was a must. When I get stateside it is no fun dealing with 6+ foot draft. Most of the French boats fold between 1.3 meters up to 2.7 meters down.

3). I wanted a proper nav station where I could look forward. When sailing solo I want to be able to do long watches in the cabin. By the way the use case is for some harbor hoping with two aboard and some multi day legs with just me. Eventually going for longer.

4). I wanted a basic interior but not one that was a Clorox bottle. Read more at the SA Fabulous Forums.

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Following the recent 5.1 earthquake south of San Jose, the long-dormant Angel Island volcano stirred back to life with the first signs of a new eruption early the other morning. To date, no further tremors or eruptions have been felt, but authorities* are keeping an eye on it.

*Actually any “authority” can witness this if, like us, they’re up for an early morning walk in Belvedere and happen to be in the right place at sunrise.

The post Volcanic Eruption on Angel Island appeared first on Latitude38.

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A light-air Rolex Middle Sea Race has come down to the wire for multihull line honors. Just 56 seconds is all that separated the top two MOD 70’s, Mana and Zoulou after more than two and a half days and 600 miles of sailing. Owned by Riccardo Pavoncelli and skippered by Vendée Globe veteran Alexia Barrier – who has her eyes set on the Jules Verne Trophy with an all-female crew – Mana just barely nipped the upstart Zoulou across the line.

With a crew that includes MOD 70 aficionados Ned Collier-Wakefield, Loick Peyron and Sidney Gavignet among others, Zoulou wasted no time in getting up to speed and fighting Mana all the way to the finish. Class stalwart Giovanni Soldini and Maserati crossed the finish in third place, just ten minutes later with Frank Slootman’s new Snowflake MOD 70 program a further one and a quarter hour behind.

Behind the four MOD 70’s at the head of the fleet, Chris Shepherd’s Farr 100 Leopard 3  walked away with monohull line honors while the top boats on IRC include many usual suspects including the Ker 46 Corum-Daguet 3, the Nivelt – Muratet designed NMYD 54 Teasing Machine and the R/P 60 Wild Joe, among many other worthy contenders. Most of the fleet still has half the race to go, make sure to follow the tracker or on Yellow Brick on your mobile device.  Ronnie Simpson.

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I gazed aft over Hazel James’ port quarter and patted her well-travelled 31ft hull. “It’s time to sail, girl. We’ve got a long way to go,” I said.

As the Virgin Islands sank below the horizon, my thoughts were filled with Caribbean memories, a curious and sundry collage of trade-wind sailing, cruising friends and shimmering turquoise water the color of Hazel’s hull. After a poignant moment or two, though, I turned my attention forward again, from the past to the future—not some dreamy and distant future, but the imminent challenge of the 1,200-nautical-mile single-handed passage that lay ahead.

By happenstance, the voyage I was on straddled not one but two epochs. I had embarked from South Florida in the “before time,” prior to the pandemic, with the goal of reaching the Virgin Islands via The Bahamas. Not surprisingly the upwind passage against the prevailing currents from The Bahamas to the Virgins had lived up to its expectations. However, as recompense for all my southward efforts, I now hoped to be rewarded with an “easy” downwind island-hop northward, from the Virgins to Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, the Turks and Caicos, and then on through the Bahamas to Florida, with a sprinkling of single overnight sails. From a theatergoer’s perspective, it was a simple and understandable morality play—good things happen to good people who invest the time and effort. Then, of course, there was the reason I had embarked on this voyage in the first place—to help process the grief from my sister and my wife’s recent but unrelated deaths—by far, the two most awful things that have ever happened to me. I deserved an easy passage home, or so I thought. Unfortunately, the Coronavirus had other plans for me, and with international borders sealed throughout the region, my passage home was now going to have to be nonstop.

In the cockpit I considered my situation and told myself, Oh, well, even if I can’t island-hop, at least I should have hundreds of miles of fair winds and following seas under Hazel’s cruising spinnaker. And with that, I clipped-in to my jackline and tether system and made my way to the foredeck to set the chute…

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Sam Manuard is a renowned architect in the world of scow, officiating in both IMOCA and Class40.

On the eve of the start of the Route du Rhum 2022 and one year after the launch of the new plans for the Transat Jacques Vabre, he gives us his opinion on the evolution of the Class40. Read on.

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The Environment

The Mississippi River’s water level continues its downward trajectory, with substantial implications for agriculture and commerce in the American heartland. The depth is approaching a historic low last seen in 1988, and it is slowing barge traffic to a crawl.

The river gauge now sits at -8.9 feet at Memphis, three feet lower than it was last weekend, and there is little if any relief in the forecast. The water level at Memphis could approach -10 feet by the end of the month, according to a National Weather Service Forecast, and the extended forecast predicts below-normal precipitation throughout the Mississippi Basin for at least the next 30 days.

“There is no rain in sight, that is the bottom line,” Corps of Engineers spokesperson Lisa Parker told the Wall Street Journal. “The rivers are just bottoming out.” Read on.

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