When Jonathan Mckee is on your boat, you tend to win. Here he is on Fujin, the Bieker 53 racing in Offshore Multihull finished first in class, and showing fine form in the BVI Spring Regatta.

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The “boundaries” of “tollable” miles, as laid out in a proposal from the City of San Francisco, which was obtained by Latitude 38.

In yet another attempt to both alleviate the Bay Area’s worsening traffic congestion and bolster public-transit alternatives, the City of San Francisco is considering imposing what is being called a “luxury driving toll” that would include all manner of nonessential, recreational activity — including people driving to go sailing. A copy of the proposal, which was obtained by Latitude 38, outlined the overarching philosophy of the plan, offered some details as to how the toll might be assessed and collected, and described a vision for expanded ferry service.

“We cannot ignore the fact that gridlocked traffic continues to worsen, and that strong measures are required to discourage driving,” the proposal read. In discouraging non-work-related trips, which were also classified as “luxury commuting,” the City of San Francisco’s Group on Traffic Congestion and Highway Authority said it can also shore up funds to increase non-road-based commuting infrastructures.

“Fees can be collected by tracking FasTrak toll tags, via GPS and other technology, to monitor driving,” the proposal read, detailing plans that would require drivers to list their work-related destinations, which would be considered essential. All nonessential or non-work-related driving would be “tollable” miles.

Perhaps the most ominous portent of the proposal was this passage toward the end of the document: “Other municipalities throughout the Bay Area have shown interest in this pilot plan, and are likely to impose some version of punitive measures on nonessential driving as populations increase, and some 50,000 cars are added to the road each year.”

The proposal said that ferry service was the most likely candidate to receive toll funds, and laid out an ambitious plan for a fleet of high-speed, high-volume ferries that would service the heart of the Bay Area’s shores. In describing the planned ferries, the proposal painted an opulent picture of what the vessels might entail, including full-service bars and grills; televisions playing sports, news, and CNN and Fox; high-end reclinable seats; massage therapists on staff (not included in the ticket price); and occasional live entertainment.

(To be fair, it sounds awesome.)

“Ferries are the most expensive form of transportation and require enormous public subsidies,” the proposal said, using a candor not often seen in government documents. “Even though there is an inherent romance associated with commuting on the water, there is an obvious need to further lure people with amenities to ensure sufficient ridership, and to justify the hefty investment in this particular public-transportation sector.”

We can only imagine that “monitored driving” and the relatively subjective application of behavior-based fees will, justifiably, stoke the ire of privacy advocates, and clearly we are headed for protracted, taxpayer-funded litigation to trudge through these issues and, in all likelihood, arrive at the same stalemate from which policy makers originally embarked…

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Yes, this was written just before the venue announcement, but it is about much more than that. ed.

OK, fair point. Having lambasted current America’s Cup rules and regulations as unhinged from the realities of the sport I should at least have the courage to propose some sensible alternatives. Challenge accepted.

First, let’s get a threshold pedantry out of the way. The “America’s Cup” is not named in honour of the Land of The Free. It is, in truth, a presumptuous invention. The cup itself – the “auld mug” – was originally the Royal Yacht Squadron £100 Cup.

But six years after the schooner America won that first challenge race around the Isle of White, the US syndicate, lead by George Lee Schuyler, donated the cup to the New York Yacht Club under a Deed of Gift, blithely re-naming it the “America’s Cup”.

That rather arrogant act of appropriation was not appreciated by the British. Forty years later their yachting magazines still insisted on naming the event the “America Cup”, with no possessive apostrophe “s” and the yacht’s name in italics. But I digress.

What is clear from the letter and spirit of the original 1857 Deed of Gift (and its subsequent amendments and additions) is that the Cup competition was meant to be a fair and balanced sporting contest that combined sailing skill with yacht design.

Easy to say, difficult to achieve. What the mid-19th Century lawyers who drafted the Deed failed to foresee was that technology would eventually come to dominate the event and relegate the sailors to a minor supporting role.

To my mind, that is the imbalance a revised America’s Cup must correct if it is to retain any relevance to the broader yachting community…

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Since you’re reading this in a multihull magazine, chances are you’re already a fan of catamarans and are familiar with their advantages. They offer more room than same-length monohulls, they have system redundancy built in, they tend to produce less seasickness because they don’t heel much, and they can be faster since they’re not dragging a heavy keel through the water. At the same time, though, cats also offer a number of challenges that may have you rethinking how you manage a weeklong charter or an offshore passage. The lessons below (some hard won) are my personal tips on becoming Zen with two hulls and getting the best out of whatever multihull you may find yourself on…

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Enough is enough. It’s time we acknowledged that the people who conceived the rules for the next America’s Cup might have lost all rational connection with the sport of sailing.

You want proof? The release late last week of their revised Class Rules and Technical Regulations for AC37 (under the signature of Grant Dalton for the defenders) reminds us of the depth of this madness. Their obsession with hi-tech foiling monohulls has taken them into an impenetrable maze of detail that only the elite few of that exclusive clique of Americup professionals could understand.

They have, to put it bluntly, managed to disappear up their own collective fundamental orifices.

Consider this: the Class Rules run to 82 pages while the Technical Regulations fill another 45 pages. The Rules contain 1,190 specific rules, stipulations, formulas, diagrams, specifications and inclusions, and that’s not including the qualifications and exemptions. The Regulations have 533 separate line entries, including 163 definitions. (Yep, I counted them all.)

You can scroll to any page and find rules and regulations that are so obscure that they read like the nuthouse mutterings of some demented technocrat. Here’s my personal favourite:

7.8  Parts of the Yacht that can cover the crew shall be limited with reference to an elliptical prism (a solid right elliptic cylinder) which has a major axis of 450 mm, minor axis of 200 mm and a height of 600 mm. When viewed from above and orthogonal to MWP, no more than 35% of the area of the prism projected to MWP shall be capable of being covered by any part of the yacht above the prism other than the mast, sails and rigging… 


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Want to quickly improve your regatta results? One of the best ways to do that is to develop the ability to recover from a position down in the fleet.  The best teams can turn a bad start, OCS or any other mishap into a decent finish. Instead of being stuck in the back of the fleet they seem to always find a way to advance forward. Sounds easy, right? We all know it’s not.

How to turn that bummer of a start (everyone gets one from time to time) or boat handling screw-up into a keeper? You’ll need some skills and boat speed for sure, these can be practiced and developed over time. What you really need is the ability to focus mentally. To dig yourself out of the back and move towards a keeper finish you need to master the real mental challenge of sailing, and learn how to make lemonade out of lemons…

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I walked up to the bathroom and the couple was just getting out of their boat. The man appeared to be in surprisingly good shape. He was well tanned, trim and muscular, not exactly what you would expect for a guy in his 70s. He appeared to be moving without any stiffness. The boat was backed into the slip, a powerboat, white with red trim, maybe 28ft or so in length. The transom and aft deck faced me as I walked by. He and I made eye contact.

“Good morning,” I said, and then, “You look fine this morning.”

“Yes,” he responded. “No problem. I had someone help me get out of the drink last night.”

Clearly he did not know I was that person.

As these things do, they run through your mind, over and over again.

For the most part, mid-October marks the end of sailing season along the south shore of Lake Erie. A progression of fast-moving cold fronts disrupts short spells of beautiful clear fall days. During the good spells, strong, steady southwest winds push warm air across the lake creating perfect, flat sailing conditions. Over the years I have waited for these conditions to make my last crossing of the season aboard my 43-year-old Cape Dory 30 ketch, Valhalla, from Lorain, Ohio, to the Lake Erie Islands, about 40 miles northwest. The State Park marina on Middle Bass Island closes on October 15. This past year on October 8, a friend and I sailed there aboard our respective boats to enjoy one last visit before winter took hold…

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In the March issue of Latitude 38 we bring you the story of Jack van Ommen and the circumstances surrounding his third shipwreck. This one, he says, could have been prevented.

I should have listened to the advice of Herman, my Dutch brother-in-law, when he brought me to the airport in Amsterdam: “Jaap, don’t you think that you are too old to start crossing oceans?”

That was in 2004, when I was 67. I took off in spring 2005 from my homeport in Gig Harbor, Washington. On my way back from Europe in 2013, I suffered my first shipwreck off Ibiza. Some will remember the details and spectacular pictures of the remains of Fleetwood, a Naja 30 I had built myself and sailed for 33 years…

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From the Fabulous Forums. As we are looking to race Anarchy 6 mostly in ORC, i find this sort of topic quite interesting – ed.

I was just looking at the ORC ratings for J/111s and saw something very surprising.  Looking at the same boat with all the same measurements their 2021 ratings were 577.9 for crewed and 588.6 for DH.  But their 2022 ratings, again with the same measurements, are 575.9 and 579.9.

So the DH adjustment went from 10.7 secs/mile to 4 secs/mile just from the updated VPP for 2022?  That seems like a big adjustment.  Does that seem reasonable that a DH boat should be able to sail only 4 secs/mile slower than a fully crewed boat?

For 2022 the SunFast 3300 ratings are even more interesting.  The DH Club ratings are faster than the fully crewed Club ratings.  Wowie!  I suppose this is because they have water ballast? Comment.

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The recent media announcement and accompanying video by Team New Zealand that their design and build teams are constructing a wheeled, wing-driven vehicle to challenge the world sailing land speed record has provoked immediate responses from the other America’s Cup syndicates.

A spokesman for INEOS, the Challenger of Record for AC37, was far from impressed. “It looks to us like the Kiwis have been sitting around twiddling their thumbs”, he said. “They’ve now dreamed this up to spend some leftover government grant money while waiting for sponsorship and a decision on a venue for 2024. We’re way ahead of them on our own side project.

“We call it the ‘Four Fs’ for short. It stands for Future Full-Foil Fracking. We’ve taken the advanced foiling technology from the America’s Cup and adapted it for energy mining applications. Early indications are that the foils destroy natural geology at a wonderful rate. The marketing people have already come up with a nifty slogan: ‘Cutting edge for cutting rock’. Sir James is delighted.”

Not to be outdone, the innovators at the Prada Luna Rossa syndicate have also been working on an exciting project that exploits the enhanced levels of expertise they developed during their 2021 America’s Cup campaign. Details are still sketchy (and protected by patent applications) but it seems certain the breakthrough is related to the production of certain forms of pasta…

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