We just saw a bunch of pics of the new Hanse 410 and it is pretty much what you think it would be, but two pics of the cockpit elicited two different responses.

The first, pictured above made us hate it.  Too short and not one, but two tables?  Ya can’t move, cramped, sucks.  Hate it.

But then we saw it configured like this and, we love it. Of course, none of the cushions are anchored, and they  would slide all over the place, but why worry about details – these things are mostly not going to be sailed.

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Pretending that Bacardi isn’t a company that continues to do business in Russia, profiteering, unabated, and uncaring about that country’s brutal and savage unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, the promotors of the Bacardi Cup are counting on you sailors to not give a flying fuck. And they are right, you don’t give a fuck.

I mean after all, why worry about schools and hospitals being purposely bombed by Russia when there is rum to drink, right?

“Come on man, this is sailing, not politics” is a refrain we hear all the time when we dare to post something that doesn’t neatly fit into whatever preordained idea of what a sailing site is “supposed to be”…

Drawing by DeviantArt.

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This intriguing photo was taken in Sydney Harbour at the start of the recent 83nm Bird Island Race.

For a few moments, as they hit the line together, the 36-foot Supernova ( a 20-year-old Sydney 36CR Cruiser/Racer) designed by Andy Dovell), matched it with supermaxi AndooComanche.

The whole of the little cruiser/racer – hull, keel and rig – would easily fit within Comanche’s foretriangle. Supernova went on to win its IRC Division; Comanche took line honors.

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Podcast

In today’s podcast, Scot shows how little he knows about, well, anything, as he ignorantly delves into the world of shorthanded sailing. For example, he thinks this picture is what solo sailing is all about. (I’m not wrong – ed.)

Oh trust us, he knows all about short – height, bus, length. You get the picture.

Enjoy.

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The Environment

A small group of protesters from Greenpeace have hung up the operations of the deep-sea mining research vessel Coco, prompting the vessel’s charterer to file a lawsuit seeking an injunction, the activist group said Tuesday.

Coco is on assignment in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone to evaluate a polymetallic nodule lease area. The Greenpeace vessel Arctic Sunrise rendezvoused with the vessel in order to interfere with its mission. On the water, Greenpeace has used two kayaks and two small boats to obstruct the ship’s operations. In addition, a five-person climb team boarded the Coco’s stern-mounted A-frame using a hook, rope and ascenders. The activists climbed up to the platform at the structure’s top and occupied it in hopes of blocking operations.

Read on.

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The new Beiker-designed, Betts-built Riptide 30 Baby Blue finished second overall in ORC in the Round the County Race in the Pacific Northwest. Looks good.

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A few weeks ago, Latitude 38 received a letter expressing concern about Santa Barbara’s plan to reduce or completely close part of the city’s free anchorages along its beachfront over concern for underwater infrastructure. Reacting to the proposal at a city meeting in late October, Santa Barbara’s Harbor Commission said they’d like to find solutions other than closing what’s known as the seasonal anchorage near Stearns Wharf. (There is also a permitted mooring area farther east of Stearns, as well as a free year-round anchorage.)

“There’s no proposal to touch or close the year-round portion of anchorage,” said Mike Wiltshire, Santa Barbara’s harbormaster and waterfront director. Wiltshire confirmed that the city’s Harbor Commission would prefer a solution that preserves the seasonal anchorage in addition to the year-round anchorage. He believes a solution is possible that can preserve mooring and anchoring in the seasonal anchorage while still protecting utility infrastructure. He said the seasonal anchorage is closer to Stearns Wharf and the harbor which is where people typically take their tenders/skiffs.

Wiltshire said the waterfront department and public works need to put together a proposal that “protects the infrastructure and preserves moorings.

A press release from Santa Barbara’s Waterfront Department said the city was taking “proactive steps to safeguard its offshore resources and the environment,” and added that “incidents of damage to [underwater infrastructure] due to anchors dragging have heightened concerns, prompting the need for protection.”

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We are back in peak Maxi racing season having just completed a very successful Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup (MYRC) in Porto Cervo and are now en route for Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez (LVdeST). Both attract some 50 Maxis although there is substantial variation between the fleets which begs the question: ‘what makes a regatta really attractive to Maxi owners?’

As estate agents say the main drivers really are location, location and location. We go to Saint-Tropez twice in a season – in June for the Rolex Giraglia Regatta which has inshore racing followed by the classic offshore, and then again in October where there is just inshore racing.

At the glamorous 12-strong racing boat end of the Saint-Tropez fleet, 10 were also racing at the MYRC. But scrolling down to the sub-class of smaller, more cruiser-racer boats it is a very different mix with 14 boats only two of which were in Sardinia. Read on.

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I’m burnt out and pretty much done with racing. It’s been coming for a while and I thought getting the 105 would be a bit of an elixer, and while I truly like the 105 and the OD racing is really fun, it’s simply time for me to get out.

I’ve made the boat as good as I can and it is plenty fast.  New sails, new bottom, etc. This is a great boat for class racing, PHRF and ORR. And, I’ve priced it right.  Check it out! –ed.

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“This just came in the mail,” says Gino Morrelli excitedly as he runs into the kitchen of his California home. In his hand is a booklet that may or may not grant him the International Proficiency Certificate (IPC) that is required to charter a bareboat in Croatia. “Now we can go on vacation in September!”

Morrelli, one half of the design power team Morrelli & Melvin, is one of the minds responsible for boats like the Rapido trimarans (read the Rapido 40 review here), multiple Leopards including the 47 PC and award-winning 38 and 44, HH catamarans, Invincible powerboats, the NACRA 17, and even the Windcat workboats that service offshore wind farms. If that weren’t enough, he also had a hand in designing for elite racers like America’s Cup campaigns and the maxi cat PlayStation during his career of four decades.

And still, he’s been sweating getting approval to run a European power cat for a week. Bureaucracy can be batty.

From Humble Beginnings

Gino Morrelli may be a top multihull designer today, but it wasn’t always bleeding edge technology and yacht design accolades. When he was young, his family moved from Texas to Southern California. They bought plans for and built a 33-foot Lock Crowther-designed plywood and epoxy trimaran, which was the boat that began Morrelli’s racing career. Self-taught in multihull design, he couldn’t have guessed the legacy he was starting.

Over the next 10 years, Morrelli launched and closed his first company building 18 square meter cats, and hung out in Hawaii after sailing there on a friend’s home-built 45-foot boat, just because there wasn’t much to do back home. The Hawaiian contacts he made during those years would stay with him for life…

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Now that is some breeze! From the 2023 ILCA U-21 World Championships.

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Big Pimpin’

Ronstan’s new Orbit Winch makes easing sheets and halyards a lot easier

Winches for operating sails have been around for roughly 50 to 60 years, and they still look more or less the same. Even technically, winches operate basically the same way they did when Grandpa was in his prime. So what’s the big deal, when Ronstan now launches their new Orbit Winch?

‘Well, a lot of things’, says Thomas Galster, content manager at Ronstan. ‘More than anything, for most of our customers it’s the QuickTrim feature. Every sailor knows the endless procedure of making minor trim changes. Especially with jib sheets, but it could be a halyard or basically any trim line. When the line needs to be tightened, it’s easy enough – just take a turn or two on the winch handle.

But easing is a bit more time-consuming: You need to remove the handle, take the line off the top, ease the line and then put everything back. In most styles of sailing this has to be done with short intervals. So making that part easier would make a real difference. And this is exactly what we have done with the new Orbit Winch: All you have to do is use one hand to rotate the self-tailing top, and now you can just ease the line out as needed with your other hand. You don’t have to take the handle off or even remove the line from the jaws.’

More here.

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It had been five years and nearly 35,000 nautical miles of hard sailing—including three years in Antarctica and Chile—when we finally turned north for the Caribbean. We were ready for a change and the chance to swim in warm, crystal clear, blue waters again, and it was time to get Zephyros, our 47-foot Boréal, in for a tune-up at a proper yard.

Trinidad’s reputation for boat work made it an obvious choice, so we reserved a spot in the Peake Yacht Services yard for the 2022 hurricane season (July-November), fully expecting our visit to be mostly work and little play—which is also part of Trinidad’s reputation. But what we found was much more, and our experience there was only enhanced by the three weeks we spent meandering Trinidad’s largely unsung neighbor, Tobago, after our work at the yard was finished.

We left for Chaguaramas, Trinidad, from Mount Hartman Bay, one of Grenada’s popular southern bays, on August 31. We’d stopped in Grenada to get our paperwork in order and the permits for our cats to clear customs with us, which took an unexpected six weeks. The Peake yard worked with our changing and sliding arrival dates, remaining accommodating throughout the process.

Some people are nervous about this 95-nautical-mile passage because there have been pirate incidents along the route in the past. The Trinidad Coast Guard requests that boats file a float plan before transiting, and they monitor VHF 16 with a high-powered antenna and repeaters. We know of a couple of incidents when the Coast Guard has come as far as the offshore oil platforms—30 nautical miles off Trinidad’s northern coast—to tow and assist boaters having problems like malfunctioning engines or flooding. They understand that cruisers have concerns and are taking maritime safety and security seriously…

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