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WHALE POINT

A FAmily Owned & OperAted Business FOr three GenerAtiOns

Marine parts & accessories, pLUs a coMpLete hardware store

Christmas Gift ideas duaLdriLL

by Mansfield

Head rotates to quickly change from drill to driver or different size bits. charger & case. Was $9999

NOw $4999

sOsPeNders

Inflatable Safety Harness

Manual inflate $16999

Auto inflate $18999

saVe $10 eaCh saVe $20 eaCh

Lanyards sold separate

trOJaN & CeNteNNiaL

Batteries

MARine deeP-cycLe bATTeRieS ............. NOw $8999 ........... NOw $9999 6 Volt........................ NOw $11999 .............. NOw $15999 Other amp sizes available.

stearNs

cold Weather Gloves

POrter CaBLe

5” Random Orbital Sander

333K Quicksand 5” Random Orbital Sander with case. 2.4 A motor, Hock & Loop, 12,000 OPM, dust collector. Made in U.S.A. Reg $7999

Now $5999

Qty Ltd.

fOuLweather Gear by Dutch Harbor

now $4999 -6999

The affordable protection. Full suit includes jacket and bib-pants.

simPLestart

ByBlack & DeckeR

Jump starts your car just by plugging in to your cigarette lighter (no jumper cables) nOW $4999

airdryr 1000

nOW $1995

Handles up to 1000 cu. ft. Safe for marine use. Now $5499

205 Cutting Blvd, Corner of 2nd, Richmond FAx 233-1989

Flight of the Pterodactyl.

Dr. Curtis Ebbesmeyer and Dr. Jim Graham are drift analysis experts. Although they’re based in Seattle, they work on — and are interested in — all sorts of things that go adrift at sea, from lost buoys and abandoned ships all the way down to sneakers and rubber duckies. Some of their early work — remember the tens of thousands of Nike running shoes that broke out of overboard shipping containers about 15 years ago? — generated so much interest among scientifically-challenged folks (in other words, most of us) that Curt started the newsletter Beachcombers' Alert! about a decade ago. Published six times a year, the Alert! intersperses serious drift analyses alongside more lighthearted fare, from the obligatory messages-in-bottles to all the other weird and wonderful stuff that people find on beaches. Occasionally our paths intersect, and Dr. Curt has been a great help when we have questions about yachts that have gone adrift. One of them is going to be the subject of an upcoming Alert! article: the Olson 40 Pterodactyl. By now you probably know the story by heart: a broach during last spring's rough and tumble Doublehanded Farallones Race washed her two crew overboard. Luckily, they were recovered quickly by another boat, but the conditions were too rough to reboard the unmanned Pterodactyl, which had to be abandoned. The boat has been spotted in mid-ocean twice since then, once by a Navy ship and once by a commercial ship. All known coordinates were forwarded to Ebbesmeyer and Graham. Here are a few ‘sneak peeks’ from the upcoming article: • In the 45 days she drifted before the commercial ship found her, Pterodactyl covered 726 nautical miles, a speed of 16.1 nm a day. • Comparing Pterodactyl’s track to the long-distance drifts of five other unmanned vessels across the North Pacific — four of which were sailboats — hers looked most similar to the track of the yacht Southbound, which started drifting in July, 2003, after singlehanded skipper Stephen Brown apparently fell overboard near Point Conception. Like that boat, Pterodactyl appears to be headed for the Pacific Gyre, or as Ebbesmeyer terms it, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. “The Patch is the great dust bunny of the Northern Hemisphere, where winds collect flotsam beneath the Pacific Subtropical Pressure cell,” he writes. “It’s at least several times the size of Texas.” Things that end up there can stay there a very long time. The list of lost or abandoned vessels that ended up the gyre goes back centuries — literally to the days of native canoes and Spanish galleons. Even today, Ebbesmeyer thinks there may be dozens of yachts still endlessly ‘sailing’ The Patch. For more on the Beachcombers' Alert!, check out http://beachcombersalert.org/

Christmas At Sea. It's true — Latitude hardly ever publishes poetry. But at this time of year, it's something of a personal tradition to reread one of our all-time favorite pieces of seagoing verse, Robert Louis Stevenson's Christmas at Sea. It's too long to reprise here, but if you want to really invoke the spirit of the season, Google the title and Stevenson's name and see what we mean.

Eight bells. We're saddened to report that Joanne McFee of Island YC passed away on November 12. She was 62.

In addition to bringing a friendly presence to any room or situation, Joanne was the ultimate ‘go-to gal’ when it came to getting things done at Island YC. She was the club’s race chair almost from the time she joined in 1990, and we’ve often wished she could have given classes to other yacht club race chairs — she

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1984 LM 30 $69,000 2003 Hunter 326 $77,900 1990 Hunter 32 $39,900 1987 Ericson 32 $39,900 1995 Catalina 320 $66,000 2005 Hunter 33 $99,000 1987 Catalina 34 $49,900 1999 Hunter 340 $88,500 1972 Coronado 34 $35,000 1985 Irwin 34 $37,500 2004 Hunter 36 $148,000 2002 Catalina 36 $114,000 2005 Hunter 36 $139,900 2006 Hunter 36 $145,000 2006 Catalina 36 $160,000 1986 Catalina 36 $49,900 2002 Catalina 36 $119,500 1992 Beneteau 36 $79,900 1993 Hunter 37.5 $83,500 2001 Bavaria 37 $140,000 1999 Island 38 $235,000 1994 Catalina 38 $119,000 1969 Hughes $39,800 2003 Hunter 386 $127,250 1990 C&C 37+ $115,000 1994 Beneteau 40 $124,500 2004 Catalina 400 $230,000 2000 Jeanneau 40 $149,000 2004 Jeanneau 40 $199,000

2004 Hunter 41 $229,900 1999 Hunter 410 $149,000 2000 Hunter 410 $165,000 2006 Hunter 41 $229,900 2006 Hunter 41 $208,000 1991 Hunter 42 $124,000 2004 Hunter 420 $209,500 2000 Hunter 42 $165,000 1998 Catalina 42 $148,000 1999 Bavaria 42 $160,000 2003 Jeanneau 43 $259,000 1998 Hunter 430 $157,000 2002 Jeanneau 43 $235,000 2006 Hunter 44 $259,000 1996 Beneteau 44 $149,900 2007 Hunter 44 $269,000 1997 Hunter 45 $179,000 2000 Jeanneau 45 $229,000 2005 Hunter 46 $279,900 2004 Hunter 466 $249,000 2002 Hunter 466 $249,900 2001 Beneteau 47 $259,900 2007 Beneteau 49 $432,900 2005 Jeanneau 49 $419,000 1981 Pearson 530 $249,000 2005 Jeanneau 54 $650,000 2005 Jeanneau 54 $599,000 2006 Jeanneau 54 $740,000 1997 Jomar 55 $299,000

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was always there (or quick to return calls), always helpful, and always quick with results and details. In short, a racing editor’s dream contact. And when the going got rough, Joanne never flinched. She gained an additional measure of respect during last spring’s tragic loss of the Cheoy Lee 31 Daisy and the two sailors aboard during IYC’s Doublehanded Lightship Race. Joanne did IYC and the entire local sailing community proud, fielding most reporters and every tough question like a pro. Joanne was introduced to sailing by her second husband. Sailing first out of Encinal YC and later moving to IYC, she Joanne McFee. became an accomplished sailor in her own right. And she sailed the smart way, never owning a boat, but sailing on a variety of other people's yachts over the years. She will be missed.

Piracy on the rise. The goings-on in the ocean off the Horn of Africa last month sound more like an episode of 24 than reality. Somalian pirates, ever bolder and more efficient, hijacked eight ships, including the fully-laden Saudi supertanker Sirius Star — which was taken an unprecedentedly-far 450 miles off the Kenyan port of Mombasa. As is the norm, they are not interested in cargos — the two million barrels of oil on board the Star is worth about $100 million — but generally hold the ships and crews for ransom. Once it's paid (most often by shipowners), the crew are usually allowed to leave unharmed. The ransom for the Sirius Star and her 25 crew is $25 million. The Saudi government refused to even talk to the pirates. But others are talking. The rash of piracy in this area — almost all of which originates in Somalia, which has lacked a functioning government since 1991 — is hurting business. Things have gotten so bad that insurance is going up, and several ship management companies have announced they may order their vessels to avoid the area altogether, instead routing them south around the Cape of Good Hope to their destinations. This would extend the trip by about 40%. One can only assume the added costs will soon find their ways to consumers. Piracy is also — apparently — hurting Islam. At least in the eyes of al-Shabbab, a known Somalian terrorist group which has vowed to fight the pirates because, as one member put it, ships belonging to Muslim countries should not be seized. Bet even Jack Bauer wouldn't have seen that one coming. Most attacks — which have included sailboats — occur from small boats in the Gulf of Aden, which links the Indian Ocean with Suez and the Mediterranean. About 20,000 vessels pass through there each year. Between January and September, pirates hijacked 84 ships, almost double the number from the same period in 2007. Various pirate cells have reportedly 'earned' as much as $150 million over the past year.

Deep thinking. If you think Google Earth is cool, imagine the same clarity applied to sonar. That's the promise of the new StarFish seabed imaging system from UK-based TriTech International: imaging so clear you can see the bottom with almost photographic clarity. Although marketed primarily at fishermen, divers and commercial interests, we can imagine plenty of applications for sailors. The drawback is that the system uses a towed 'fish'; the good news is, the 'fish' is small. The system is plug-and-play in any computer. At $3,000, it's pricey, but not prohibitively so. For a look at what it can do, go to www.starfishsonar.com.