Latitude 38 - May 2002-2003

MODERN SAILING ACADEMY

LETTERS

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WWW. MODERNSAILING .COM

IM "THE BEST SAILING ADVENTURES" ASA Certifications Offered: Bareboat Chartering (BBC) ^ Advanced Coastal Cruising (ACC)

^osa^0 Offshore Passage Making (OPM)

AAA

California Coast Leg 1: June 27 to July 3 (BBC & ACC)

Sausalito to Channel Islands $1375 Taught by John Connolly - Head Instructor Leg 2: July 6 to July 14 (BBC & ACC) Channel Islands to Sausalito $975 Taught by Capt. Richard Bowen John Connolly.

GREECE 2002 Leg 1: Sept. 14-24 (BBC & ACC) $2275 Leg 2: Sept. 26 to Oct. 5 (BBC & ACC) $2275 Both legs taught by John Connolly

• Night Sailing & Navigation - June 8

• Farallones Day Trip (12 hrs) - June 15

• Refresher Class (one day) - June 22

• CATAMARAN CLASSES - June 22-23 We have Catamarans for bareboat charter.

Sausalito Headquarters

•ASA Basic Coastal Cruising (BCC) 5 days or 3 weekends- 32 ft Boat -$895

•ASA Bareboat Charter & Night Sailing (BBC) 3 days, 40' plus sailboat -$750 •ASA Advanced Coastal Cruising (ACC)

4 days. Ocean Class on 40' plus sailboat -$945 •ASA Coastal Navigation Course (CN)

Complete Correspondence materials -$195

• Ask about "Liveaboard while you learn"

PHONE FOR FREE BROCHURE. 415 331 8250 / 800 995 1668 www.modernsailing.com

pumpedfrom the bowels of the earth, shipped halfway around the world, refined, shipped to stations, and is then heavily taxed — costs about one-eighth as much a water. Does that sound like a rip-off to you?

One mitigating factor, of course, is the economies of scale. If you sell a trillon gallons of something a year, you can sell it for a lot less than if you only sell 1,000 gallons. Which, we ex¬ pect, can go a long way to explaining why gas and vegetable oil sell for a fraction of the price of W ilcox-Crittenden toilet lube. But at least they were nice enough to tell you that you could use vegetable oil instead of their product.

Is it a waste of money to buy so-called 'marine grade' prod¬ ucts? Sometimes it is. But in many other cases, nonmarine grade stuff is inadequate for thejob and can lead to dismastings and other incredibly expensive mishaps. When in doubt, don't be penny wise and pound foolish.

\ till FERRO CEMENT BOATS

I happened upon your site whilst surfing the Internet, and could not help admiring your magazine. Despite searching, I cannot find a copy of your magazine anywhere — but that's probably because I live in England. If you have any plans to go global, please let me know. Either that or I have made a stupid mistake in not being able to find your superb maga¬ zine!

I'm interested in your opinion of boats with ferro cement hulls. I am looking at a 52-ft ferro ketch at the moment, and I am having a hard time finding some unbiased advice on ferro construction. If you could provide your opinion or a link to some information, I would be most grateful!

C.H.J. Waterfield Falmouth, Cornwall, England

C.H.J. — We believe the quality of construction is more im¬ portant than the type of materials used. In other words, we’d rather have a superbly built ferro cement boat than a poorly built one of steel Unfortunately, there have probably been more poor hulls built of ferro cement than any other material, and it can be difficult to tell the good ones from the bad ones.

As for going 'global', we probably let our best chance-slip by. We were presented with an opportunity to buy into two other marine publications in two other major marine markets outside the U.S. But we passed. We don’t like not having direct control, and we didn't want to spend more time on airplanes and less time on our boat. So thanks for the compliments, but you can’t find Latitude outside the U.S. You’ll have to make do with the web, or move to California with everyone else.

INJrO THE RESCUE OF THE YOUNG MEXICAN MAN

I have been chairman of the Charities Committee for Club Cruceros de La Paz for about four years. Along with my hus¬ band and some people from the Mexican community, we have formed Fundacion Para Los Ninos de La Paz, A.C., as an ex¬ tension of the charity work for children in the community that Club Cruceros performs.

One of the cases that came up involved a young man from Constitucion who was scheduled to receive a kidney from his father in March of this year. Because of the low resources of this family, the foundation was asked for 7,000 pesos to help pay for medications that would be needed in "connection with the operation. We only had available 4,000 pesos, so at the Club Cruceros board meeting in March, I asked for the re¬ maining 3,000. I was told that Club Cruceros does not help children past the age of 18, and because this young man was

Page 78 • UKUdtZ? • May. 2002

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