Hey, Racing is Fun!

      I took your advice in last month’s editorial and took the “Furniture Forty” on a fun race. No, it wasn’t a big race with trophies or anything, not even a duck, but just a bunch of us out for the evening. As a cruiser I thought I’d hate it, but I really had a good time, as did my family and some friends. How’d we do? Dead last, but first laugh.

Bob Pitney

Transpac Pioneer Will Be Missed

Wendy Siegal, who in 2001 became the second woman to skipper a winning boat in the Transpacific Yacht Race, died July 6 at age 55. After recovering from surgery earlier this year to remove a brain tumor, she drowned near her Cal 40, Willow Wind, at Alamitos Bay Marina.
      Siegal died just four days before the first boats, including three of her beloved Cal 40s, were to start the 2007 Transpac race off Point Fermin in San Pedro. She was a member of the Transpacific Yacht Club Board of Directors and, although Siegal was not planning to compete this year, she took on the responsibility of managing the numerous trophies awarded to Transpac competitors.
      Originally from Detroit, Siegel moved to Seattle and later San Diego, where she met her companion Duncan Harrison. They lived in Seal Beach, and Siegal taught sixth grade at Stephen M. White Middle School in Carson.
      In the 2001 Transpac, Siegal was skipper and Harrison was navigator when they and four other crewmembers won the Aloha class. She became the second woman skipper, since Sally Blair Ames in 1959, to win a class ?of the race.
      That success inspired her to recruit nine other Cal 40?owners to compete in the 2003 Transpac, for the 40th anniversary of the class. The boats had dominated the race in the 1960s, but this was the first time in 42 races that Transpac would designate a special class for boats of a single design. Siegal topped that achievement by rounding up a total of 14 Cal 40s for the 2005 race.
      Siegal’s contributions to Transpac are inscribed on one of 11 new historic monuments along Rainbow Harbor, in downtown Long Beach.
      “So many of our friends I’ve talked to have said that she changed their lives significantly,” Harrison said. “They wouldn’t have done things without her encouragement. The people in the Cal 40s are saying that. Then I realized how I had changed: I’m a different person for knowing her.” At 12:30 p.m. June 9, before the smallest boats - including three Cal 40s - joined in the first of the race’s three starts, Siegal’s friends and fellow skippers scattered flowers over the starting area in her memory.
      Wendy will also be missed up here in the Pacific Northwest, where she was a friend and contributer to 48° North Sailing Magazine. Her articles were enjoyed by our readers as they were always fun and informative.
      For the complete version from Transpac, visit? http://www.underthesunphotos.com/transpac2007.htm

Wu Wei and the Longpac

      You published an article about my boat Wu Wei, once named Black Hawk, in the November, 2006 issue of 48° North. Since sailing to San Francisco and enjoying the area, much has happened in the way of getting acquainted and sailing.
      First of all, I landed at Ballena Isle Marina. This lasted a short while then moved to Grand Marina on the Estuary between Alameda and Oakland. This is where I docked next to a board member of the Singlehanded Sailing Society www.sfbaysss.org where upon joining, I entered two of the three major races and finished. The race out to the Farallones, the Longpac and the Singlehanded TransPacific are the events that they sponsor and as of this writing, I am just recuperating from the Longpac, a race out to nowhere, 126°40’, a 400 mile race out and back which took me six days. This race is a pre-qualifier for the Singlehanded TransPacific, a race from San Francisco to Kauai held next year.
      The real joy and thrill here is that my boat, a Spencer 35, Bristol as she is, performed wonderfully. She is built and designed for blue water cruising as you know and proved herself in bathing in the froth and foam of cobalt blue water. The real story, that has been wandering around a bit in the club, is that I came with my boat out of nowhere, just showed up and raced. Many who are in the club have tried a number of times to do the races and have dropped out due to various reasons.
      I am planning to enter the Pacific Cup next year and attentively sail her back to San Diego and enter the Baja Ha-Ha leaving for Cabo and the Sea of Cortez.

Warm Winds in Cobalt Blue Seas
Michael Berry

      Congratulations Michael. And to think, you’ve just started your adventure. We look forward to hearing more.





“Wu Wei,” outfitted for her offshore adventure.

New Daytime Lookout

      Thought you might be interested in this new product “360 degree eagle eye sonar”.

Judy Nasmith

Caprice Lost in Fire

      I am probably very late with this, yet I wanted Allen Goldstein to know Caprice was lost when the boat yard she was at in Victoria burned down. I had just read the story in a book I bought in Victoria while there for the Swiftsure race (as an observer). The book was titled “Tales from the West Coast, Smugglers, Sea Monsters and Other Stories.” The last story in the book is about M. Wylie Blanchet, her children and Caprice. It also mentions her book “The Curve of Time”.

Vaneva O’Hara