Wow, great discussion. The National Weather Service defines the hurricane season in the eastern pacific as commencing May 15th, and in the Central Pacific (140 W - 180 W long) as beginning June 1st. Given that climate change is rapidly altering oceanographic wearher patterns, I am glad to see this discussion about terminating the race if extreme weather blew up around Hawaii. A couple of days advance warning would be needed to put about northward a sufficient distance to stay out of harms way. Who knows, the fleet could continue on after the storm dies out. The boats gotta go somewhere!
Daniel came through the PacCup fleet a few years back. As it played out, the racers were well on their way, with not much choice other than keep an eye on daily reports. Only one racer, a tail end Charley, felt anything. Eventful, yes. Life threatening, no.
Communication does imply that the fleet has a good plan. And a ComBoat who has a good SSB set-up.
Lucie
Daniel came through the PacCup fleet a few years back. As it played out, the racers were well on their way, with not much choice other than keep an eye on daily reports. Only one racer, a tail end Charley, felt anything. Eventful, yes. Life threatening, no.
Communication does imply that the fleet has a good plan. And a ComBoat who has a good SSB set-up.
Lucie
On item 3... weather...
There has not been a really significant weather event between California and Hawaii in June or July in the last 50 years. So worrying about getting whether info during the race (for safety reasons) is counting angels on the head of a pin. The worst weather you are likely to see is the first few days - which you'll know lots about before the start gun. That said... there is a hurricane that runs through Hawaii once every 20 years or so... in August or September... so after you finish, if you are late leaving the islands, yes you might have to keep an eye out for "significant weather". Though even then, its the last few hundred miles into the west coast that are much much more likely to be an issue. Yes a tropical depression (not hurricane) will at times (every few races) spin up across the race path... but its more a problem of it creating no wind - shutting down the trade winds - then too much wind. If you are okay in the frequent gale off the west coast, you'll be fine if a tropical depression happens to swing by during the race.
The RC amended the deadline to finish and the finish line in 2006 as the situation demanded.
Jim Q is of course confused. This is not the "angels dancing on the head of a pin" thread, that is over on the "can there be two mountains without an intervening valley" thread. I happily defer to Jim's vastly greater knowledge of the history of North Pacific weather systems. But....the whole point of the climate change discussion is that we can no longer accurately predict future weather trends by the historical record or, as far as I can tell, by anything else. When I lived and sailed in the Caribbean lo these many years ago, it was common knowledge that after the last full moon in Sept. you were safe from hurricanes. Now they have them in Dec. Further, last year all the latest weather models predicted more and stronger Atlantic hurricanes. They turned out to be less in number and milder. All I wanted to do by starting this thread was to initiate discussion on the part of the RC so more possibilities were anticipated.
Most everything else Jim said I would agree with...