How about an SSS cruise out to Catalina !
How about an SSS cruise out to Catalina !
I know...well, I'm 97% sure....that if Hawaii 2021 doesn't happen, I'm not waiting for 2022 or 2023. However, after all this work, I'm taking the boat SOMEWHERE. Catalina and then to Long Beach is sort of a minimum, though I ~suppose~ I might putz out and do two weeks in the Delta. After all these decades of sailing I STILL have never taken any boat I own up the Delta.
But really...someplace at least a few hundred miles away on the ocean is more likely. Or maybe I'm ~Done~ with fog and worrying about fishing boats.
1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"
The weather has been fairly pleasant here in Oxnad to Catalina area, somewhat chilly in the morning with good sun, either not much wind or the Santa Ana winds are blowing hard. Wednesday night/Thursday was a Santa Ana event and I clocked 53 knots on the anemometer on Beetle with 30-40 knots fairly stable - it was blowing very hard and did so for about 14 hours. The sea state quickly goes into a big nasty chop and makes the 6 foot chop generated by the Sea of Cortes northerlies look tame. In those conditions the Catalina Harbor Patrol will move boats off the east-facing moorings and send them around to the back side of Catalina or (if there's sufficient advance warning) suggest boats head over to Long Beach.
I'm told that normally the Santa Ana winds run October and November, sometimes December - so the local folks have commented that such winds happening this late in February are unusual, they should be all finished by now.
- rob
Starbuck might be better staged for sale in So Cal!
I took the racing main in for a second reef point, today. The second reef will reduce the hoist by about 10 feet, out of a P of 29' 5". I'll have to get a trisail to satisfy the rules, but two reefs and my heavy weather jib, which is about 60% of the foretriangle should handle most nasty weather.
Waiting....and trying to be chill and patient.... for whatever the announcement will be on March 15th.
1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"
I delivered my boat home a couple of times from Hawaii. I always managed to end up in a Force 7 gale , as described by passing ships. My old J24 main that I had Synthia (maybe SYlvia ? ) cut down to a storm jib with heavy webbing emanating from all the corners , and a triple reefed main were just the ticket.
Deleted. I think that this is the end of this thread. ADMIN request...can you lock it or delete it? I'd prefer a delete but other people have contributed to it, so if "locking" it is better, then that's fine.
.
Last edited by BobJ; 03-25-2021 at 01:52 PM. Reason: The thread continues...
1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"
I have never seen over 30k on the way home ( times... maybe its due to good karma? knock on wood...). And that was just for a few hours... a day of 25k a few times... but a few trips home never saw more then 20k... bigger problem was no wind the last 150 nm with zero wind and barely having enough fuel to motor in (this happened a few times). Buffalo has a very short rig... double reef in the smallish heavy delivery main and the "handkerchief" size storm jib should be good to 40k (though I hope to never find out... why the weather routing for the return is more important then the race over). :-)
BUFFALO is a lucky boat! JimQ doubtlessly remembers Cal-40 CALIFORNIA GIRL got rolled flat while reaching under reduced sail on delivery home from Pac Cup. CG's lee side cabin window broke inwards and boat filled with considerable H2O.
I'd sailed WILDFLOWER home 5x from Hawaii. In 2008 I ran into this for 72 hours. It had been forecast, and I'd jogged in place for several days waiting before sticking my nose into "Gale Alley", believing I could reach off for S. CAL under storm jib if needed.
With the wind moaning in the rigging, storm jib alone proved too fast., Reduced sail to storm staysail of 18 square feet. Still too fast with danger of being rolled....
It's the accompanying waves, not so much the wind, that can cause harm on a return delivery from Hawaii, especially on smaller craft. Being a professional delivery skipper I was well aware of this uncomfortable fact. In the conditions I was encountering solo, August 30-Sept. 1, 2008, we would probably have been fine with a complement of 5 experienced crew delivering a Santa Cruz 70. But on 27' WILDFLOWER, the windvane and tillerpilot couldn't anticipate what waves might be dangerous. Nor could I handsteering at night.
"Why not heave to, skip?" This was not a passing storm, but a stationary feature of "Windy Lane" that was forecast to continue at least several more days with 15-20 foot significant seas.. Closing the coast, south and east, was the goal, not being a sitting duck.