Dennis Raedeke was saying: We hit a severe storm. If I had waited, <SNIP> after looking at the weather, the trip would have been fine. If we are doing this for enjoyment then we have to boat in season and even then work around the weather. Haste does make waste. I have been off the Oregon coast in 20 foot seas, going down wind in Wild Wind IV. It was a good ride. At the time the port engine was down. That is another story. The problem out there is when the seas get bad there is no place to hide. The river entrances are so bad it is more dangerous than staying out. We were happy to get into Crescent City CA. I would like to hear comments from the people on this list that are from that area. Yes, Dennis, much of the coastal waters of the west are pretty inhospitable in any sort of particularly windy or bumpy weather, from Neah Bay all the way to San Francisco. We do get some pretty rough weather too -- last December we broke the moorings on two of our big NOAA offshore weather buoys in 100mph winds and 70 foot swells. And there are darn few attractive harbors to start with. All the potential harbors of refuge are closed by the CG when they get too boisterous, although just off the top of my head, I would consider Gray's Harbor, the Columbia bar, maybe Newport, Coos Bay, and Crescent City the later ones to close. All of them are white knuckle crossings in poor conditions. The ones with significant river flows involved (Columbia bar most particularly!!) change dramatically with the state of the tidal currents. I always time my arrivals and departures with lower slack water, I consult the CG frequently for bar conditions, and have Plans B and C available. I have also crossed the Columbia bar a number of times when it was still as a pond, or nearly so. In the case of the Columbia, the CG of course has it's base at Cape Disappointment, with it's national training base for bar and surf lifeboats there because they feel it offers the finest opportunity to train their crews on the most deadly bar in the nation. (I'm not talkin' about that tavern in Illwaco...). In every case, contact the CG about any refuge needs, they are way beyond superb at saving our butts from disaster. The lifeboat crews say that they have to go out, but they don't always have to return. Running offshore should always be a safety option, although I prefer to stay closer to onshore resources with the slowest course/speed that is acceptable, rather than bolting for the deep water (issues of fuel conservation, radio range and proximity to rescue services). Additionally, hereabouts the far offshore weather/wave situation is seldom much better than closer in. You have to go a really long way out to get into truely deep water and those Bearing Sea storm swells still run out there too. Holding offshore is likely to be a substantial wait too, with diminishing resources and in the case of the Columbia bar, worries about the steady flow of merchant shipping. I need to mention another BIG issue when transiting the onshore area, crab pots/lines/floats. They are everywhere, and don't even imagine that the so called pot-free lanes for shipping, or anything else for that matter will save ya. Get way out, offshore. Particularly so in better weather when the desperate crabbers, etc. are setting huge strings of pots. The 100 fathom line is my criteria, and even then, I find some, so a SHARP lookout, prop. spurs and good weather/wave forecasts, with adequate safety margins all around are my criteria. I would never run any closer than 100 fathoms in the dark, and in spite of the fuel burn involved, the farther out the better. Given that the whole region is forested and gets a bunch of rainfall, logs are a significant problem too. The blue water sailboat set bound from the Straits of Juan de Fuca, Columbia bar or even SF Bay for Hawaii and points south generally head more or less west a bunch to pick up friendly winds/currents, getting well offshore before bending southward. BTW, the continental shelf slopes are pretty consistently wide and gradually sloped all the way up the west coast, so the old timer fishermen (pre GPS) used a fathometer to tell them how far offshore they were, and LORAN to tell them how far north/south -- there is/was a really good chain running up the west coast to give the avid LORAN user a nice northing position. The currents offshore and out quite a ways are dependably southward, and in the 1-2kt or more range. That, together with seasonal Northwesterly winds and swells out of Aleutian storm systems define the common uphill and downhill notion. Wintertime hereabouts, the boaters don't haul out for cold weather, but we confine ourselves to cruising the southern half of the Inside Passage behind Vancouver Island, all of Puget Sound (San Juans, Gulf Islands, etc.) and for those of us in the Columbia system, we have good water all the way to Lewiston Idaho! Power boats my size (PDQ34) and most sailboats generally limit our 'outside' transits to mid April through mid September, give or take. Bold small boat skippers catch good weather windows outside that -- sometimes. Larger, or especially more seaworthy power boats (Wild Wind IV included) can transit offshore occasionally into November, and as early as March sometimes, but generally only in remarkable weather windows, as well as with a couple of rabbit's feet and abundant reserve fuel aboard. The public fuel dock in Neah Bay was closing for the season the day I got there -- Sept. 15. Larger commercial traffic runs up and down the coast year around, and is only rarely closed out on the Columbia bar, for example. Transit is the general idea for most of the coastal cruising here: heading to and from Puget Sound, San Francisco Bay, etc.. There are some folks who cruise up or down the coast itself, but they are almost all sport fishing out of even the smallest coastal harbors. Charter and commercial fishermen run in and out of every nook and cranny on the coast (Google Earth to Depoe Bay, OR, zoom in and check the photos around the bridge!) but only with hard won local knowlege and experience. We loose plenty of boats and people along the coast, usually quite dramatically. In spring and summer it is usually foolish sport fishermen and in winter its luckless commercial fishers. The four seasons nearshore here are: 'Boy, Its Almost Like Summer Out Here,' lasting from about July 4th to mid September; 'Gosh, Winter Came Early This Year,' running into late October; 'Real Winter,' (sometimes called '#$%^ Winter') running through early March and 'Geeze, Won't This Crummy Weather Ever Stop?!' from March through early July. Beware of Sucker Breaks too -- apparent weather windows that slam shut just as you are about to set out. There are several professional delivery skippers hereabouts who can share their abundant experience. Email me off-list if you would like a reference. In short, I enthusiastically support your stated and implied assertions that there is no such thing as too much experience and that questions of success or disaster are largely determined by choosing the season and taking advantage of the weather. 'Go with the flow' and 'Don't fight the trends.' In my experience, our power catamarans do particularly well offshore here, given our unique ability to select among higher or lower speeds and their attendant fuel economies to make tightly scheduled bar crossings and distant destinations or to accommodate shifting weather windows, for example. I have almost twice the comfortable coastwise range of my friends with monohulled trawlers if I travel at their speeds, or the option of up to twice their speed. Our catamarans are wonderfully immune to rolling in the nearly omnipresent mix of fairly heavy northerly and westerly swells, and do so without the challenges and hassles of powered stabilizers or paravanes. The great visibility and the comfortable, open, light and airy accommodations help keep skippers, Admirals and guests from sea sickness. OK, my boat does look like a wedding cake on a sled, but I like it a lot. I look forward to offshore passages between the Columbia and Puget Sound. I hope to spend next summer boating there. The transits are no sweat for an adequately prepared skipper who respects the conditions. Flexible schedules and attitudes; backup plans; a good sense of humor and particularly abstinance from indulging in excesses of testosterone will get ya through just fine. That's my (typically long winded) view from here on the Columbia anyway, Gary Bell

USCGAux, and believe the USCG also, have pretty much left the "We don't have come back, but we have to go out." motto in the dust. They are now very strong on Risk Awareness and Assessment in making decisions to go out. What was stated in my Aux training several years ago basically stated that you need to come back, and the decision to go out must be based on the likelihood of coming back. ** D C "Mac" Macdonald ** * m/v Another Adventure * ** '95 Carver 355 ACMY ** * Grand Lake - Oklahoma * ** AGLCA (#217) & USPS ** > Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 09:23:18 -0800 > From: tulgey@earthlink.net > To: power-catamaran@lists.samurai.com; dennis@wildmountain.com > Subject: [PCW] Rough West Coast Weather Cruising (long post) > > Dennis Raedeke was saying: > > We hit a severe storm. If I had > waited, after looking at the weather, the trip would have > been fine. If we are doing this for enjoyment then we have to boat in season > and even then work around the weather. Haste does make waste. > > I have been off the Oregon coast in 20 foot seas, going down wind in Wild Wind > IV. It was a good ride. At the time the port engine was down. That is another > story. The problem out there is when the seas get bad there is no place to > hide. The river entrances are so bad it is more dangerous than staying out. We > were happy to get into Crescent City CA. > > I would like to hear comments from the people on this list that are from that > area. > > Yes, Dennis, much of the coastal waters of the west are pretty > inhospitable in any sort of particularly windy or bumpy weather, from > Neah Bay all the way to San > Francisco. We do get some pretty rough weather too -- last December we > broke the moorings on two of our big NOAA offshore weather buoys in > 100mph winds and 70 foot swells. And there are darn few attractive > harbors to start with. All the potential harbors of refuge are closed > by the CG when they get too boisterous, although just off the top of my > head, I would consider Gray's Harbor, the Columbia bar, maybe Newport, > Coos Bay, and Crescent City the later ones to close. All of them are > white knuckle crossings in poor conditions. The ones with significant > river flows involved (Columbia bar most particularly!!) change > dramatically with the state of the tidal currents. I always time my > arrivals and departures with lower slack water, I consult the CG > frequently for bar conditions, and have Plans B and C available. I have > also crossed the Columbia bar a number of times when it was still as a > pond, or nearly so. In the case of the Columbia, the CG of course has > it's base at Cape Disappointment, with it's national training base for > bar and surf lifeboats there because they feel it offers the finest > opportunity to train their crews on the most deadly bar in the nation. > (I'm not talkin' about that tavern in Illwaco...). In every case, > contact the CG about any refuge needs, they are way beyond superb at > saving our butts from disaster. The lifeboat crews say that they have > to go out, but they don't always have to return. > > > > That's my (typically long winded) view from here on the Columbia anyway, > > Gary Bell > _______________________________________________ > Power-Catamaran Mailing List