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Originally Posted by Lodesman  Paul, I wasn't taking a shot at you. |
And I apologize for being snippy. I guess I'm still a little sensitive about the whole "turning back" thing -- while I do believe it was the right thing to do, it wasn't easy for me.
I will admit that until now, when I listened to the warnings and advice from others who have made this passage, I've told myself "Well, I'm sure it was tough for you, but I've got a strong boat and have crossed oceans, so I'm sure I can handle it". Believe me, it was tougher than I had anticipated. If I get the chance to try this route again, I will wait for more benign conditions, and will certainly allow more time for the passage.
During my aborted passage we were never in any danger (at least no more than the usual amount), and we could have handled conditions worse than what we were getting, but it would have been a long tedious ordeal to bash into the wind and seas all the way to Seattle. If I had had more time available, I would have continued. There was nothing in the forecasts we shouldn't have been able to sail through, but all things being equal, I would have holed up and waited out the worst stuff.
Generally, I prefer to be out of sight of land, and going farther out might have been a better option, but the forecasts and our observations were showing that the wind and seas were getting worse as we went further out. Of course, we were still south of Cape Mendocino when we turned back, and no doubt we were getting some protection from the coastline. Once north of Mendocino the coast would have been a real lee shore.
You are right about the catamaran. They left San Francisco in December, with a well-forecast storm heading south from the Aleutians. We will never know, but it seems likely that schedule pressure caused them to make that fatal decision to leave port.