North via Hawaii vs beating up the west coast late this spring :)

[redbopeep]

Hi all,

We're planning on spending some time up in the Pacific Northwest (and Alaska). The plan is to head north from San Diego in May and spend two years exploring. Our boat is a just-rebuilt 54' LOD/ 68' LOA Crocker schooner with a 125 hp Cummins B5.9-M engine (with only 30 hours on it --all put on since our re-launch in April of this year).

The May date is purely based on that's the earliest we think we'll have both the people and the boat in good order for a lengthy passage.

Originally, because we have a cat aboard and didn't want to deal with Hawaii's rabies quarantine laws for pets (If we chose to spend some time in Hawaii once there), we thought we'd just beat up the west coast harbor hopping as need be. Now, we've learned that Hawaii has just (October 2009) changed their quarantine laws to something very reasonable (5 days or less if your pet meets particular criteria) so we're considering that route as a seriously good way to go--seems to be less stress on us and on the boat.

Have any of you made this trip via Hawaii? Or by beating/motoring up the coast? Or BOTH? What are your impressions of each?

Thanks for the input.

[wizbang 13]

I sailed non stop Acapulco to Straits of Juan de Fuca (Wa). 1995. From Acapulco, I motored 10 days west ,half way to Hawaii. Then had 26 days of stbd tack close reaching.Perfect. We stayed approx. 600 miles offshore. 38 days total.So we never planned to go to Hawaii. Conditions were nice, same time of year, we did get cold, having been in the tropics 7 years.No traffic.I would do the same route again.

[SchoonerRat]

I've been up and down the West Coast many times. The weather starts improving in late March to mid April. I've had some beautiful trips in May. I think that I've never gone more than 200 or 250 nm when making that trip. Watch the weather. It can still get nasty, even at the best time of year.

[redbopeep]

Schooner--

Do you mean 200 or 250 nm offshore? or in a hop?

For a while we were considering doing what Wizbang did as we had a friend do similar from Panama to San Franscisco...well...our friend took longer and had gear problems...he was 49 days out from Panama when his backstay broke (at a point about 600 nm offshore of San Franscisco and he was on his way to the Pacific Northwest) and he decided to head to San Diego (why not a point north of there, I do not know) to affect repairs. Got to San Diego a few days later.

Several folks have told us NOT to do the Wizbang route--though that is a very appealing way to go in our opinions as long as the weather doesn't turn nasty that is.

Would appreciate as much knowledge about this as you all can share. P.S. Wiz--what were you sailing in 1995?

[TimH]

"World Cruising Routes" seems to advocate the Hawaii stopover.

[SchoonerRat]

Schooner--
Do you mean 200 or 250 nm offshore? or in a hop?

Offshore.

Wiz's route has been suggested to me often, but years of racing seem to lead me away from "bangin' the corner." Besides, what if you run out of coffee. Any needed help or resupply is going to have to come from land; of course if you've planned properly (and have a bit of good luck), no sidetrips will be needed.

Fairly frequent tacking also eases the wear and tear on the crew, if not the boat.

I recommend against "hopping." You're doing a delivery, not sightseeing. A month long trip could easily turn into 2 with a few stops.

[redbopeep]

Thanks for the quick response SchoonerRat. We do see this exactly as a delivery--get to the Pacific NW quickly so we can enjoy the sailing there.

Our main concerns are about gear failures in route if we push the boat too hard. With lots of new gear aboard this remains my primary concern--new stuff is the stuff that breaks.

I have the Cornell book and he tends to advocate for true "cruising routes" that allow you to see as much as possible using trade winds to advantage.

[TimH]

I sailed non stop Acapulco to Straits of Juan de Fuca (Wa). 1995. From Acapulco, I motored 10 days west ,half way to Hawaii. Then had 26 days of stbd tack close reaching.Perfect. We stayed approx. 600 miles offshore. 38 days total.So we never planned to go to Hawaii. Conditions were nice, same time of year, we did get cold, having been in the tropics 7 years.No traffic.I would do the same route again.

What kind of boat?

[SchoonerRat]

My biggest concern during a delivery is always the standing rigging. The loss of anything other than the mast is usually not more than a major inconvenience. A mast coming down can be catastrophic. I've never had a problem with new rigging. On my recent trip south from San Francisco, I started out with nothing working, so there was nothing to fail.

I "never" push a boat hard unless I'm racing. Even less so on a long delivery. It's a long way to the nearest chandlery.

[redbopeep]

SchoonerRat,

Pushing the boat--simply by beating to windward for many miles instead of taking a reaching or downwind course. That's all I was talking about.

Among the "new" is new standing rigging (wire). Her wood masts were stripped and a couple repairs "redone" because David didn't like the scarf or didn't trust the look of it. We have recast a couple mast fittings but goosenecks, gaff saddle, things like that are old. Until things are proved good by miles of sailing I'll just be a bit antsy about them. One of the reasons the boat isn't "ready" until May is that I want us to have lots of time sailing her between now and then to shake out anything that might be lurking.

The running rigging is about half new and the other half old...but we have spares galore, blocks, thimbles, shackles, winch parts, stuff and more stuff as well as a couple more spools of rope aboard ready to be turned into running rigging if we need it.

Each time we've taken the boat out we've had some "interesting" times with some system or part that didn't work quite as expected. Nothing major but still unsettling--all weird stuff that one wouldn't normally have on the list of "this might fail". Upon discovery each thing was fixed, and moving right along everything working as it is supposed to...but I'd hate to have not been testing this stuff and have some of these (small) failures occur in route and way offshore to boot.

[SchoonerRat]

By pushing the boat, I meant strapping down hard and thrashing to weather; rather than easing off a bit. Reefing too late. If upwind is where I want to go, then upwind it is.

It's great to be able to put some miles on the boat before taking her on a delivery. I recommend it highly, but that's a luxury that I haven't always had.

[redbopeep]

Just saw a lovely Nature show on whales migrating from Hawaii breeding grounds to southern Alaska feeding grounds (and back) every year. Lovely film of southern Alaska. I must admit I was more jazzed about the Alaska part of their journey than Hawaii or getting from Hawaii to Alaska!

Seeing the film reminded me that I wanted to run the Hawaii vs up the coast thing by the WBF.

[redbopeep]

By pushing the boat, I meant strapping down hard and thrashing to weather; rather than easing off a bit. Reefing too late.

shudder. We'd never treat our girl that way unless there was a life threatening situation.

[wizbang 13]

In 95 I returned to my home in Gig Harbor, where I built the boat in 83.It is a 34' gaff ketch, a Venus design by Paul Johnson. Strip planked of Mt St Helens fir..Had at that time a new, but small (20hp) diesel. Mind you, if the engine had quit before we reached the wind we would have had a long HOT drift back to Galapagos. Being a new mill, I shut it down after 5 days for an oil change, and the little time that took was awful because we had lost our 5kn of artificial wind. We motored in a dead calm with full awnings and the tiller pilot attached to the monitor.Booby birds kept landing on the buttons of the tillerpilot, changing our course. We kept a peashooter (popcorn) in the companionway to blast them.Once the wind kicked in ,we were obligated to crack off the sheets a bit,the closer to shore, the more the wind comes north, (further out it turns east). This was the most pleasant sailing ever, staying on that close reach with all 7 sails up, not one squall in 26 days. We came in on the back of a low , long reaching in half a gale, right into Neah Bay!Now, remember the weather seems to be going wacky. 3 years ago I returned to the Caribbean, where I am now,and had headwinds all the way from San Diego to Panama.That 's not supposed to happen.We got hit by a hurricane on 17 Nov 06 (Sergio).Offshore saved a ton of wear n tear for us.

[MaizieDerrick]

aloha,had a similar vessel out of canada in the eighties, sailed over from mexico .. rigged as a brigantine made good time off the rear quarter til about halfway across had a failure of a fitting at the doubling , had to go aloft and lower the foretopmast, neverless we had lots of options still for sails.. have been up the coast a few times and it is a horrible slog to windward, only for the hardy .. much nicer to head to hawaii where today it is 90 degrees..lost the boat 500 miles south of tonga in a cyclone sad to say but we continue on since then with our ceceline.. can look it up on kauri wood boat 1955..on the forum.. thinking about heading up to canada where we used to live 30 years ago this summer if we can do enough to the boat in time , if not then we will hang out in the warm for another year.. anyway point is that you have time to work out the bugs, at least any serious ones on the way over, then a little jaunt to wind for a thousand miles or so and then turn right and there you are.. good luck maybe we can check out your boat in hilo..derrick