2081

That's the rhumb line distance from Honolulu to the Golden Gate Bridge.

This last weekend was a big regatta weekend and the North Sails team were all supporting boats racing from Maui to Honolulu on Labor Day. They were all back in the loft today so we dropped by and found they are doing a great job getting our sails repaired and healthy after 4 1/2 years of cruising and tropical sun. We expect to get the sails back tomorrow (Wednesday) and to take a test sail in the afternoon to see that everything is rigged correctly. If all goes well we plan to depart on Thursday morning.

The trades are blowing strong right now and the pass between Molokai and Oahu is very rough with true winds from 25-30 and big waves. The locals have counseled us to depart to the west and sail around the leeward end of Oahu. It adds roughly an additional 40nm to the trip and pushes us a little further west, but probably makes more sense than spending our first 12 hrs bashing to weather in 25kts against steep seas in the channel.

The Pacific high (about which you'll be hearing quite a bit) dictates the winds for the trip to San Francisco. Unfortunately right now, and for the foreseeable future, it is positioned well north and to the west. Since the winds blow clockwise around the high, this sets up a lot of adverse winds for the trip. At the moment it looks like we could be facing easterly winds (i.e. coming from where we want to go) as far north as 40 degrees. San Francisco is about 38N. Not too much we can do about it except watch it closely and adjust our route to take advantage of whatever we're offered. Delaying our departure by a few days doesn't guarantee that the high will move into a better position. At some point we will probably motor for a few days through the high itself, assuming it shifts south a bit and we go north of the latitude of San Francisco.

Despite the shorter rhumb line distance than the trip from Tahiti, I suspect we'll end up sailing a similar distance and with luck we'll have a similar time of roughly 14 days. We'll review the weather thoroughly again tomorrow night before we actually depart.