Morning Star Coming up from San Diego

This from Lee Johnson s/v Morning Star

An Extra Adventure: The Singlehanded Transpacific Yacht Race bills itself as “the adventure of a lifetime.” And I’m sure it will be. I feel like a 10 year old on Christmas morning, waiting for dad to say it’s ok to get up. June 23 can’t get here soon enough.

Everything on the Safety Equipment Requirements list is aboard.  The inspector assigned by the Race Committee has pronounced the boat ready. But there is still a significant issue to deal with between now and the starting gun: the race starts in San Francisco Bay, and the vessel I will enter, a 12,000 pound cruising boat, resides in San Diego. The sailing vessel Morning Star is decidedly not a trailer sailor.  Unlike many of the boats that will compete in the SHTP, this boat cannot be loaded on a trailer at a launch ramp and driven to the start line. Morning Star will make the 400 mile trip north not by land but by sea.

The wind and sea between San Diego and San Francisco do not favor the northbound transit. Oceans in the Northern Hemisphere have a clock-wise rotation – current flows north up the western side of the basin (think, Gulf Stream in the Atlantic), easterly across the northern latitudes, and southerly down the eastern side of the basin. That puts a south-bound current hard along the West coast from Alaska to the Tropics. The prevailing wind off the California coast is also from the North to north-west. Together the wind and current make for tough sledding in a sailing vessel.

And the coast is not our friend.  From San Francisco to Lompoc, the California shoreline runs pretty much North to South.  Then, at the promontory Point Conception, the coast turns east towards Santa Barbara, and traces an arc past Long Beach and down to San Diego.  This is the Southern California Bite – so named because the map looks like something to a bite out of it.

The wind and current that flow unimpeded down the central coast of California often turn down-right ugly at Point Conception.  There, the sudden fall-off of the land creates a Bernoulli Effect, with the wind and sea frequently rising up in conditions more exciting than we really need.  Once past the Pt. Conception head lands, there are no safe harbors until inside the Golden Gate, some 250 miles north.

Thus, before the ‘adventure of a lifetime’ itself, there awaits another adventure all its own. Bring it.

One thought on “Morning Star Coming up from San Diego”

  1. Lee,
    Just read in latitude 38 your V32 is in the SSSTP. My Valiant 32 s/v Insouciant lives in Oxnard, SoCal. You must have passed us on the way north.
    I singlehand also so have many questions on how to get boat ready to go to north to SF as I live there.
    I am rooting for you, have a great adventure.
    Pete
    V32 s/v Insouciant

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