Re: [Cal_Boats]Channel Islands, was: Perfect day for a sail(Read)

--- On Mon, 3/9/09, Read Howarth <rs… [at] yahoo.com> wrote: I was visiting in LA recently and sailed aboard the Lynx (www.privateerlynx. org) out of Ventura on a Sunday afternoon. I did not see any Cals out there. Where is Channel Islands in relation to Ventura? Is this a Yacht Club, Town or just a reference to the Channel Islands? Read, How was the sail? Channel Islands Yacht Harbor/Marina is just a few miles, maybe five miles, south or south east of Ventura Harbor. Channel Islands also refers to the "Channel Islands" which is an archipelago of islands, starting with Anacappa to the East, and, going west, ...senior moment..., and Santa Rosa, and another, south of the graveyard of the Pacific. Ok, what's the name of that Island? (no googling allowed) And name the graveyard of the Pacific. And describe the story behind the squadron of seven- four stacker destroyers who'se commander didn't believe in RDF, and what happened when they got lost in the fog early one morning in the 1920's?? Ok, you can google the last one, and..of course..the first one..just kidding. Back to sailing, Lynx, the replica 1812 privateer, is going to participate in this years Trans-Pac. She'll be the largest boat in the fleet, and they're hoping that there will be a fleet of tall ships in the race in future races. Hopefully I'll be down there poking around after our Queen Mary Regatta. Speaking of perfect day for sailing, Shpritz coped second place in the Topanga Race, second in the Bill Stein Series on Saturday. Since half our under 30' fleet have dropped out of the competition, looks like I have a good chance for another Bill Stein series win as the leading boat's owner doesn't do the last two races, the races to and from Catalina Island in early June. It was interesting in that there were two different forcasts for sailing on Sat, one from Bouy Weather for 11-15knots from the West, the other from NOAA for 5-10 knots from the West South West. Turns out both forcasts were correct, depending on hour of the afternoon! We had light east winds just at the start of the PHRF, light winds for the ORCA, zero wind, then a gust front came through from the south west. Later when I was heading up the coast the wind turned West and I had to tack up three hundred yards to make the Topanga buoy, losing precious time I could have saved if I had stayed high on the course to begin with like the winning boat did. Jerry

Jerry- The sail was great. We had winds to start at about 12-15 knots. As we headed back about 3pm the winds started to lessen. The captain brought her into the harbor under sail. As he approached the dock the Captain headed up into the wind at the dock using the top square sail only as a brake, very nice. The timely posting on this Yahoo site about the Lynx and the opportunity to sail on her in the Trans-Pac was what led me to the afternoon sail. It was either that or try to find a Cal sailor that needed crew in the LA area. Graveyard of the Pacific...I will Google it. Sounds like quite a variety of wind conditions for your race. Do the NOAA wind predictions give you those shifts with any accuracy? Do you check them before the race to try to decide the favored side during the day? Regards, Read Read S. Howarth Moorestown, New Jersey rs… [at] yahoo.com From: Gerald Sobel <so… [at] yahoo.com> To: Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2009 3:07:18 AM Subject: Re: [Cal_Boats]Channel Islands, was: Perfect day for a sail(Read) --- On Mon, 3/9/09, Read Howarth <rshowarth@yahoo. com> wrote: I was visiting in LA recently and sailed aboard the Lynx (www.privateerlynx. org) out of Ventura on a Sunday afternoon. I did not see any Cals out there. Where is Channel Islands in relation to Ventura? Is this a Yacht Club, Town or just a reference to the Channel Islands? Read, How was the sail? Channel Islands Yacht Harbor/Marina is just a few miles, maybe five miles, south or south east of Ventura Harbor. Channel Islands also refers to the "Channel Islands" which is an archipelago of islands, starting with Anacappa to the East, and, going west, ...senior moment..., and Santa Rosa, and another, south of the graveyard of the Pacific. Ok, what's the name of that Island? (no googling allowed) And name the graveyard of the Pacific. And describe the story behind the squadron of seven- four stacker destroyers who'se commander didn't believe in RDF, and what happened when they got lost in the fog early one morning in the 1920's?? Ok, you can google the last one, and..of course..the first one..just kidding. Back to sailing, Lynx, the replica 1812 privateer, is going to participate in this years Trans-Pac. She'll be the largest boat in the fleet, and they're hoping that there will be a fleet of tall ships in the race in future races. Hopefully I'll be down there poking around after our Queen Mary Regatta. Speaking of perfect day for sailing, Shpritz coped second place in the Topanga Race, second in the Bill Stein Series on Saturday. Since half our under 30' fleet have dropped out of the competition, looks like I have a good chance for another Bill Stein series win as the leading boat's owner doesn't do the last two races, the races to and from Catalina Island in early June. It was interesting in that there were two different forcasts for sailing on Sat, one from Bouy Weather for 11-15knots from the West, the other from NOAA for 5-10 knots from the West South West. Turns out both forcasts were correct, depending on hour of the afternoon! We had light east winds just at the start of the PHRF, light winds for the ORCA, zero wind, then a gust front came through from the south west. Later when I was heading up the coast the wind turned West and I had to tack up three hundred yards to make the Topanga buoy, losing precious time I could have saved if I had stayed high on the course to begin with like the winning boat did. Jerry

On Tuesday 10 March 2009 08:22:33 Read Howarth wrote: > Sounds like quite a variety of wind conditions for your race. Do the NOAA > wind predictions give you those shifts with any accuracy? Do you check > them before the race to try to decide the favored side during the day? Greets: While there are many excellent commercial grib file readers and software I like opensource software where ever possible simply cause you can play with it. For grib files, I use zyGrib from France that outputs NOAA grib files at the level of granularity you select. I really like it and the cost is zero. Runs on windows, mac, and a variety of nix's. See http://www.zygrib.org/index.php?page=abstract_en As its getting more popular, an english page and support group has formed. -- /ch

Read, I am slow to respond here. Between school in the evenings, work I cannot get mail at, I only have my cell phone. I just wanted to add a couple of things. Everyone pretty much sums up our area. We have three harbors in the Santa Barbra Channel. Santa Barbra, Ventura and Channel Islands harbors. Besides the islands their is a Channel Islands yacht club. The three harbors are about 30 miles apart. With SB farthest to west, then Ventura and then CI. The 3 harbors provide different wind conditions. SB is the lightest then Ventura and CI probably has the heavier winds, even thou Ventura is 7 miles away. The mountains really affect the harbors differently. However, once you get out of their protection we all have to cross the channel and we all get the brisk winds funneled around our cape, Point Conception. We have a lot of CAL baots in our harbors. The ones you hear from most are the SB and Ci harbors. The Ventura baots are on here but not vocal as some of us. Weather-like I started to mention shifts around in here and we have dominant patterns that we get to use to. I gave up first this weekend by not paying attention to a SW to NW shift in very light air. I pretty much depend on sailflow.com. It is usually pretty close. It predicted the correct winds for Saturday. It was later than predicted. My last note is, let the list know the next time you are out here and I know some of us will be very pround to show off our back yard. We have entertained a few listees. Ask Micheal D, my boat ain,t pretty but. she van kick some butt on the water. Randy Read Howarth wrote: > Jerry- > > The sail was great. We had winds to start at about 12-15 knots. As we headed back about 3pm the winds started to lessen. The captain brought her into the harbor under sail. As he approached the dock the Captain headed up into the wind at the dock using the top square sail only as a brake, very nice. > > The timely posting on this Yahoo site about the Lynx and the opportunity to sail on her in the Trans-Pac was what led me to the afternoon sail. It was either that or try to find a Cal sailor that needed crew in the LA area. > > Graveyard of the Pacific...I will Google it. > > Sounds like quite a variety of wind conditions for your race. Do the NOAA wind predictions give you those shifts with any accuracy? Do you check them before the race to try to decide the favored side during the day? > > Regards, > > Read > > Read S. Howarth Moorestown, New Jersey rshowarth@yahoo. com > From: Gerald Sobel <sobel_solar@ yahoo.com> To: Cal_Boats@yahoogrou ps.com Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2009 3:07:18 AM Subject: Re: [Cal_Boats]Channel Islands, was: Perfect day for a sail(Read) > --- On Mon, 3/9/09, Read Howarth <rshowarth@yahoo. com> wrote: > I was visiting in LA recently and sailed aboard the Lynx ( www.privateerlynx. org ) out of Ventura on a Sunday afternoon. I did not see any Cals out there. > > Where is Channel Islands in relation to Ventura? Is this a Yacht Club, Town or just a reference to the Channel Islands? Read, How was the sail? Channel Islands Yacht Harbor/Marina is just a few miles, maybe five miles, south or south east of Ventura Harbor. Channel Islands also refers to the "Channel Islands" which is an archipelago of islands, starting with Anacappa to the East, and, going west, ...senior moment..., and Santa Rosa, and another, south of the graveyard of the Pacific. Ok, what's the name of that Island? (no googling allowed) And name the graveyard of the Pacific. And describe the story behind the squadron of seven- four stacker destroyers who'se commander didn't believe in RDF, and what happened when they got lost in the fog early one morning in the 1920's?? Ok, you can google the last one, and..of course..the first one..just kidding. Back to sailing, Lynx, the replica 1812 > privateer, is going to participate in this years Trans-Pac. She'll be the largest boat in the fleet, and they're hoping that there will be a fleet of tall ships in the race in future races. Hopefully I'll be down there poking around after our Queen Mary Regatta. Speaking of perfect day for sailing, Shpritz coped second place in the Topanga Race, second in the Bill Stein Series on Saturday. Since half our under 30' fleet have dropped out of the competition, looks like I have a good chance for another Bill Stein series win as the leading boat's owner doesn't do the last two races, the races to and from Catalina Island in early June. It was interesting in that there were two different forcasts for sailing on Sat, one from Bouy Weather for 11-15knots from the West, the other from NOAA for 5-10 knots from the West South West. Turns out both forcasts were correct, depending on hour of the afternoon! We had light east winds just at the start of the > PHRF, light winds for the ORCA, zero wind, then a gust front came through from the south west. Later when I was heading up the coast the wind turned West and I had to tack up three hundred yards to make the Topanga buoy, losing precious time I could have saved if I had stayed high on the course to begin with like the winning boat did. Jerry >

Randy Thanks for the reply, the tip on sailflow.com and posting for crewing opportunities. Regards Read Read S. Howarth Moorestown, New Jersey rs… [at] yahoo.com Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T From: Randy Alcorn <sa… [at] yahoo.com> Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:11:18 To: rs… [at] yahoo.com<rs… [at] yahoo.com> Cc: Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com<Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com> Subject: Re: [Cal_Boats]Channel Islands, was: Perfect day for a sail(Read) Read, I am slow to respond here. Between school in the evenings, work I cannot get mail at, I only have my cell phone. I just wanted to add a couple of things. Everyone pretty much sums up our area. We have three harbors in the Santa Barbra Channel. Santa Barbra, Ventura and Channel Islands harbors. Besides the islands their is a Channel Islands yacht club. The three harbors are about 30 miles apart. With SB farthest to west, then Ventura and then CI. The 3 harbors provide different wind conditions. SB is the lightest then Ventura and CI probably has the heavier winds, even thou Ventura is 7 miles away. The mountains really affect the harbors differently. However, once you get out of their protection we all have to cross the channel and we all get the brisk winds funneled around our cape, Point Conception. We have a lot of CAL baots in our harbors. The ones you hear from most are the SB and Ci harbors. The Ventura baots are on here but not vocal as some of us. Weather-like I started to mention shifts around in here and we have dominant patterns that we get to use to. I gave up first this weekend by not paying attention to a SW to NW shift in very light air. I pretty much depend on sailflow.com. It is usually pretty close. It predicted the correct winds for Saturday. It was later than predicted. My last note is, let the list know the next time you are out here and I know some of us will be very pround to show off our back yard. We have entertained a few listees. Ask Micheal D, my boat ain,t pretty but. she van kick some butt on the water. Randy Read Howarth wrote: > Jerry- > > The sail was great. We had winds to start at about 12-15 knots. As we headed back about 3pm the winds started to lessen. The captain brought her into the harbor under sail. As he approached the dock the Captain headed up into the wind at the dock using the top square sail only as a brake, very nice. > > The timely posting on this Yahoo site about the Lynx and the opportunity to sail on her in the Trans-Pac was what led me to the afternoon sail. It was either that or try to find a Cal sailor that needed crew in the LA area. > > Graveyard of the Pacific...I will Google it. > > Sounds like quite a variety of wind conditions for your race. Do the NOAA wind predictions give you those shifts with any accuracy? Do you check them before the race to try to decide the favored side during the day? > > Regards, > > Read > > Read S. Howarth Moorestown, New Jersey rshowarth@yahoo. com > From: Gerald Sobel <sobel_solar@ yahoo.com> To: Cal_Boats@yahoogrou ps.com Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2009 3:07:18 AM Subject: Re: [Cal_Boats]Channel Islands, was: Perfect day for a sail(Read) > --- On Mon, 3/9/09, Read Howarth <rshowarth@yahoo. com> wrote: > I was visiting in LA recently and sailed aboard the Lynx ( www.privateerlynx. org ) out of Ventura on a Sunday afternoon. I did not see any Cals out there. > > Where is Channel Islands in relation to Ventura? Is this a Yacht Club, Town or just a reference to the Channel Islands? Read, How was the sail? Channel Islands Yacht Harbor/Marina is just a few miles, maybe five miles, south or south east of Ventura Harbor. Channel Islands also refers to the "Channel Islands" which is an archipelago of islands, starting with Anacappa to the East, and, going west, ...senior moment..., and Santa Rosa, and another, south of the graveyard of the Pacific. Ok, what's the name of that Island? (no googling allowed) And name the graveyard of the Pacific. And describe the story behind the squadron of seven- four stacker destroyers who'se commander didn't believe in RDF, and what happened when they got lost in the fog early one morning in the 1920's?? Ok, you can google the last one, and..of course..the first one..just kidding. Back to sailing, Lynx, the replica 1812 > privateer, is going to participate in this years Trans-Pac. She'll be the largest boat in the fleet, and they're hoping that there will be a fleet of tall ships in the race in future races. Hopefully I'll be down there poking around after our Queen Mary Regatta. Speaking of perfect day for sailing, Shpritz coped second place in the Topanga Race, second in the Bill Stein Series on Saturday. Since half our under 30' fleet have dropped out of the competition, looks like I have a good chance for another Bill Stein series win as the leading boat's owner doesn't do the last two races, the races to and from Catalina Island in early June. It was interesting in that there were two different forcasts for sailing on Sat, one from Bouy Weather for 11-15knots from the West, the other from NOAA for 5-10 knots from the West South West. Turns out both forcasts were correct, depending on hour of the afternoon! We had light east winds just at the start of the > PHRF, light winds for the ORCA, zero wind, then a gust front came through from the south west. Later when I was heading up the coast the wind turned West and I had to tack up three hundred yards to make the Topanga buoy, losing precious time I could have saved if I had stayed high on the course to begin with like the winning boat did. Jerry >

On Tuesday 10 March 2009 12:50:41 Read S Howarth wrote: > Randy > > Thanks for the reply, the tip on sailflow.com and posting for crewing > opportunities. Diddo from this end. Nice site and supplements what I use rather well. Much appreciated. -- /ch

Sail flow is a great source of information. Here is another source that is helpfull for global weather. Be sure and notice the storm frequency,distance traveled each day and swell height. I have been checking in every week or two and don't think there is a way to round the Cape Horn without 40-48 ft seas!!! Guess I am a fair weather sailor after all. Mark http://www.weather.com/activities/recreation/boatandbeach/surf/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Chris h To: Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2009 11:53 AM Subject: Re: [Cal_Boats]Channel Islands, was: Perfect day for a sail(Read) On Tuesday 10 March 2009 12:50:41 Read S Howarth wrote: > Randy > > Thanks for the reply, the tip on sailflow.com and posting for crewing > opportunities. Diddo from this end. Nice site and supplements what I use rather well. Much appreciated. -- /ch __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 3924 (20090310) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com

On Tuesday 10 March 2009 21:44:00 Mark Alan Stahnke (MAS Consulting) wrote: > http://www.weather.com/activities/recreation/boatandbeach/surf/ Thanks Mark; That is also a good resource similar too: http://www.windfinder.com/ These are all great resources provided that you have connectivity. For those situations where their are no net resources I would use zyGrib as it allows me to create a 7 day forcast at 3 hr intervals based on NOAA prediction models. While not the most accurate it does allow for a couple of days of planning, combined with other resources till you get close enough to get bandwidth again. Just another tool in the kit..:) -- /ch