High Wind Adventure
The air was saturated with salt spray to a height of 20 feet, and
waves were heaving and chaotically breaking all around. It was, to say the least, intimidating. I’ve sailed in winds like that but never in such big seas and probably never up to 64 knots.
By Steve Purcell
It’s not often things align to allow
quick passage by sail from Seattle to the San Juan Islands. It’s almost inevitable that you’ll be fighting considerable current or fluky winds, but April 2, was shaping up to be the perfect combination of events for a nice, heavy weather sail in Korrigan, a semi-custom 36-foot prototype for an Admirals Cup 3/4 tonner from 1979. A big southerly gale was forecast with a big ebb tide, starting at sunrise, followed by a big flood later in the day.At first the gale was supposed to be strongest out of the west in the Straits of Juan de Fuca. Rounding Point Wilson in
an ebb tide right into 45 knots of wind did not sound prudent with the furious current chop and Whidbey Island so close to leeward, so my initial plan was to leave Shilshole Bay, stop at Port Ludlow and go dabble out in the Straits on Saturday when conditions were supposed to moderate to 35 knots. But as the system developed it
looked to be changing to the classic south easterly gale up through Admiralty Inlet and the East Entrance of the Straits. This is something I’m quite familiar with and it’s not as intimidating a prospect in the entrances as the westerly gale. So, I’d resolved to keeping an open mind about going out into the Straits on Friday, even though I knew it meant no turning back once well into the wind. The typical pre-adventure anxiety
and the birds at 4:30 a.m. Friday morning pretty much decided for me what the plan would be. Knowing the tide was going to start going out and seeing the westerly forecast diminishing, I couldn’t help but get started, especially
48° NORTH, MAY 2010 PAGE 34
knowing that if I waited too long and the wind came up, I wouldn’t be able to get out of the slip alone and wouldn’t be going anywhere. So off I went; loaded up the
groceries and headed out. It was only blowing 15 to 20 at first, but being the lazy sort of sailor, and not wanting to handle sail when wind showed up,
around Point Wilson, aka Point No Get Around, in 35 knots of wind and flat seas, which is a rare and special treat in itself. I briefly wondered if this would be another “let down gale,” where one goes searching for wind that is always just out of reach, but then reminded myself not to challenge the gods and that there were many miles of unpredictable sailing ahead. Coming on towards Smith Island
the wind started to build. At some point it went up over 40 knots and stayed there for what seemed like a few hours. The Smith Island wind plot (insert) doesn’t show that, but I was a few miles from Smith Island, over towards Whidbey Island in, what seemed like, windier conditions. It pays to keep in mind that the southeast gale is a ribbon of wind that comes out of Admiralty Inlet, but after that, its width and direction are somewhat unpredictable. Often it will be blowing hard in one place while only a few miles away things will be much calmer, while at other times the entire south side of the San Juan Islands will be inundated with wind. This ribbon of wind is
Wind plot from Smith Island April 2, 2010.
I just put up the storm jib alone and started motor sailing. The batteries needed to be topped up from the last trip anyway, and I’d be needing all that energy to drive the autopilot when things got rough. I was deeply cold right away and it started to dawn on me that I may have underestimated the weekend temperature, since I had nothing more to put on. El Niño, it seemed, had softened my memory of what winter is really like around here. At Point No Point the wind hit
30 knots which was the threshold for being able to sail under storm jib alone at a decent speed. So, the iron jenny got shut down and I settled in to wait for the wind. I didn’t have to wait long. I flew
something that I count on routinely, sometimes trying to get into it and other times trying to get out of it. Today I deliberately went looking for it, since I was going downwind and looking for adventure. Besides, the only other reasonable option for a destination was Cattle Pass,
which was out of the question due to it’s extremely violent nature, so I opted for taking the windward side of the path up to Rosario Strait. This would give me an automatic rounding of Smith Island if I went down the other side of it tomorrow, and allow for a big margin of safety from any lee shore. What this plan did was to put me
into a localized cell of extreme winds. At first the high of 40 to 52 knots was something special, something I’d gloat about later over beers with friends. The waves started getting bigger and things were beautiful and fun with the typical multicolored lighting of the Straits and the big dramatic sky and mountain scenery. With puffs in the high 50s and lulls in the low 40s, after a while, 48
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