[jagasail]

Well, been back a few weeks now, in the PNW, after an aborted attempt. What happened is no wind for the first 5 days, and completely becalmed for 3 days 150 miles off the southern Oregon coast, while watching what NOAA described as an 'unseasonably strong, late winter storm' forming before us and threatening to run us down. This was not even on the 180 hour grib when we departed. We were faced with a wall of 40-50kt southerly wind and 20+ ft seas coming right at us, stretching from the coast to several hundred miles offshore. Without wind where we were ahead of the storm we quickly ran out of options to avoid or minimize it, so were left with either run under power back to the straits or into a harbor on the Oregon Coast. As the other boat I was with was Canadian (having departed from a Canadian port), he had now detailed charts for his plotter of the US coast (he had the noaa charts on his laptop) and was very fearful US customs would take most of his fresh provisions and charge duty on all his liquor, they did not like this option. Thus we're back.

We looked at every possible option to salvage the trip, as the return cost us a year getting to New Zealand, however the eventual strength of the storm (which came through here around the 19th) and the difficulty of several other boats (we heard several maydays after entering the straits) confirmed the wisdom of our decision. Tough call, but the right one.

Our only potential other option was to motor as quickly as possible and try and get south of Cape Mendocino before the storm hit, a risky approach. Our fuel consumption trying to push back, though (higher than I'd expected) showed that we would have run out of fuel about 20 miles short. Anyway, I do have a few comments of iNavX which I'll post elsewhere.

Scot