The question of whether or not the Vic-Maui elapsed time record will fall is certainly on a few minds. Our resident weather guru Bruce Hedrick, who’s navigating the mighty Crossfire, has been wondering that for months. On the water reports from Bruce will start coming in after the last start which is just hours away. Friend and multiple Vic-Maui winning navigator Brad Baker has graciously allowed us to use his analyses from his swiftsureyachts.com blog which will come every few days. Here’s the first part of his most recent post (you gotta go to the great swiftsureyachts site to read the rest of his post).
If you’re getting updates from any of the boats and would like them to appear here – send them along! We’ll be hearing lots more from Crossfire and Canard as they make their way across the pond.
Will the Record Fall?
By Brad Baker
I’m gonna lay it all on the line, I think this will be the year! The record will fall. OK, I know, now I’ve jinxed it right? Knocking on wood right now so as to undo the jinx. I’ll back up a bit. For my initial blog on Saturday, the weather models weren’t really showing a pattern conducive to shattering records. For the fast boats it looked like they might have light southerly winds coming out the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the high pressure looked anemic and fairly far east. Well……On Sunday the GFS model showed a significant change to that older forecast. The high pressure, still forecast to initially set up fairly far to the east, is now forecast to build significantly and to retrograde back west and a bit to the North all the while strengthening to a very strong near 1040 mb height. If this holds true that will be a very strong and stable high pressure system. This solution has been consistent over three GFS forecast model runs.
The Scenario goes like this: The fast boats in the last start will start later in the morning then the rest of the fleet. This gives them a better chance of starting in consistent breeze as thermal effect has a chance to kick in. The current model show a reasonable onshore push in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, with enough northerly in the wind direction to make for a long starboard tack out the strait. These big very fast thoroughbreds will eat this up and will very likely make the corner in daylight, perhaps before the wind shuts down as it often does at Flattery for the night. Read the rest of the post.
Kurt grew up racing and cruising in the Midwest, and has raced Lasers since the late 1970s. Currently he is a broker at Swiftsure Yachts. He has been Assistant Editor at Sailing Magazine and a short stint as Editor of Northwest Yachting. Through Meadow Point Publishing he handles various marketing duties for smaller local companies. He currently is partners on a C&C 36 which he cruises throughout the Northwest. He’s married to the amazing Abby and is father to Ian and Gabe.