If you’ve been waiting for Mother Nature to give the boat a freshwater rinse, you don’t have long to wait. Both Saturday and Sunday look to be a bit on the wet side. Last night up north in the San Juan’s we had some pretty good breeze, 55 knots at Smith Island, 56 knots at Lopez and today in the central Sound we had 35 knots a couple of times at West Point.
We can probably expect more of the same for Saturday just not quite so much wind in the Islands. For the CYC’s PSSC the morning will start off on the light side, 4-6 from the SE with frontal passage about mid day. This will be followed by SSW breeze of 8-12 building to 15-20 by mid afternoon and easing slightly by late afternoon.
The strongest breeze will be to the north of Kingston on up to Port Townsend in Admiralty Inlet with a strong post frontal breeze from the SSW along the coast.
By Sunday morning the breeze will come around to north and be in the 5-8 knot range until it goes away in the mid afternoon. Sorry about that.
For tides in the Race area:
0700 Max Flood 1.09 knots
1036 Slack
1400 Max Ebb .37 knots
1706 Slack
Sunday
0748 Max Flood 1.05 knots
1136 Slack
1418 Max Ebb .34 knots
1800 Slack
So what does this mean in the Race Area off of Shilshole? Since we’ve had a fair amount of rain and a stead southerly breeze you will find that the flood tide is somewhat diminished by a wind driven southerly surface current and the freshwater coming out of the Duwamish and the Ship Canal. For the morning races there will still be a an advantage to holding starboard off the line in order to get the knock that will occur closer to the beach. How far in you’ll want to go will of course depend upon where they place the weather mark. As you get closer to frontal passage, baro rising, ceiling lifting, some patchy clearing to the southwest, this will warn you that the shift from the southeasterly to the south-southwesterly is coming. The ebb will start first on the beach so watch your cog and sog especially if you are on the north course as the flood will last slightly longer mid Sound.
Before you leave the house check the wind at West Point and what’s going on with the Ferry weather. Also check the surface baro readings around the Northwest (http://www.atmos.washington.edu/cgi-bin/latest.cgi?sfcplots-wwa) to see what sort of gradient we’ll be dealing with for the morning and then if there’s enough time between races check the VHF wx to see how that gradient has changed. Remember when you check this chart the barometric pressure is the green numbers and it’s the last three digits. For instance on this chart Bellingham (KBLI) says 162, that means it is actually 1016.2 millibars. Boeing Field (KBFI) 173 means 1017.3 millibars.
It’s always a good idea to wear your life jacket when out on the water and if it has been a while since you’ve been out in 15+ knots of wind why not have a quick review of safety procedures before you leave the dock on Saturday morning.
Also, you might check the surface chart for Tuesday and notice what is over the Aleutian Islands. Yes, that is a monster low pressure system, 966 millibars with plenty of 40-50 knot winds on its south side. So how does this compare to Hurricane Matthew? When Matthew turned into a Cat 4 storm south of Jamaica and Haiti it was almost 800 miles across and had a low pressure reading of 939 millibars. The Aleutian low is about 1200 miles across. So Matthew is smaller, much lower pressure so more tightly wound hence the higher winds.
Have a great time and be safe.
Bruce has raced and cruised the Pacific Northwest his entire life. He earned a Bachelor’s of Science from the University of Washington in Biological Oceanography and learned meteorology “to keep from getting kicked around on the race course.” Bruce spent nearly two decades as Associate Publisher for Northwest Yachting Magazine, retiring in mid-2015, and was the chairman of the board of trustees for the Northwest Marine Trade Association in 2014. (photo of Bruce driving Playstation is a bit dated, but cool)