This will be a very interesting leg which will be very challenging in that the fleet will be beating almost the entire leg. The models are not in agreement as to how much wind you’ll be beating into for the first six hours. The European model has as much as 30-knots from the southeast while the NAM and GFS models have 20-knots from the southeast but only as far as the Brooks Peninsula. After that, it is just a dead beat in 10-15-knots until about midnight tomorrow night when the breeze will drop to 10 knots or less after Estevan Pt. Between Tofino and Ucluelet the breeze will continue to drop to 5-knots or less and clock slightly from southeast to south.
8 June 500MB 
8 June Surf Analysis 
9 June Surface Forecast 
10 June Surface Forecast
Todays Surface Charts show the reasons for this. We have a relatively weak high-pressure system (1031MB) centered off the Oregon coast and a weak low-pressure system (1001MB) at about 47N 160W with an attached cold front that moving towards the north end of Vancouver Island and Queen Charlotte Sound. It’s this cold front that will bring a prefrontal southeasterly to the race course. It’s just a question of how close it will actually get that will determine how much wind you’ll be beating into. The 500MB chart also helps explain the problem of trying to predict how close the front will come. After this weak front passes to the north, the pressure gradient will ease, the breeze will drop and clock slowly to the south and then southwest. Todays Sat Pic shows the clouds associated with this front already approaching the north end of Vancouver Island.
I once again ran the numbers for the TP52’s and I have them finishing in about 26 hours. The course length is 138-miles and I have them sailing about 180-miles.
I hope some of you were able to get out and enjoy some of the great fishing Winter Harbour has to offer. A couple of years ago we caught enough salmon to feed the crew that night at the bbq. It was great.
Enjoy the race 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)