Sailing from Seattle to Honolulu?

Question

I've been transferred to Schofield Air Base from Seattle and need to sail my 30' sailboat to Hawaii. I have the month of October 2008 to do this and would like to know of anyone who has done this or might be interested in going along with sailing experience of course. I've only sailed around the sound and up into the San Juans in the Strait. I'm interested in learning about a specific route if there is one and about weather that time of year and any problems with whales since they are migrating that time of year. Thanks

Answer 1

Hawaii to Seattle is the normal route, takes about 3 weeks in that direction,  normal route for Seattle to Hawaii is by Mexico, sail down to sf, then San Diego, then down to baja then make the jump to Hawaii.  prevailing winds and current, but that trip unfortunately isn't doable in a month.

another problem is leaving in October from there, October is start of the storm season in pacific north west.  weather window may limit when you can take off.  I would suggest to take a couple of weeks off in Aug and sail down to San Francis, take another week in Sept and sail to San Diego, then take 3 weeks to make the sail to Hawaii.

wouldn't worry about whales, would worry about storms, swells and winds.

Answer 2

No, no, no. No.

You need to do this in late June and early July. Your chances of surviving this in October are almost zero. Really.

When you do this (in late June and early July, don't wait until "Foggest"), you have basically two options. The first is the "Vic Maui" course, which is really only ever done by racers; basically you're routing yourself to the south and east of the North Pacific High as close as possible for the following winds without actually ending up in the NPH, where there are no winds at all. It's a lot of work, and requires a good crew of competent watchstanders (and a very good barometer), but it can be done, and is certainly the fastest route. The more comfortable route is to go coastal from Flattery to San Diego and pick up the tradewinds there, and sail west until you hear ukuleles. Sailing the west coast of WA/OR/NoCAL, the river bars can be treacherous as h**l; even the harbor pilots prefer to be helo-lifted out to the ships rather than take a pilot boat across. Assume that once you make that sharp left around Tatoosh you're committed to an ocean passage all the way to San Fran, even though you're well within sight of land; you may get lucky, or you may simply not be able to enter the river bars at all. Forget everything you've ever read about coastal passage making, and hug the coastline all the way down. As in, point-to-point, or even shoreward of that. Yes, you're giving yourself a lee shore, common sense is applicable. But about one day out of ten in the summer you're going to get the h**l beat out of you off the WA/OR/NoCAL coast, and it's going to be better closer in. The other nine days out of ten, you'll have an amazing trip and wonder what the fuss was about. If you happen to hit that one in ten, and you're 50nm offshore where all the books tell you to go, you'll get to ride in the pretty orange helicopter. SF to SD, stay in the Santa Barbara Channel for all the same reasons. Once you get to the Trades, the world is a better place.  

Oh, and really, truly, the whales are the best part of the trip! And the stars...

UPDATED ANSWER--

Thought about this a bit. Since you're constrained time-wise by the needs of the Army, one possibility would be to put the boat on a truck down to San Diego, and sail it from there. Assuming no hurricanes, it should be a fairly safe and uneventful trip, in October or otherwise.

Also, yes, I'm in the Seattle area, and may have some time available in October. If you're interested in talking more about this, contact me off-line at maraiche(at)yahoo(dot)com.

Answer 3

October is an iffy month when you round Cape Flattery, the Pacific defies its name, it can be quite nasty.

Whales, always keep a good lookout, I nearly put a Peterson 37' across the back of a gray whale early one morning, fortunately I was at the helm while my co-shifter spotted the whale surface just off our bow.