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Santa Ana winds roar through Oxnard Plain

Santa Ana winds regularly whip through this area about this time of year. But you don’t have to quit sailing just because the wind is out of the east.

NOAA doesn’t call all easterlies, not even all strong easterlies, Santa Anas. I’m not sure what NOAA’s Santa Ana criteria are, but looking at the Sailflow chart, you can figure out that the heart of this thing is moving along at 30 knots.

That’s not a lot, especially not when you consider that historically these winds have clocked in near 100 mph (NOAA thinks mostly about effects over land, hence mph rather than knots.)

Yesterday’s Sailflow looked about the same as this morning’s. It was a warm — better than summer — day here in Oxnard and we were eager to sail. So off we went.

As we reported yesterday on Facebook, it was a rip-snortin’ day, but on reflection, there were some lessons to take aboard for the next bout of Santa Anas …. which happen to be lashing the palm trees right now.

Sailflow was exactly correct: the winds were NE and not affecting Channel Islands Harbor. We started out on a broad reach heading south. We were in the yellow band — the margin of the flow. We saw winds in the 20 regime, but what is weird and dangerous in the margin is that the air is very turbulent and wind direction and velocity swing wildly. We saw 20 from the NE and then a 10 second calm, when the windex did a 360 and then 15 knots out of the NW.

That happened over and over: the water would boil with short period gusts and we’d get ready for a forced jibe, then it’d settle down and we’d be rocking along on an 8 knot sprint.

We had a great time: starboard rail in the water and almost instantly a lull was followed by a wind shift that put the port rail in the water.

Great fun, actually. Had we wanted more consistent wind, we could have sailed a bit more to the south and had all the NE flow we could stand, or we could have sailed north into more consistent (though still gusty) W to NW winds. In the gusty region we explored, we elected to keep the main in pretty tight, mostly because we were uncertain that we would be able to predict when the boat might jibe. We also remained scrupulously clear of the boom.

Only two other sailboats were out there with us, but they returned early. One looked like a Hunter with  a jammed main furler. The other guys just quit.

Our helmsman was worn out at the end of three hours and we replenished our strength at the Lookout, where they tapped a new keg of IPA for us.

Altogether, a very satisfying day on the water.

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Santa Ana depiction Thursday night

Gusts to 60 Wed to Friday. The Oxnard Plain really lights up Thursday night.

Read the detailed NOAA warning.

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Yesterday the moon was the closest it gets to the earth– 359691 km and today there is a New Moon.

So what(?) you say

Since you’ll most likely be home and not near or on a boat, a mighty shrug is all you need to convey your interest. But if you are near the water, you’ll see the greatest tidal range. In our marina, the low tides will find a few boats sitting comfortably on the bottom for a couple of hours. Look for masts canted to one side or the other, those are the ones in the mud.

We really don’t worry much about tides here. Our range is skimpy compared to much of the world — somewhere in the six foot range on a full or new moon, but for the next day or so it’ll be closer to nine feet, with the low a foot and half below datum (-1.55).

Low tide -1.55

It’ll be a good idea to favor the center of the channel and keep a closer eye on the fathometer as you transit near shore.

But what’s the problem with high tide? How can that cause a problem?

Hi tide +7.14

It’s a low probability worry, but a little surge could turn these floating docks in to, well, boats. That was one of the big factors in boat destruction in Florida in the last big hurricane.

The Florida disaster wasn’t because of a perigean tide, but it’s easy to see that the risk of having the marina drift off to sea is higher on these days.

Without mentioning all of these facts, NOAA has compressed it all into a coastal flood warning for today. They’re not forecasting much flooding, fortunately. We wouldn’t want to have to scramble to get underway with turkey on the table.

Hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving. You probably don’t care that this is my favorite holiday, but it is, principally because there is no holiday song that must be sung today.

BTW — there’s a hybrid solar eclipse, but we won’t see it.

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Mares' Tails and Fishes' Scales cause tall ships to lower sails.

The old salt’s rhyme — Mares’ tails and fishes’ scales cause tall ships to lower sails — spoke truth.

The skies have been crowded by cirrus clouds of one sort or another for several days. They are usually the harbinger of storm activity, but wet storms are pretty unusual in this part of the world in June.

Though we didn’t have more than small craft advisories yesterday, the swell and wind waves yesterday afternoon were formidable. The Beer Can Racers decided on skipping the race part and headed for the club after they took a look.

This bunch almost never says cancel, but it was snotty enough that even they didn’t want to give it a try.

Of course, NOAA is better at predicting the weather than our rhymes. But it’s worth noting that there is meteorological fact buried in the little ditties. See wiki-How for a fairly complete rundown.

For the lowdown on local winds, I rely on Sailflow, which at this very moment is showing winds up to 30 knots just off-shore, and there’s not a sail to be seen from the beach, though plenty of white caps and blowing foam.

There is some good weather news: It’s already June 2 and so far, no sign of the GLOOM. Not much Gray in May, either. But there’s plenty of wind and all sorts of opportunities to practice reefing and other storm tactics. Not for the weak of stomach.

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High surf forecast.

Be cautious entering Channel Islands at SE entrance. Breaking waves may close that entrance. Advisory effective until 1800 Sat.

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Little Scorpion anchorage is in the distance. There's a reef between the large rock and the island. Not a good place to park a boat.

Twenty-11 was brand new when the first incident at sea happened this year.

I have a personal interest in this one as the Bosun and I planned a New Year’s run to Santa Cruz, just as the folks in this story did.
We checked the weather a couple of times every day for a week before the trip. I know that’s a waste of time. Predictions more than a day or so out are famously inaccurate. But we checked and wasted our time.

By the 29th we were getting leery of the possibility of Santa Anas. When we got to our go-no-go decision point, the forecast said nothing about Santa Anas. However, a front would pass through the area and the prediction that kept us at home showed the wind shifting from a moderate westerly to a stronger northeast flow.

The timing was important to us, too. The last forecast showed frontal passage around midnight. We figured we could handle the wind shift, but it would mean we’d be up waiting for the shift and then would likely have to get underway in the middle of the night in adverse conditions.

Before canceling our trip, we had planned to anchor a mile or so off Smugglers to give us sea room to deal with a wind shift. But even that seemed dicey.

Weather always capable of the unexpected

We’re old and we don’t like to work after dark. Add to that the unease our wives were showing and we decided on a “fast cruise,” wherein we all hung out on the boat while tied fast to the dock. On New Years Day we were kicking ourselves for not going. It was bright, warm and still. Perfect for being at the islands.

Perfect it was … in Channel Islands Harbor, but the weather at the Channel Islands went as predicted. The wind shift came as NOAA had called and that meant trouble for a small Catalina anchored at Little Scorpion.

By the time our narrative starts, the wind has prompted the crew to get out of the anchorage. We don’t know if they were on two hooks or one, but they were definitely on a lee shore and very uncomfortable with the prospects. So they – wisely – got underway.

To their credit, they had asked local authorities specifically if Santa Anas were forecast and they were told, correctly, that none were on the horizon. Nobody mentioned the front and the wind shift which always accompanies a strong front.

In order to hide from wind and swell, most visitors to Little Scorpion Anchorage drop their hooks very close to Bird S**t Rock. If the wind shifts to the E or NE, captains find themselves on a dangerous lee shore.

The wind was gusting to about 20 knots, which raised a formidable chop in Little Scorpion. Their little boat was getting knocked around but they were able to start their outboard and pull in the anchor and move off the lee shore.

They had the same luck with their outboard that I usually have: it quit at a very bad time.

They pulled out their jib and tried to sail out, which might have worked if they had a bit of sea room. The Catalina sails just fine on headsail alone, but they didn’t have any room and got pushed back between Bird S**t Rock and the island. If you’ve kayaked in there, you know there is a reef that blocks that passage. And that is where they came to rest.

They called Mayday on channel 16, alerting the Coast Guard and Vessel Assist. Both got underway.

Abandon ship – a tough decision

Their position became untenable and the crew abandoned ship, rowing their dinghy safely ashore.

Vessel Assist Ventura’s boat arrived on scene. The captain assessed the situation and decided to stand off. The area was dotted by lobster traps, it was the middle of the night and the captain deemed conditions too hazardous for his crew and vessel, particularly too hazardous to put a swimmer in the water.

At daybreak, though seas and wind had not settled appreciably, the rescuers could maneuver among the traps. A swimmer secured a line to the Catalina and the boat was towed clear of the reef. They also picked up the crew from the beach and put a pump aboard the rescued boat.

On the way home some three miles west of Gina, something catastrophic happened on the Catalina. The pump could no longer keep up with the incoming water flow and the trusty little Catalina disappeared in a couple hundred feet of water.

Here are the lessons I take away from this accident.

These guys got the weather forecast and were satisfied that no Santa Ana meant they’d be safe in the anchorage. Somehow they missed the forecast wind shift. That said, we’ve had the wind shift on us with nothing in the forecast. So it’s something you have to consider any time you anchor. Setting an anchor watch and setting the GPS anchor alarm are always prudent measures.

We always anchor bow and stern in Little Scorpion. We’ve got a formidable bow anchor and chain road and we have a big Fortress astern that has held us in over 30 knots of shifting wind. Worst case for us – had we been there (other than screaming wives and children) would have been jettisoning our bow anchor and motoring or pulling ourselves back to the stern anchor – now the windward anchor, then getting underway. Of course, if our engine had quit, we’d probably have ended up on the same rocks. On the other hand, with a good bit more sea room, we might have been able to sail clear.

Outboards. Damned outboards. According to one of my friends expert in the matter, 4-stroke outboards have automatic shutdown systems that turn the motor off when low oil pressure is sensed. Severe rocking will make the sensors “think” the oil pressure is low.  And you know they must have been rocking in the chop.

Experts. They were misled by experts twice. The first was on the weather forecast.  The second was not so much advice as a suggestion that they might row their dinghy through the surf for pickup.They didn’t do that. It’s natural to act on advice in an emergency, but prudent to evaluate the based on your level of ability, your equipment and the conditions at hand. They did that and got home safely if short one boat.

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Too chilly for us

With apologies to my friends who sail (or have sailed) the “other” Channel Islands.

We canceled our overnight trip to Santa Cruz for weather considerations. I know, dear English friends, that you’re disappointed in our cancellation as it is far warmer than freezing and the breeze no longer has a gale warning in it. The seas are a modest 4 feet. Hardly proper (which apparently to Brits means cold, blowing like hell in sea states that go mast high).

But the thought of waking up to the chill … well that was too much for us.

We are, after all, SOUTHERN Californians and sailors of THESE Channel Islands.

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Damaging winds, Gale Warnings, High Surf warnings

Check your area for the latest at NOAA LA

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The Brig Pilgrim is the setting for Richard Henry Dana's tale of California sea adventure in "Two Years Before the Mast."

Two Years Before the Mast

sat unread in the rail in the forepeak of Wiley for a dozen years. I don’t know where that book went. It may have turned to dust over the last decade of sailing, but I got interested in the book again a couple of weeks ago when I found it in the FREE listing in my Kindle.

And so I dived in again. My first attempt at the book got me not much further than page 50, but I’m just about done this time around and have found it fascinating.

It’s certainly an important book to anyone interested in California history and it’s a great place to come up with trivia to amaze and confuse even the MASTER RATER, THE RANGER and the other denizens of Channel Islands Harbor.

I can’t quite get my memory around this one, but I’m trying to memorize these lines. Don’t know when I’ll launch them, but there will be an appropriate time, possibly involving beer, to do that. Here it is – I think you have to yell this in a commanding tone, so I’ll be practicing that – the commanding tone – on the dogs:

Set up the lee rigging, fish the spritsail yard, lash the galley, and bring  tackles upon the martingale. Bowse it;  bowse it to windward, lads.

Other than lads and set up, I haven’t a clue what any of that means. But I do know what it means to face the Southeast storm that he talks about. Repeatedly.

After “doubling” The Horn, you’d think that weather wouldn’t be much of a bother to these seamen, but when they were in the Santa Barbara Channel in the fall they prepared for it every time they anchored. In fact, when anchoring in Santa Barbara, they’d set the hook three miles offshore at this time of year.

What’s more, they’d rig the anchor so that it could be jettisoned when the wind kicked up and backed to the Southeast.

My Santa Ana strategy is not quite so conservative. I am ready, however, to leave a stern anchor behind on a buoy if needs be. Nor do I snug in to a far western wall when in Pelican, Alberts or Willows as I would in summer. Plus we make more frequent weather checks than we do at other times of year, going on deck to check for eastern breeze, east or south swell or dry decks.

In an emergency, we’re ready to jettison both anchors, but unlike Pilgrim, we have a power windlass. But the biggest difference is that Pilgrim was a square rigger, capable of getting not much closer than about 70 degrees of apparent wind. They’d have to backwind headsails to fill the mains and topsails, so they needed plenty of room to the lee to make that maneuver. We, happily, have a mighty Yanmar, which we fire up at the first sign of easterly wind.

We were surprised (twice) by unforecast Santa Anas last year. Until then, we had great confidence in NOAA. If they don’t mention Santa Anas, you’re not necessarily safe. If they do forecast a Santa Ana …. they’re not often wrong. In either case, have a plan, brief your crew and check the weather throughout the night.

Click to learn about the replica Brig Pilgrim

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http://www.sailchannelislands.com

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Just gotta wonder what they were thinking.

Everyone got rescued, but there was probably no good reason why they should have found themselves upside down under their catamaran in the first place. Read the report in Latitude 38.

Then comment, critique, write a diatribe or just speculate.

BTW – if you don’t subscribe to the ‘lectronic version of Latitude 38, you can start right here.

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