BaltimoreBlonde wrote:
I was there in July and it was gorgeous, sunny, and hot!* I "sailed"* in the San Juans for 2 weeks some years ago when there was no wind, and we never saw a raindrop.
I grew up in Hawaii.* Moved there in 1955, left in 1979, and didn't like it all the years in between.* (I liked what I was doing all those years, I just didn't like the place.)
I've lived here now*for 31 years and the weather today is nothing like it was when I moved here.* It rains far more--- not so much*in volume but in terms of time--- than it used to.* And the winds are far higher than they used to be.* For example in Bellingham where we keep our boat, fall winter and spring storms march in almost continuously with perhaps a day or two of boatable weather between them.* And the storm winds these days average 40-50 mph with frequent gusts to 70. (The highest wind gust*recorded last winter in Bellingham marina was 86.)
When I moved here my co-workers, many of whom were raised here, complained bitterly about the hot summers that started July 5 and generally ran though Labor Day.* Today the common complaint among everyone, even the TV weather people, is that "This year we didn't even HAVE a summer."
Seriously, though,*the main thing I've noticed, both in boating and in flying, is that this whole region has gotten way more windy.* The typical wind forecast some ten, twelve years ago was 5 to 15.* Today the typical wind forecast is 15 to 25 and we have a lot of days when it's up to 30 and 35.* That's in the nice months.* Just this past weekend two boats were caught in viscious winds that came up apparently unforcast.* The wind went from 5 to what, 45, 50? in minutes.* The seas (according to the blurb in the paper) went from rippled to eight foot waves almost instantly.* One boat, a vintage wood sailboat, was abandonned when the crew elected to be rescued by USCG helicopter rather than risk what might happen to the sailboat in the waves.** The boat subsequently ended up on the rocks.* The other boat, a powerboat, ran out of fuel from fighting the waves and had to be towed in.* The Vessel Assist skipper who came out said he'd rarely seen conditions so bad in the past.
I don't know why the wind has become a so much greater factor the past few years.* While we use our boat as much as we ever have in the 12 years we've owned it--- which is to say almost every weekend year round even if it's just going up and*staying on it---- we have noticed that more and more often over the last few years*our plans to go out for a weekend*are disrupted by higher and higher winds.
If your boat has stabilizers I guess it won't make much difference what the wind is doing. But if it doesn't, be prepared for some rough rides, particularly on the more open bodies of water.
*
-- Edited by Marin on Friday 10th of September 2010 03:54:18 PM