After a few lazy days around the house over Christmas, I was anxious to work off a belly full of turkey and chocolate and do some sailing. Dad wanted to escape the city on the family boat for a few days. It is was a perfect chance to get our primary navigation system, a laptop, chart software and GPS, up and running.

Navigation these days has gone a long way since cruisers first started sailing offshore. Even in the past number of years the availability of powerful laptops, email over High Frequency radio, and inexpensive GPS has changed the game a lot. Sailors can now get accurate wind, weather, and wave height information quickly and cheaply, anywhere on the globe.

Access to weather and wave information is going to be key to our adventure since sailing and surfing aren’t necessarily the most compatible activities. When sailing you want unobstructed waters, protected anchorages, and wind to carry you around. When surfing, you generally search out big swells, something in the ocean to break the wave, and little or no wind. Our goal of sailing to surf breaks is going to require we carefully balance the best of both worlds. To accomplish this, we’re going to use all the available technology, including wind and wave forecasting and electronic charts to put us in the right places at the right times. It is remarkable that all this modern technology is available to us on a boat in the middle of an ocean.

For charting, we’re using a software program called C-Map. C-Map charts cover the entire globe, high accuracy. C-Map works in conjunction with the GPS on board to locate the boat on the charts – sweet! Its mind boggling, but with this setup, we can pin point our exact location anywhere on the globe. The charts also tell us the depth of the ocean, any hazards, rocks, and reefs.

Here is our route for the Christmas sail plotted on C-Map:

The next part of the equation is the weather forecasting. We’ll be using two main sources for this information: GRIB files and weather fax. GRIB files are a computer generated prediction of wind speed and wave height based on the air pressure and predicted storm front movement. Most surfers know this information as the Global WAM (WW3) wave model forecasts. Weather Fax is similar information, only made by actual meteorologists, rather than simply computer predictions.

Both will be received over Single Side Band (SSB) and HAM radio. This GRIB file, taken 24 hours before our trip, shows the weather system responsible for our great wind as it approaches the coast of Oregon and Washington and BC.

So with the GPS and laptop setup, we headed out to do a dry run of the system in the gulf islands. Dad and I planned to cross Georgia Straight from Vancouver and anchor at one of the southern Gulf Islands. The local coast guard weather station was calling for 25 – 35 knot gale force north west winds. Sweet! Our plan was to cross Georgia Straight in a southerly direction, so the wind would be on our back.

As we motored out of English Bay there was no sign of the gale force winds, but there was a big westerly swell running into the bay – evidence of the strong winds farther up the straight The waves in English Bay are normally no more that a couple of feet high. Here you can see them crashing over the sidewalk, ready to wash away an unsuspecting rollerblader!

As we left English Bay and pointed the bow of the boat south, the wind started to build: First to a consistent 20 knots, then slowing building to 30 with gusts to 37 knots.

The boat handled the wind and swell well, but with 1 reef and a #1 jib up, we were over-powered. During the gusts I had the helm hard over to keep from rounding up. With so much weather helm, our rudder was more of a brake than steering device. At this point our boat speed was 8 – 9 knots. To improve the handling we put a 2nd reef in the main sail, and reduced the area of the jib. This gave a lot more control of the boat, and increased our average speed to 9 – 10 knots. Whooo hoo!

We flew across the straight in record time, and the strong ebb tide shot us through Active Pass like a cork! Once out of the shelter of the pass, the wind again built to 30 knots from the North West. When not above handling the boat, I tracked our progress at the navigation station below.

We easily made our destination by sunset, put the anchor down, and fired up the heater to dry out our spray-soaked clothes.