AMPowers wrote:


I realize that in the past I've felt very safe in the cockpit of my
catamaran, enough not to require my crew or myself to use a harness.

Maybe okay if weatther is flat and have a designated LO on deck.


Your hypothesis of what might have happened, and your advice about
staying inside, hove to, etc. seem spot on to me.

The last log was 60 miles off Cape Blanco, Or at 3 AM. My wife spent
her early years there because her granny lived on Cape Blanco Road. My
brother in law is heading to Port Orford ( just south of Cape B) for a
friends service. A 45' commercial craber was trying to get in. Yes, 45'
is pretty samll to crab in the winte around here. Most are atleast 60'
+ full on steel draggers that gear up for crab instead. Bar was
breaking and the boat rolled with a deck load of dungie pots: 4 lost.
Lets see, one week with two boats lost and 7 dead.

And ya wonder why its called the Grave Yard of the Pacific.

10 miles is too close for those conditions. Too shallow. Seas break.
boats flip. At cape blance, as with other capes adn headlands ya
always got a shallow that sticks miles out plus the wind gets pilled up
at the head lands and increases teh velocity. Somthing about a ventury
effect.

Bad advice to get close. Mybe if youre a 180' OSV and can just run the
bow up in the mud.
Over here, with 90 knot winds pushing your boat on an inceasingly
shallow area combined with rocks... you are screwed. Run out as fast as
possble. Belive me its easy to run your boat in too clsoe and not even
know it til its too late.

I was once in a very bad storm off Magdelina Bay, the worst I've ever
seen.

If you are here writing about it, most likely it was not that bad.


Cheers,

Robb