PRIMER Weather considerations
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A swim below a waterfall refreshed the crew in Pohnpei (far left); an anchorage in an atoll off Majuro (top); Dave Harlow with a native stick chart in Majuro; Tom Selman prepares to bake bread aboard Nordhavn; colorful flora and fauna abound on the islands of Micronesia.
waiting in Majuro to board Nordhavn for the voyage to Pohnpei. He would have plenty to write about. After routine fueling and servicing at the commercial docks and a little sightseeing and provisioning, Captain Dave put to sea for the island of Pohnpei, about 800 miles to the west. The northeasterlies were stronger than ever and conditions were rough upon clearing Majuro. With winds at 30 knots and 10- to 12-foot seas, the crew settled in for a tough five-day passage. Back in Dana Point, my job was to provide daily weather reports and
assist our crew. Aside from the strong but somewhat typical trade winds, all looked normal, with no tropical disturbances or advisories that would indicate a problem. I gave the crew a green light via our Iridium phone and Stratosnet e-mail. To my amazement, within a few hours after departure, the Joint Typhoon Agency of the Navy and Air Force issued a tropical depression alert, the center of which was expected to track a path upward and across toward Pohnpei—right where our boys were headed. This was more
fter my business partners in PAE responded favorably to the idea of a company-run circumnavigation, I began to look at the route and the feasibility of making the trip in a single season. To my astonishment, it looked totally doable. I consulted Jimmy Cornell’s World Cruising Routes and spoke with our friend and weather forecaster, Walt Hack of New Jersey, and found it ideal to depart California for Hawaii in November and then, as fast as we could move west, the seasons would open up with favorable conditions. November is a good month to cross to Hawaii as the threat of tropical storms has passed, yet it’s too early for the mid-winter storms which appear in December and January. The Western Pacific and Philippines are plagued with typhoons in September, October and November, but by mid December the threat passes and the South China Sea begins to feel the cooling effects of the northeast monsoon. By mid-December conditions are ideal for transiting south from the Philippines to Singapore, and then by January the monsoon’s northeast flow of wind and current provide favorable conditions for crossing the Indian Ocean. Moving northwest up the Red Sea in February is tolerable and, though it would be better to enter the Eastern Mediterranean six or eight weeks later, early March is acceptable. Transiting the Mediterranean and entering the Atlantic by the end of March requires some caution, but once the vessel turns south and reaches the Cape Verde Islands in April the spring crossing of the Atlantic to Antigua is fine. The Caribbean can be crossed and the Panama Canal transited and our boat heading north in the Pacific before the beginning of the summer’s hurricane season. At the end, I concluded that with a lot of hard running and a little luck we should be able to circumnavigate the world in less than a year, a record for this type motor vessel. And we went for it! — Jim Leishman 2003 CIRCUMNAVIGATOR · 65