Pegasus Adventure: Moving Peg to California

Mark spent some of September and October 2017 in Washington working on Pegasus. He sailed her from Blaine to Bellingham with the help of a friend, Dennis. In Bellingham Pegasus was outfitted with new instrumentation. Full B&G package for charting, radar, forward looking sonar, wind speed, wind direction, speed of the boat, GPS, Autopilot, navigation, AIS, Echosounder and other things we are just learning about. Mark had the prop shaft trued, installed a new cutlass barring and new zincs. Mark did a lot of the work himself and helped the electronics people. He also cleaned and polished the prop itself. Three new thru hulls were drilled in Peg,s bottom. A line cutter was installed on the prop. Our Iridium Go (satellite) was installed. Pegasus was out on the hard and Mark lived in the air for about a week.
The next week he sailed Peg down to Anacortes Harbor for more work. He had a volunteer to sail with him. Upon entering Anacortes he first went to the pump out station. When leaving his first mate dropped the stern line into the water while Mark was in reverse. The prop sucked the stern line right up and stopped the motor immediately. What a chance to try out the new line cutter. After about 10 times going from reverse to forward the cutter worked. It cut the line into about four pieces. It was a shame as the line was fairly new. A diver came out the next day to make sure no line was left around the prop. He was anchored at Cap Sante Marine for one week. Peg had a complete rigging inspection done for insurance purposes. A spinnaker halyard and an extra halyard was installed, just in case we wanted another sail. Work was wrapped up and Mark waited for the moving crew to show up.

Peg has a spade rudder with a fin keel filled with iron (12,500 lbs).

The crew arrived October 24th. They spent the morning securing the boat and all contents. All crew agreed boat was ready for passage. Made their way to the east end of Juan de Fuca Strait just as the sun set. AIS made seeing other boats very easy. Set up 4 hour shifts for watch. Way points were set on the charts. Stayed 10-12 miles offshore. The channel lived up to it's reputation. The winds and seas were both high and extremely variable. Made the big left turn south into the North Pacific at daybreak Oct. 25th. First 2 days proceeded without incident. Averaged 6.5 knots (speed over ground). The younger crew member was an excellent cook. The 3rd day the wind picked up to 42 knots. Sometimes it hit 45 knots. The following seas developed a constant 10-15 feet with what Mark believed was the occasional 20 foot wave. When the big ones hit the boat speed would hit up to 15 knots as they surfed down the wave. Sleeping was impossible. They all were thrown from their bunks more than once. Walking in the cabin was extremely dangerous. After three days of this it finally calmed before they hit San Francisco. Ad they headed under the Golden Gate just after dawn the winds died. Motored to Alameda Harbor for a few days to exchange crew and provision for next passage.