First post:

I am moving to South Texas, and looking to buy a boat and get back into sailing. I learned to sail in San Diego, bought a '88 Catalina 34', but leaving due to taxes slip fees etc. I realize that learning to sail in San Diego (and really California in general) is ideal conditions all the time. I never had to deal with extremely foul weather, freezing temperatures, oil rigs, etc. Ive single handed, ive raced on a J boat team, and ive been crew when moving boats down the coast. I dont consider my sailing experience strong enough to just jump on a boat and figure it out as i feel there is a lot I dont know that Idont know.

Anyone out there that has come from California to Texas have anything to share on the differences between the two locations?

I believe the most important thing to know about the Gulf coast is that it tends to be very shallow a long way offshore. In some areas that can be 60', 60 miles offshore. Also, unlike California, the Gulf tends to get a lot of thunder storms, which can change a pleasant day's sailing into extremely dangerous circumstances in minutes.

 

What's similar in a way, is your Ports being pretty far apart, and much of the daysailing and racing takes place in the bays and lakes rather than "outside". Cruising "outside" is largely short stuff out to the barrier islands a few miles out.

And if you sail farther east, into Louisiana, the coast geography is physically inhospitable to cruising from the TX/La border all the way east to New Orleans. Then it's nicer in points east at least as far as Apalachicola. The prime cruising is between New Orleans and Pensacola and Destin.

PS: I know more about paragraph two than paragraph one ;-)

 

I sailed in San Diego. Now I sail in Central Texas, Austin. The winds blow hard when a cold front is coming through, but other wise they are often light and variable. I remember in San Diego the wind was dead at dawn, started blowing 5-10 by noon then died before sunset, unless there was a Santana blowing.

Usually in the winter in Texas, we get the strongest winds 20-30 when the norther comes through, after it passes and the winds settle down, they can be dead calm for a few days before the south easterly fills in again.

One of my favorite sails was on Lake Buchanan when a norther was on its way. When we put in at the dam, the wind was blowing 10-25 out of the southeast, we sailed to the north shore and tied up for the night. The Norther blew in with lots of rain and wind, then it continued to blow hard 20-35 out of the northwest, so we put up the sails and sailed downwind all the way back to the Dam.

fair winds, and following seas

Tom Bodine

 

“Dennis Connor” said that living in San Diego you get 2-3 seasons for every one you get on the east coast…. Greatful for this but seeing that possibily I’m not learning lessons that might be available elsewhere…. I’ll take it I guess but respect there’s lots more to learn….