Volume: 2

LOTW

Deciding to take Tartarus all the way to Newport Beach, stopping only for fuel.

If you're in a place like Omaha, Nebraska, weather forecasters have the advantage of seeing what's coming from their weather neighbors. Most of the weather along the coast of North America comes from the Pacific where forecasters rely on information coming from planes, ships, satellites, buoys and guesses from people in rooms. Giant computers run models that attempt to create the future for everyone. For us, the forecast for the coasts of Oregon and Northern California claimed that our luck would hold for another day. For that day, we could cover about 350 miles, removing those miles from our risk factor.

My most reliable forecast model is LOTW for Look Out The Window. "We should go with what we've got." I further revealed my unease with The Heap and how I was constantly on edge that something major might go wrong. I voted to press on all the way to Newport Beach, stopping only for fuel. We had the manpower to get that done easily, since it only took one person to monitor the autopilot, look out for sparse traffic and watch the miles tick by.

"Plus, it's a rental," said Ainslie.