They were not reckless. They were sailors who made a reasonable professional calculation in a year when the ocean was doing something extraordinary.
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## Papeete Harbor in September 1983
Papeete is the capital of French Polynesia, located on the northwest coast of Tahiti. In 1983 it was, as it remains, the principal hub for trans-Pacific yacht traffic — the natural stopping point for vessels crossing from Panama or the U.S. West Coast and for those heading north or west into the Pacific islands.
The harbor in that era was a concentration of the offshore sailing world: cruising vessels from dozens of countries, delivery crews like Sharp and Oldham, charter boats, local traffic, and the specific floating community that characterized port towns along the ocean-crossing routes. Tahiti in September means the Southern Hemisphere winter is ending, the trade winds are reliable, and the season for eastward passages toward Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast is opening.
They left Papeete Harbor on September 22, 1983. The plan was to sail northwest, then turn northeast as the weather conditions dictated, picking up the trade winds that blow reliably from the northeast at the latitudes they would need to cross. The North Equatorial Current would be a factor in this passage; it flows westward across the tropical Pacific, which means a vessel sailing from Tahiti to San Diego needs to work against it or around it at some stages of the passage.
The planned route took them into waters that are, in a normal year, relatively free of tropical cyclone activity by mid-October. The Eastern Pacific hurricane season officially runs from May 15 to November 30, but most activity is concentrated in the late summer months. By October, most sailors making the Tahiti-to-California passage would not expect to encounter a full hurricane, though tropical storms and elevated sea states are always possible.