OPB: Sailing Across the Sea of Cortez in a Pearson 40 (Feb 2026)

Name: OPB: Sailing Across the Sea of Cortez in a Pearson 40 (Feb 2026)
Uploaded: 2026-02-15T13:00:38.000Z
Duration: 25 min 23 s
Description: GPS spoofing near Mazatlan forces a 200-mile Sea of Cortez crew to revert to dead reckoning.

15. februar 2026 · 25 min · 2K visninger · Mazatlán

Pearson 40 heeling under sail with whale nearby

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A Pearson 40 named Marbella departs Mazatlan on February 1 and motors roughly 200 miles northwest across the Sea of Cortez, anchoring first at Bahia de los Muertos before continuing to La Paz.16:01 Winds stay under 10 knots the entire passage, forcing near-continuous motoring with only brief intervals of sail; owner Demetrios effectively single-hands after crew member Mark is knocked flat by a bad cold for most of the crossing.14:39 The crew's primary pre-departure concern is GPS spoofing: Demetrios experienced three separate 20-minute spoofing episodes on a prior run toward Altata, with one device showing the boat 200 miles off position at 38 knots.7:17 Their countermeasure is logging position, heading, and speed over ground every two hours to enable dead reckoning, with radar and depth sounder as backup when nearing land.7:52 Suspected sources are U.S. military anti-narcotics exercises and Sinaloa cartel jammers.5:57 The Seralvo Channel between Isla Seralvo (Isla Jacques Cousteau) and the Baja peninsula gets a specific caution: current runs up to a knot or more, and wind can spike from 15 to 32 knots almost instantly.19:35 Bahia de los Muertos anchorage sits in about 30 feet at high tide with a roughly one-meter tidal range.22:43 Keeping a running navigation log on every passage — even short ones — is the lesson Demetrios draws from the spoofing incidents.8:48