Hi, Norm,
Welcome aboard!
Humm....in theory, by July, the North Pacific High will have set up. Once that happens, the prevailing winds will be quite on-the-nose as you make that passage North.
What part of California? If So. Cal, Brian Fagan's books on cruising southern California have some good advice regarding working your way up the coast, dealing with fog along particular headlands and so forth. His advice is sound--he advocates evening and night time runs to the north and waiting out the midday winds sitting at anchor or in port. It is good advice for moving North along the entire US West Coast.
We've done two trips up from San Diego to San Francisco (and one back down to SD between) and only sailed a little bit North of San Francisco--so can't I can't advise other than to say that all the folks we know going North of San Francisco to the "far North" try to do so in the late spring months--like right now. On our trips from SoCal to here, we took advantage of Southerly winds before storm systems and calms following them--and THAT is exactly what these other sailors who have gone North advise doing--work with the storm systems rather than against them. Again, once the North Pacific High has set up it protects California/Oregon from storms--they go to the North and then the circulation around the High just comes right down the coast with a Northwesterly wind right on the nose!
How long have you had the trawler? Are you an experienced mariner? A fellow here in San Francisco docked nearby me has some horror stories of his bringing his very nice trawler from San Diego to here--he lost his rudder in the Santa Barbara Channel, had all sorts of strange problems which were unexpected and disarming. The boat was new to him and it was quite a bit of work for him to get it all taken care of and finally make it here. Now, he's reinforced many things and probably could take that boat almost anywhere
Looking forward to hearing more about your trip and plans,
Cal to vancouver
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