Hi J Eaton. Good questions to ask. To answer them: - No super fins but might get them. Should be 7 hours but my plan would be to leave at dawn so allow for 14 hours of light. A Super tanker or similar goes about 20 knots, if I'm paying attention they are easy to miss as they are quite large! I have sailed on a 32ft sail boats through there often and not had an issue with shipping even at night (using radar of course).
The prevailing wind is from the west but should it come up from the south I'll turn around and let it take me back to port of origin. Here is a good site for explaining the weather of Southern CA
http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/narratives/CALIFORNIA.htm or go to NOAA's website. And lastly currents are always an issue with sailing. However, my first question posed under this topic had asked anyone for any input on sailing a small craft to Catalina to see if I was missing anything is still out there. The questions you ask are issues every sailing craft must consider. One you missed might be to be aware of sharks too. Anyway, I hear there are hobie cat races and kayak tour from Dana point to Catalina (
http://www.ckf.org/Reports/2000/00-09-Catalina.htm) so this is not an unusual trip to take but will be for me so need any advice I can get. Thanks. Andrew