Members' Online Book: Weather Reception and Analysis, Chapter 3 of 18

Strategic Weather Analysis—Hardware and Software

Published Sep 12, 2017 51 comments Updated October 1, 2018

In the last chapter I introduced the concept of strategic weather analysis as an addition to the tactical version that most cruisers do, so if you missed that, please read it now.

In this chapter, and the next three, I’m going to get down into the actual details of how I receive and analyze weather on a day-to-day basis to plan our cruises as much as two weeks out. A system I have developed over 25 years of voyaging that I have recently updated, using the latest tools, over this summer’s cruise to remote places.

First off, let’s look at the gear and software I use.

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Meet the Author

John

John was born and brought up in Bermuda and started sailing as a child, racing locally and offshore before turning to cruising. He has sailed over 100,000 miles, most of it on his McCurdy & Rhodes 56, Morgan's Cloud, including eight ocean races to Bermuda, culminating in winning his class twice in the Newport Bermuda Race. He has skippered a series of voyages in the North Atlantic, the majority of which have been to the high latitudes. John has been helping others go voyaging by sharing his experience for twenty years, first in yachting magazines and, for the last 12 years, as co-editor/publisher of AAC.

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Nothing on this website or in direct communications received from us, or in our articles in the media, should be construed to mean or imply that offshore voyaging is anything other than potentially hazardous. Dangers such as, but not limited to, extreme weather, cold, ice, lack of help or assistance, gear failure, grounding, and falling overboard could injure or kill you and wreck your boat.

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