The Offshore Voyaging Reference Site
There’s no question that hurricane forecasting has become more accurate in recent years, but how much should we trust that?
Here is something totally and utterly banoodley, gob smackingly, amazing.
Some really useful information from a really smart and honest weather router, and then some tips on the quickest way to learn about weather.
John writes about a new weather forecast product that just might be the most significant weather advance for offshore voyagers since the GRIB file.
Andy shares how he used his understanding of the weather and strategic route planning, together with high-tech tools, during his recent Atlantic crossing, to make a faster and better passage than just sticking with the normal route would have.
Andy takes a deep dive into the world of automated weather routing, integrated with navigation, and all running on an iPad, a very different approach than the one John has detailed earlier in this Online Book. You can decide which works best for your type of cruising.
There are endless debates on forums about which is the best GRIB viewer, but most miss a key selection criteria. John shares what that is.
We got our hands on a real live professional meteorologist, who is also an offshore sailor, and wrung 4 great tips out of him that will make your voyages both safer and more comfortable.
There’s a lot of great weather information out there these days…and a lot of hype too. Here are some tips that will help you tell the difference and decide what’s worth spending your money on.
I’m seeing gross misuse of the Beaufort scale. Let’s not do this.
In this chapter I’m going to write about how we receive voice (well, not really voice, per se) and text forecasts while at sea and in remote places.
In this chapter I’m going to get into the details of how we request and use GRIBs to get the maximum amount of information for the minimum data size and cost, when at sea or in remote areas with no internet.
Starting with this chapter I’m going to focus on weather reception tools that we use when we are offshore or in remote places where the internet is not available. Let’s start with weatherfax and why it’s still important.
In this chapter I’m going to discuss a real world example of how we used the tools we have discussed in this book to manage a weather risk while transiting Hudson Strait and the northern coast of Labrador—no place to get caught by bad weather.
It is now pretty likely that Hurricane Earl will give us high winds here on the south-western shore of Nova Scotia. However, a deviation of just 50 miles either side of the forecast track will likely make the difference between us experiencing gale force versus hurricane force winds. And that in turn will determine whether […]
I have lived most of my life in the direct line of fire of Atlantic hurricanes, first in Bermuda, and now on the southern shore of Nova Scotia. But no matter how familiar I am with the damned things, or perhaps because of that familiarity, I always have a slight feeling of constant tension at […]
Morgan’s Cloud was anchored in a snug cove in Maine. We had tied everything down on deck and stripped the headsails from the furlers. Hurricane Kyle was bearing down on the coast with forecast 60 knot winds, gusting higher; no worse than we have ridden out many times before in high latitude anchorages, so we […]
We are long time users of WeatherFax 2000, from Xaxero Marine Software Engineering Ltd in New Zealand, for the reception of weather faxes on a Windows PC.
My friend Kevin is tough. Tough enough that I have heard him called Kevlar. A veteran of tens of thousands of ocean miles, both racing and cruising, Kevin has seen some seriously nasty weather.