Weather Forecasting

Probably one of the most important factors to sailing is being able to predict the weather and react accordingly to the circumstances.

On my previous boat, weather was a factor in determining if we went out or not, but enthusiasm also played its part. Looking back it was a bit of a giveaway when the lock gates opened on the flood and we were the only boat venturing out to sea.

Having had various experiences of rough and very lumpy seas, which I will be the first to admit was very unnerving and definitely not what I would class as having fun, and by the way I was not the only one feeling like this.

These experiences have taught me to tame the enthusiasm and become more of a weatherman as well as everything else.

When we first started to look into weather forecasting, we would look at all the normal formats, TV, Radio, synoptic charts, advice from local fishermen, which can be as variable as the weather depending on who you talked to.

We ended up doing some research on the Internet and on advice from other sources to look into ‘Grib Files’, which quickly takes you to a web site by a former weatherman who is also a very keen sailor and understands our requirements – Frank Singleton.

Frank Singleton’s approach to helping other yachtsmen understand the weather and the tools to use is a god send. Talking and learning how to predict the weather is not at the top of my must do list, but as we know a very necessary requirement for all yachtsmen. I am not going to repeat Frank’s words or steal his thunder (pun intended), but instead provide a link to his web site for those of you who are interested.

http://www.franksingleton.clara.net/

One of the well known providers of ‘Grib Files’ is Sailmail, which most of you will know and probably use.

http://www.sailmail.com/

To use gribs you will need a viewer, which is discussed on both Sailmail and Frank Singletons web site, but to keep it easy another link below. I have used both the standard viewer and the one under development. The one under development has a few minor issues, but I ma sure the developers will iron out the wrinkles at some stage.

Grib/Fax Viewer:

http://www.siriuscyber.net/wxfax/



The above grib files are normally downloaded via SSB, in an email format on request, which is great if you don’t have 10 emails in front of the one you really need. Patience is a virtue!

This brings me on to my latest finding, which is a grib viewer and grib downloader, which operates ‘on-demand’, to exactly the area of interest.

We are planning to use ‘Iridium’ for our long range communications, for various reasons, which will appear in a later blog.

This being the case and we know we can still use the Sailmail request feature via ‘Iridium’ and email, but a much more modern approach is by a bunch of American Sailor/ Developers, not sure how to describe them and I certainly don’t want to cause any offence. But again clearly understand the operational requirements!

All I can say is that Grib.US is fantastic, you will need to download the various programs via broadband to install it onto your PC, but once installed and after a very short period of playing and learning, you will master this piece of software. For us the ‘On-demand’ feature will work well with Iridium and you can play with the settings to achieve the amount of data you are willing to download.

For details of Grib.US, either google it or follow the link below, you will be very pleased you did.

http://www.grib.us/