Help needed to choose weather info system

[rfnk]

I'm bringing a boat home from New Zealand to Australia in April. The boat currently has SSB, VHF and that's about it. I'm keen to install a system for accessing weather information. What would you suggest? All good ideas welcome!

Rick

[Ocean Girl]

XM marine weather. Marine | XM WX Satellite Weather | SiriusXM
Expensive and may be overkill for what you want, but this is on our wish list for cruising. It can link to your chart plotter.
Hope that helps

[rfnk]

Originally Posted by Ocean Girl

XM marine weather. Marine | XM WX Satellite Weather | SiriusXM
Expensive and may be overkill for what you want, but this is on our wish list for cruising. It can link to your chart plotter.
Hope that helps

Thanks! I checked it out. According to the site, there's only US and Canada coverage - so I hope we won't need that! We don't have a chartplotter either, although I expect I'll be including a laptop and iPad.

Rick

[Ocean Girl]

Sorry, I didn't realize they were US/Canada only, crazy.
Erika

[Ocean Girl]

Just ran into these folks through a link on womenandcruising.com
Sailing Weather - Marine Weather Forecasts for Sailors and Adventurers - PassageWeather
Erika

[rfnk]

Passage Weather looks great. It contains instructions on downloading data via satellite phone but others have told me that even this is fairly unachievable. Any advice re accessing weather info via HF receiver and converting that to iPad display would be very welcome! Or info re a laptop that uses very little power that could interpret HF output.

Rick

[Paul Elliott]

How about using an iPad to decode SSB WFAX transmissions? I've not tried it, but here's an app that does that: HF Weather Fax

[Boracay]

Without knowing where your departure and arrival points are it's hard to offer detailed advice. I have no first hand experience of ocean passage weather so take the following with a grain of what ever.

The best weather forecasts come from the internet as you probably already know. Some seem quite reliable for 3 days but it starts getting more and more fuzzy as the forecast period extends. It would be a good idea to familiarise yourself with the idiosyncrasies of any that you plan to use.

If you have a SSB receiver it can be connected to a computer to receive weather faxes and forecasts. This can be tricky so again it's a good idea to try different software and to check that everything works. There are BOM marine weather forecasts forecasts from Australia on a regular schedule.

New Zealand probably has something similar.

This site has some useful tips.

I've seen a few good comments on Passage Weather.

However from reports it would seem that custom weather reports from an experienced personal meteorologist are the best way to go. Something like what is to be found here or here. You'd probably need a satellite phone.

I have a hazy recollection of their being some New Zealand custom weather forecasters but can't find a website.

[phiggins]

I use PassageWeather and have my wife at home download the zip files for Wind and Waves and send them to me via two seperate emails which I receive on my satellite phone. Most of the time they are spot on.