Perdictwind

[CaptJamesCook]

Perdict wind do you use it?

Are you happy with it?

What do you use it with?

PC? Ipad? Android? Phone?

Pros-Cons

[Dave_S]

Let me say before I go on that I am new to this and have not used any other program before to compare.

I use the budget version and find it is usually wrong. I use it in Moreton Bay mostly. I use it quite often and if you follow it for a week you can see a trend forming i.e. the winds for a particular day softening or increasing. Maybe the timing for a northerly gradually moves closer or farther away in time.

It maybe in a bay that it is hard to predict wind flows around islands etc but they say they are good at it so no excuse there.

If you pick it up today for the first time and want to know what it will be like in 2-3 days from my experience it will most likely be wrong.

[Dave_S]

From ^^^

PS...... Sorry, I use it on an Android tablet, I can load it onto the B&G plotter but I'm not live aboard and need to watch it for a few days beforehand looking for a trend.

[B00B00]

We use the offshore app with the iridium go. Or if in cell reception i use my phones data to check weather on the website. I have the professional package but only because we have a huge amount of offshore miles to cover(done 5000 and have 8000 to go). Normally i just have the basic cheap package.

[Paul L]

I don't use Predictwind, so take this with a grain of salt. They seem to have a decent setup for grabbing weather via sat data connections.
The thing I don't like about PW is their silly (to me) extra two weather models. These are just tweaks of the GFS and Euro models. They are not new, better models - nor did they cost 10s of millions to develop like a real model.
Now with 4 models to choose from it is even harder to understand what is to come in the days ahead while on passage. It takes a lot of effort while onshore before leaving in some locations to make sense of the differences between the Euro model and GFS. Adding two more models for marketing hype doesn't help the situation.

[ozsailer]

G'day Can Cook,
I have been using Predict wind for the past 4 years. I used to have the free version but upgraded to the basic unit as this suited our coastal cruising of the East Australian Coast.
Like many I used to look at a range of ohter sites including but not limited to Wind Guru, Willy Weather, BOM etc. Rarely did each site have the same forecast. In fact they were so different at times it just became a lottery.
I started using Predict wind in conjunction with Meteye on the Australian Beareau of Meterology site. Over time I found that the weather prediction was around 90 to 95%. As predictwind uses several computer models one can see very quickly that if they are in alignment with each other its a pretty safe bet its good to go.I like the fact that its a very easy site to understand and basically view in a very informative and easy to undertand format.
As always nothing is perfect and predictwind has been incorrect at times, as has every other weather predicting service. Sue and I have been very happy to date and I have no doubt we would use their routing service if we planned longer trips in the future.


Greg and Sue
Sunshine Lagoon 410 S2
Lake Macquarie Aus.

[CaptJamesCook]

ozsailor
What do you use it on mostly? Ipad ,pc, phone ?

[ozsailer]

Hello Captn C,
while I have program on my apple laptop and on my android as well as on my home computer. The detail on the laptop is excellent. I use the forecast tables and the wind maps most frequently. Personally I appreciate the features of coloured wind strengths etc so at a glance one can see forecast wind strengths. The gust strength is a relatively new part of predict wind which I am using more.
Wave and swell height are also an important part of site which I also use a great deal. Here in Australia the weather bureau can supply one forecast for an area of coast over 120 long. With predict wind I can get a much more effective forecast within a 20KM range of where I want to sail.
As stated its not perfect but it suites our purposes quite nicely.


Greg H

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by ozsailer

......
Wave and swell height are also an important part of site which I also use a great deal. Here in Australia the weather bureau can supply one forecast for an area of coast over 120 long. With predict wind I can get a much more effective forecast within a 20KM range of where I want to sail.
As stated its not perfect but it suites our purposes quite nicely.

Greg H

Which weather model do you use on PW?
Most of the large scale weather models do not do well with land effects. The Aussie BOM Meteye models do include land effects and maybe better inshore.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by Paul L

Which weather model do you use on PW?
Most of the large scale weather models do not do well with land effects. The Aussie BOM Meteye models do include land effects and maybe better inshore.

This has been our general experience with MEt Eye, too. Not perfect by any means, but it does seem to factor in more land/sea interface effects than the global models do... and it seems to be getting better over time.

Some areas, and the D'Entrecasteaux channel is surely one of them,have such micro-effects that they don't appear on Met Eye. The channel is a very complicated arena for wind interactions, with land and sea breezes, katabatic winds and frequent frontal passages, plus narrow valleys and some steep gradients nearby and the Southern Ocean lurking just around the corner... it can be very frustrating to sail through! And I bet it is frustrating for the forcasters, too! I suspect there are other areas with similar issues, but for the general coastal areas, Met Eye seems damn good to me.

Sure beats the hell out of what was available even a decade ago, let alone when some of us old farts started sailing. I appreciate it!

Jim

[bgallinger]

I have been using PredictWind for a few years. I use the Standard version on a PC and an android phone. They use 4 models, but I wish they would just use Euro and GFS. The other 2 just confuse the issue. Layout is good, price is ok and of course it works with Iridium Go which is great. I like it

[derekbreth]

We have the pro version on pc and iPad. We have used it extensively since we left the UK, across Biscay, down the Atlantic coast, transatlantic, then up through the Caribbean chain, Bermuda, up to Boston then back down the East coast to the Caribbean. Unlike others we have actually found the PWG to often be more accurate than the GFS and euro models. Departure planning and routing have both worked well for us, but obviously you need to ensure your polars are reasonably accurate. On passage we use it through the SSB / Pactor which works well, inshore through cell or Wi-fi. It’s especially nice that the Offshore app can be used over Wi-fi / cell now.

[CaptJamesCook]

Thanking everyone for the input.
I know absolutely nothing about the electronics. It is in a downward learning curve right now..
I am using the predictwind on my laptop.

I am right now quite a distance from my chartplotter. About 12 hours drive.
Once you have done the weather routing, how do you get the exact info for the course you choose.

I am also unsure of the polar setting for wind and wave.

Any suggestions?

[derekbreth]

Hi, you can get a complete set of waypoints out of Predictwind but we never bother. We just sail the approximate route if we believe it’s the best. As for the polars, there are a range of boats to pick from so we just picked a similar model to ours then there is a neat option to adjust the percentage, so for example we are a little slower sailing short handed than the example we chose so we then reduce the percentage to about 84% which seems to give us reasonably similar performance to how Predictwind says we should perform. Alternatively if you know your own boats polars then you can input those directly. Incidentally I stated in my last post that we use the pro version but actually we now use the standard version. Pro gives you ocean currents plus a few other bits but costs a bit more. Standard gives you the departure planning and routing which is what we find most valuable.

[CaptJamesCook]

Thanks for the insight.
I like the idea of being able to switch between versions..