Need weather guru adviser during passage

[Toaster]

In case the OP is still listening.... His idea is good.

Finding someone with suitable experience who will help him with his passage is worth the effort. This will be especially true if bad weather arrives unexpectedly.

Case in point, our passage from Seattle to Hilo a couple years ago. We set out in what seemed like perfect conditions, and made good time for five days. Then the first hurricane spun up off MX. No advance warning in any of the models. We altered course a bit, keeping further north. Then the second hurricane spun up. Then the third. And by the time we reached Hilo, it was a race against the fourth, Hurricane Darby. We beat it to Hilo by about six hours (it was downgraded to TS by then).

We had an inReach and most importantly, a friend on shore who is the navigator in races (eg Transpac) . We got daily, and sometimes after every model update (6 hours). His predictions were made using Expedition, and they were usually very good in the short term. He routinely compared models, though he did have his favorite (I forget which). They did accurately predict the pathways of the hurricanes, and we did base our routing very much on that.

We also had Wefax and religiously compared it with the predictions. If we had only had wefax, I think we'd have had an even rougher ride, or would have just ended up in the light air up north and taken two extra weeks.

The inReach weather forecasts are very limited in scope. I cannot see how you could use them for routing.

Thanks to everyone for the interesting discussion.

Van

[Pelagic]

When something rapidly developing like these 17m waves on approaches to Japan happens....it is good to have shore side support to tweak as Mich info as possible
http://gcaptain.com/17-meter-signifi...eid=0a4d88d4b5

[conachair]

Originally Posted by Toaster

Finding someone with suitable experience who will help him with his passage is worth the effort. This will be especially true if bad weather arrives unexpectedly.

Bad weather can arrive but with weather forecasting these days it really shouldn't be unexpected.... Even a cheap ssb reciever and smart phone will give you a good idea of what's coming days in advance.

I'll always thought of paying someone else as such a missed opportunity to get valuable experience of being self reliant. Pick a weather buoy somewhere offshore with live reports and start now, write down what will it be like tomorrow...a week away and see how close you are. And then share on here

They did accurately predict the pathways of the hurricanes, and we did base our routing very much on that.

You were offshore in hurricane season?? Psychiatrist you need, not a weather router

[robert sailor]

Not uncommon for passages from Mexico or US mainland to be made during the beginning of hurricane season and passages back to the mainland to be made in mid to later hurricane season. Odds are always with you and some of these stories about out running hurricanes are often embellished a bit as these passages are generally safe. Even being in Hawaii during hurricane season has some small risk associated with it but who wants to sail there in the winter.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by robert sailor

Not uncommon for passages from Mexico or US mainland to be made during the beginning of hurricane season and passages back to the mainland to be made in mid to later hurricane season. Odds are always with you and some of these stories about out running hurricanes are often embellished a bit as these passages are generally safe. Even being in Hawaii during hurricane season has some small risk associated with it but who wants to sail there in the winter.

Ta. Done Carib - north before right at the start but never felt the need of a weather router for info available on wfax or web page - would be far too scared relying on someone else for something as important as that .
Each to their own

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/news/h...al-hurricanes/

Going all the way back to the first post - fantastic discussion here regarding ocean passages and what can go wrong >

https://www.59-north.com/onthewindpo...blems-offshore

[stevekoerner]

I am the original poster.

Thank you for the interesting discussion here. I certainly had no expectation that such a lengthy discussion might result of my query. Yet, I actually did learn some very good stuff in reading through this thread. So thank you.

All of my reasons for seeking an expert advisor were pretty well covered in this discussion except one... That additional reason is that under some heavy weather conditions it can be very hard to deal with the computer and the Go unit. We've experienced circumstance where it is simply too rough to pull out the laptop and have a go at it; where all that is reasonably feasible to accomplish below deck is to get the foul weather gear off the best you can and get flat in your bunk. And that happens to be the circumstance that routing is most needed and perhaps also the circumstance that a most skillful weather reader is needed (or perhaps I should say, was needed to avoid such a situation if possible). I think even in the worst seas getting an advisory over the InReach is going to be doable.

We did get a really great volunteer to be our shoreside advisor. He is most qualified for the job and we are extremely pleased that he will be assisting.

There's still a lot on our to do list, so it's fairest to say in direct terms that I might not get a chance to read further responses that appear here. Best to all.

[Caroline Joan]

Sounds like you have Inreach Explorer+? Thats what I use. I just have a family member check my position on inreach.com & the use Sailing Weather - Marine Weather Forecasts for Sailors and Adventurers - PassageWeather to see what the weather is in our area and intended course (waypoints on Inreach) and report back to us using the 160 character messenger on InReach. On Passageweather.com if you click on animate its pretty easy to spot any bad weather over next 7 days. Family member only provides me with details if wind over 30kts is showing up (yellow, orange colur etc). Cheers

[GMN]

You should want to check our weather services - We offer Predict Wind as a weather forecasting service using GRIBs. Check it out!
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