Global Map of How Difficult to Sail?

[mglonnro]

Originally Posted by Paul L

For passage planning average monthly wind speed is not very useful. Pilot charts like Cornels show percent of time and speed in each wind direction, wave heights, cyclone typical paths.....

Yes, I hear you and agree. Just want to turn it into colours somehow

I couldn't find any digital pilot chart data, but I'm sure there is somewhere.

[mglonnro]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

Five and forty years ago a friend and I campaigned a King's Cruiser 29 out of Vancouver. The boat was a "frozen snot" boat (as opposed to stick-built) built by Turan Venevestiamo. That's as close to Turku as I've ever been:-)!

Yes! I have the needed keyboard layout so I can write it with our letters: Turun Veneveistämö!

We can actually see that from our balcony. The original business ended in 1954 but nowadays it's still a boatyard/marina/restaurant/event venue. (see picture!)

Hej då :-)

TrentePieds

Hej och god natt

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by mglonnro

Yes, I hear you and agree. Just want to turn it into colours somehow

I couldn't find any digital pilot chart data, but I'm sure there is somewhere.

Well simplifying it down to a single number or color for instant gratification might be nice while you are not cruising. Not useful if you are actually cruising. It takes more effort.
The old US pilot charts are available online for freethe. You can display them in OpenCpn. The updated Cornel ones have some interesting changes.

[TrentePieds]

Quote:"...I have the needed keyboard layout so I can write it with our letters: Turun Veneveistämö!"

Blush. Well, yes, so do I, actually, but for us remote Scowegian cousins Finnish is a bit of a trick, and you'll just have to forgive that I'm not entirely on top of the orthography :-0)!

But to make up for that, I still, after these many, many years in foreign parts, sing an old scouts' marching song that goes to the tune of Finsk Rytterimarsj.

I'll spare our non-Scowegian friends a recitation of it, but if you are interested, here is first the tune, then the lyrics so you can have a go at singing it in Danish :-)!.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nlXgeiZ1UU

https://kalliope.org/en/text/roerdam2018031139

You will find that hiking five miles from an anchorage with an empty propane bottle in you arms to the nearest place where you can have it refilled, and back again with the full bottle, singing this song is nearly as efficacious as being led by a pipe band :-0!

TP

[Scotty Kiwi]

Sailing "difficulty" changes by the day, and in my area, by the hour and by the mile. Can be cruising along, not a care in the world, and next minute ... wham bam ... wind change, tide change, it all gets really tricky. And what's difficult for one yacht is straight forward for others.

But ... would wreck numbers, or better, wreck numbers/trips be a reasonable indicator of the risks to sailors in any particular area? Is that data available?

Then again, look at "wreck numbers" in some Carribean Islands last storm season ...

[TrentePieds]

Quote: "Then again, look at "wreck numbers" in some Carribean Islands last storm season ... "

Quite so. There is no substitute for nous :-)!

TP

[mglonnro]

Originally Posted by Scotty Kiwi

Sailing "difficulty" changes by the day, and in my area, by the hour and by the mile. Can be cruising along, not a care in the world, and next minute ... wham bam ... wind change, tide change, it all gets really tricky. And what's difficult for one yacht is straight forward for others.

But ... would wreck numbers, or better, wreck numbers/trips be a reasonable indicator of the risks to sailors in any particular area? Is that data available?

Then again, look at "wreck numbers" in some Carribean Islands last storm season ...

Well, "variability" in conditions might be something that could be quantified (sorry, TP, for wanting to turn nous into numbers).

But adding to the wreck idea: reasonably accurate global accident statistics would be super. I don't think there are any, though? This might give some idea about accident prone areas but even more interesting would be to see data the supports or rejects the thought that everything except Water boats">Blue Water Boats falls apart if they venture out to sea

[conachair]

Originally Posted by Paul L

For passage planning average monthly wind speed is not very useful. Pilot charts like Cornels show percent of time and speed in each wind direction, wave heights, cyclone typical paths.....

Wind percentage/direction data is in there, in the cogow tab. 2 week resolution.

A very useful resource, as are the data in the opencpn climatology plugin.



Climatology of Global Ocean Winds - COGOW

[Chotu]

I don't know. Water is water. Doesn't matter where you are.

It's only immediate weather conditions that really make things difficult.

Some areas have bad weather more often. That's about it. Otherwise it's all the same.

[mglonnro]

Originally Posted by Chotu

I don't know. Water is water. Doesn't matter where you are.

It's only immediate weather conditions that really make things difficult.

Some areas have bad weather more often. That's about it. Otherwise it's all the same.

Some areas have tidal ranges of 15 meters. That's quite amazing.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by mglonnro

Some areas have tidal ranges of 15 meters. That's quite amazing.

I suppose. But not a big deal if that's where you learned. I learned in a northern climate with pretty large tidal range and currents exceeding the hull speed of smaller boats.

Difficult for me is docking at fixed piers with pilings and rigid, hard docks in the tropics. I'm always smashing into the pilings or struggling somehow with those things.

None of these are difficult or easy things. They are just what you are used to. It is truly just the weather that changes on the water. If you grew up sailing in large tidal ranges with heavy currents, it's just second nature.

When you change regions that's when it gets difficult. No region is any more difficult than another, it's weather and depth and toplogy that affect the difficulty as they change winds and water surface conditions.

And weather events are transitory.

You often hear about Northern ceiling being difficult compared to Tropical sailing. That's not even the case at all times. What about when that hurricane comes through? Much harder than any Northern sailing.

I guess my point is, it does not have to do with geography. It has to do with conditions. And conditions are transitory.

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by conachair

Wind percentage/direction data is in there, in the cogow tab. 2 week resolution.

A very useful resource, as are the data in the opencpn climatology plugin.



Climatology of Global Ocean Winds - COGOW

Doesn't run on my tablet.
I assume this data is primarily from the ASCAT satellites. That's the same data that the Cornell pilot charts use. In pilot charts you see all the wind roses with percentages at one time over an entire ocean, along with number of days per month of storms and lulls..

[TrentePieds]

On my shelf I have a treasured copy of Jens Kusk Jensen's Haandbog i Praktisk Sømandsskab, a book FFT might like to see if he can locate as a handy guide to handling Suomen Joutsen, should he be stricken with a yearning for taking 'er across the way to visit Cap'n Erikson ;-).

On my wall I have a lovely rendering of the clippership Thermopylae standing in for Victoria (BC) and taking the pilot aboard in a heavy swell and thick mist after a voyage from the Orient. She was homeported in Victoria from 1891 to 1895. Her fastest passage from Bangkok was 29 days. Her longest passage was 101 days on a voyage when she'd battled foul weather all the way across, and had been kept off the mouth of the Straits of Juan deFuca for two weeks. The stretch of the North American west coast, from Cape Flattery all the way up the west coast of Vancouver Island to Cape Scott is known hereabouts as "the Graveyard of Ships" and merits FFT's deepest red :-). And so does all the stretch south from Cape Flattery to Cabo San Lucas and even as far as Cape Stiff.

All that by way of leading into a caution against spurious accuracy. A phenomenon as capricious as misfortune at sea is not IMO subject to reduction or quantification in the manner FFT suggests. Such a reduction can, of course, be performed easily enuff in this age of naughts and ones and of "algorithms" sprouting everywhere like dandelions in a miskept lawn. But such a reduction cannot tell us anything we don't already know if we have any sense at all of the history of seafaring. As many posters have pointed out above, the information FFT wishes to put on his chart is already available in more useful form, if only you know where to look for it, and in a manner that is not a bar to useful understanding and practical application as, IMO, a grossly simplified chart would be. Gross simplifications lead to unwarranted confidence. I think a great many people here would agree with that - and that if, as skipper, you aren't constantly apprehensive, you simply don't understand your situation :-)!

I think we have a member here who is currently in Helsinki having just returned from the Denmark Strait. He might have something to say about the relative "difficulty" of the coast of Greenland versus the smiling shores of Skåne :-)

TP

[TrentePieds]

Quote: "Some areas have tidal ranges of 15 meters. That's quite amazing"

Well, it may be amazing, but it is NOT a difficulty. In some ways it simplifies your life :-)

I grew up and learned to sail where the tidal range is something like 6 inches, call it 15 centimetres. Where I sail now the range is something like 16 feet, call it 3 metres. The water's movement up and down is of no consequence. The movement of water back and forth is, but the world is so wonderfully arranged that once the water flows at a rate near to your boat's "hull speed" or more, you either can't go through the passage in question because the stream won't let you, or you SHOULDN'T go through the passage because the speed of the current added to your speed through the water makes it dangerous to do so. So you simply wait for slack water. Doing so is not a "difficulty". It's often a welcome opportunity to grab a nosh.

Occasionally when my itinerary has been tight, and I've had to go through a pass such as Dodd's Narrows on a fair stream of seven knots or so (my speed being about five knots), I've been naughty, turned the boat around and let the stream take me through stern first at a speed over the ground of 2 knots (7 - 5). Having to do so is not a "difficulty". It simply calls for a technique that is well known locally, although frowned on by people such as RYA instructors :-) In the days before ubiquitous VHF, doing so could be a bit dodgy because there is a blind corner in Dodd's. These days you simply make a "securite" call and verify that there are no other boats in the narrows before you commit yourself to the embrace of the stream. Others, having been warned by VHF of your intention, will stay clear of the hole in the wall till you emerge at their end.

Here, FFT, is a clip of boat handling in Dodd's narrows:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqSqnhLHGto

And here, for your further delectation is a clip of a different narrows called "Skookumchuck" ("Strong Waters" in the language of the local indigenous people, a language even more extraordinary than Finnish :-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dXcu1wsn5Q

Now, that skipper is obviously a bit of a cowboy, but he is using essentially the same technique I do: Position the boat in the deepest part of the channel and hold her there without regard to heading, then let the current take you through.

Anyway, FFT, if you get over this way, send me a PM and we'll go sailing :-)

Cheers

TP

[mglonnro]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

Anyway, FFT, if you get over this way, send me a PM and we'll go sailing :-)

Thank you for the kind invite! I will surely PM you if this is the case.

I think you (and the other commentators) make excellent points!

As the the discussion about what is difficult or not:

a) Yes, obviously it's all relative and subjective, but it should still be possible to aggregate useful generalized information. (It's generally easier to hike up a small hill than to climb Mount Everest, for an average man or woman, in average conditions.)

b) Chartering is supposed to become more common as time goes by, and this means more people with varying skills boldly going to sail in places they haven't sailed before.

c) Sunsail has a rating system based on sailing conditions and skipper experience. They have come up with the idea that the BVIs is "easier" than the Seychelles. Maybe it's based on their experiences as charter operators? That on average, ... ? You don't need that much of experience to qualify as "level 3", though ...

https://www.sunsail.com/sailing-vaca...vels-explained