Weather Information

When you head out for more than just a weekend of sailing what do you use for your weather information? I would think most folks get it from more than one source so in the poll above just list your primary source but write in and list by priority (most to least) down below.

Here in the Chesapeake Bay we've always used TV and VHS weather reports for our longer trips. Also used visual but never had a good understanding of clouds other than "Oh my God, it's headed this way!".

In June 2013 we teamed up with another boat for a trip to Bermuda. We hired Dane and Jennifer Clark as weather routers at a cost of $500 for three weeks. We didn't have SSB on our boat and our sat phone was completely useless so we relied on the other boat (they had SSB) for weather info once we got started. As it turned out we got separated by 24 hours and had to rely on a 5 day forecast for our solo trip over.

Our experience made me realize that:
1) I didn't want to pay for a service that we would eventually need year round.
2) We couldn't rely on anyone else but ourselves
3) We needed an SSB radio.

We recently took a 32 hour course on weather forecasting (www.chesneaumarineweather.com/) and will use all resources available via the SSB radio from NOAA and others.

Tom + Cheri Ward
IP420-35
La Vida Dulce

Hayden - The SSB radio is our next major purchase. We'll be getting the Icom M802 with P4 Pactor modem through Dockside Radio (docksideradio.com). We'll be using the KISS ground (www.kiss-ssb.com) and our already installed back stay antenna. We plan to use Sailmail and Wefax. Will need to get Parallels program to run Windows 8.1 on our Mac for the Sailmail.

With our upcoming retirement (December 2014) we're trying to keep expenses down to a minimum so for us the $250/year Sailmail fee is a good deal and we'll be doing our own weather routing using NOAA surface weather and 500 mB charts from the Ocean Prediction Center (www.opc.ncep.noaa.gov). Also plan to use the GRIB files and wave charts.

Tom