I'm sorry to harp on this subject, but the weather is pretty important when you're sailing.
Part of the World ARC 'Package' provided by World Cruising is weather forecasting. For the ARC and ARC Europe, this is provided by E-mail every day, and is repeated by the Duty Operator during the Noon radio schedule. This works well, and a forecaster based in the Isle of Wight, convenient for World Cruising's Headquarters, does the necessary, giving written area forecasts in a format we are all familiar with and could understand. But World-wide forecasting is more difficult to provide, particularly on a long-term basis. Initially we were given free access to Moving Weather, a service provided by an organisation in Horsham (would you believe). Well, there is no reason why an organisation based close(ish) to Gatwick Airport should not provide world-wide forecasts for yachtsmen, but it's not the most obvious place! The forecasts themselves were based on a do-it-yourself menu, where we could select an area of interest, say what detail we requried, press a button and hey-presto, an e-mail would go winging off to Horsham and back would come another e-mail with the requested detail on it, which when pasted onto a rather ritzy map, gave the weather in pictures even yachtsmen could understand. But even if the forecasts were accurate (and they were not very reliable - I found a spurious 40-knot gale in one, which shot across the whole Caribbean Sea in about an hour), it was a tedious process. With broad-band access to the World Wide Web, forecasts were virtually instantaneous, but at sea, the reply had to be downloaded separately from the request. There was quite a lot of details, and this mean a lot of information, which is time consuming and expensive when squeezed through a little satellite link.
So quite early on, World Cruising sensibly abandoned Moving Weather, and we were put on to a bespoke service from the US-based Commanders' Weather. As far as anyone could tell, these forecasts were pretty good - even at times accurate. But even given the origins of the service, they were so badly written as to make interpretation of their content a marathon task! And so we were almost back where we had started. But the gods who look after sailors, or maybe World Cruising (and perhaps they are one and the same thing?) have latterly switched to an Australian forecaster. Naturally enough (as anyone old enough to remember Monty Python will remember) he's called Bruce. Not only does he produce focused, accurate and detailed forecasts, but also they are properly spelt and in immaculate, readable English. Long may he continue to be our weather guru!
And what has Bruce served up today? Well, he's been right on the button. There is a band of squally showers, and we're driving right through it. This is the result of an active low pressure system, away down to the south of us. Bruce said yesterday to expect winds from NNW to NW, then round to the SW, with short gusts of up to 35 knots. At the moment, we've had nearly all of that, and some very solid rain as well - all three of us have been soaked. The yachts ahead of us (the whole of the rest of the fleet, in fact) report that the winds are backing further. Accuracy like that, with better weather to follow - what more can you ask for from your forecaster?
Thank goodness the Skipper is not cooking tonight. We might get a decent meal and on time!
All well with us, and best wishes to everyone..
James, Elizabeth and Will
Yacht Cleone