Any top tips for Med Passage Planning Websites

[martin]

HI all.

Elle has completed the first leg of the journey.....St Kats to Poole where Seacraft did an amazing job of fitting AC, Bimini and Passerelle and other bits for the med..

She is now sitting in South Quay awaiting shipment to Palma on the 5th May...Hopefully, arriving sometime around the 11th... Horrah !

So assuming safe transit to Palma, my wife and I will fly out and meet her at Palma and then do the last leg from Palma to St Carles on our own. Maybe stopping off at the Columbrete Islands on the way.

Being new to passage planning out in the med, I wondered if any one had any tips or websites that could help me make the passage plan easier.

Martin

 

[kashurst]

have a look at windfinder - always seems pretty good for the med.

 

[DavidJ]

a good one is
www.passageweather.com

 

[BartW]

have a look at windfinder - always seems pretty good for the med.

+1, I've got "pro" windfinder app on my Iphone, and use "superforecast" all the time.
Store regular places as favourites.

This app gets data from nearby weatherstations, like airports fe.
Works for me very good !

 

[Lozzer]

The Columbrettes is an absolute must it is a little gem of a place..

A weather app I like is LaMMA you have to mess around with it a little as its in Italian but once sorted its great, really accurate.

Else Pocketgrib, winderfiner etc.. Aemet the Spanish forecaster is good but they tend to err on the cautious side..

 

[martin]

Thanks for the tips guys. I usually go with Windfinder in Uk so glad to hear it is just as good in Med.
I will try the others as well as hadn't heard of them. Will let you know how I get on !

 

[jimmy_the_builder]

Good luck with the trip - and I agree your comments about Seacraft, Mark and Mark are very good at what they do, their installation work is first class.

 

[BartW]

A weather app I like is LaMMA you have to mess around with it a little as its in Italian but once sorted its great, really accurate.

yes I use that for wave hight prediction,
when making long passages over the open sea, I use more than one prediction,
mostly Windfinder + Lamma

 

[Hurricane]

Three things
Windguru (www.windguru.cz)
Passageweather
And "go to cursor" on your plotter.

BTW the Columbrettes can be a bit bleek sometimes - it in the middle of nowhere.
Lovely place when the weather is good but not comfortable if rough.
If you go, keep away from the outlying islands/rocks - there are buoys you can use inside the coldrum of the big island - the one with the big lighthouse.
Actually, the Columbrettes are more "on the way" between Ibiza and SC rather than Mallorca and SC
Here are a few pics of the Columbrettes

Things to watch out for when approaching SC
A few pots - well marked
The local fishing fleet return about 17:00 every day (as many as 100 boats)
There are 2 marked channels that can take you into the lagoon.
The first marks a shipping channel into the cement works
The second runs right up to the main SC harbour wall.
We only tend to use the channels at night to avoid any pots etc.
It is shorter if you don't use the marked channels - most of us go straight in.
All straight forward but keep your distance from the sand bank that forms the southern tip of the lagoon - keep it on your right(starboard) by at least 500m as you enter the lagoon.
Alternatively, use the marked channels.

As previously discussed, if you have time, we are still "on track" to be in Alcudia from (about) 4th May until the 10th/11th May.

 

[martin]

Thanks for the info Mike.
We had originally planned to hook up with you in Alcudia and watch the iron man.

However, the ship carrying Elle has been delayed and is now not planned to arrive until the day before the race, which is to tight for planning purposes. I have no idea what condition she will be in when I get her back and no idea what the weather will be like so will leave it until last minute.

If we manage to get a break and it all happens slightly earlier, we will definitely pop round and say hi.
Otherwise, we will get her in the water and set off for the mainland straight away.

The Columbrete decision will be the similar. If we feel like a stop over we will give it a go, but as SHMBO pointed out, she really wants to get Elle over to her long term berth, get her unpacked, cleaned up and then settle in and chill for a few days.

 

[anterak]

Here is web-based turkish state meteorological service wind & wave model for all Med : http://212.175.180.126/DTS/sea.php
Very practical, you can plan your trip, and sea weather and sea condition at each point on the map. I used to double control information with ZyGrib software and information from the turkish website are trustable. The only thing which is average is the information about waves (like swel, maximum wave height, average wave height), i find them on Zygrib Software : http://www.zygrib.org/index.php?page=abstract_en