Atlantic Circuit: Cheapest way to get weather at sea?

AndrewB said:
Too true. If there's a tropical storm around, you REALLY need to know where it is.

Around 25 years ago we came across Mike Richie in Jester, becalmed about 500 miles out from the Azores. We'd heard a warning from Herb (remember him?) of a tropical storm following us, which we passed on. We headed south, and the worst we had was a few very wet hours of F8. But Mike Richie told us he didn't pay too much heed to forecasts, and carried on. He later wrote it up (YM, Nov '97) as an 'awesome' storm.
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I certainly do pay lots of heed to forecasts! I remember MR's pieces in YM..which always seemed very expert..

I wonder if there is a 'son of Herb' who fills his boots these days?
 
Ohlin Karcher said:
You can be sure I will be logging the pressure that's a given..I was coming rapidly to the same conclusion about InReach, for my purposes, ie NBG.
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Depends on what you consider cheap and simple. It may well be that (after the barometer and DIY), getting someone on shore who knows what they are doing, and relaying relevant facts via InReach texts is the cheapest and simplest.
 
GHA said:
Not as many as do with good forecasting.. coming back dodging 50Nm south with a low coming in can make a huge difference.
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Yeah, being slightly serious, gadgets are good. Vital for racing, very handy for delivery skippers and good to have for safety for the rest.

I've used Iridium feeding a laptop on a programme I can't remember (!) a few times. Excellent, I bet you will know it. Atlantic and Pacific. Dogs doodahs.

Garmin in reach I used in a January crossing this year. Was very useful as Mrs. S did the weather routing for me. Four translates herself and great knowledge of weather, that helps!

But four crossings on our own boat, well, barometer as above plus observation.

Realistically, once you clear the Canaries, going south and a bit west til you get the trades works for lots of months and stay under the cloud trains! Wind dies, edge south....

Coming back at the usual time, April to June, you are gonna get two storms almost guaranteed and probably not dodge able. Wind will be aft, shorten sail and enjoy the ride! Halo round the sun.....tells it all.

Anyway OP, if you happen to call into Lanzarote, Gizza shout! And have a good circuit.
 
capnsensible said:
Coming back at the usual time, April to June, you are gonna get two storms almost guaranteed and probably not dodge able. Wind will be aft, shorten sail and enjoy the ride! Halo round the sun.....tells it all.
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Or for the cost of a night out you can have all the synoptics for free, head south a bit or north a bit to make life a little or a lot better. Why wouldn't you? It's pennies in boat terms. And you get a decent hf radio to listen to the religious crazies or china international. :)

Just seems just completely daft not to have such a huge amount of info on what the entire north atlantic weather is doing.
 
Ohlin Karcher said:
I've tried in in harbour with the exact same results, but being used to Navtex reception often being shaky in port, I thought it might not be a fair test.
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Big difference out to sea. I did Carib - UK with a degen 1103 plugged into the car radio FM aerial, didn't know anything about radio then :) New orleans then boston then dwd. Not always or even often a perfect image but easily enough to see what was going on.
 
capnsensible said:
Yeah, being slightly serious, gadgets are good. Vital for racing, very handy for delivery skippers and good to have for safety for the rest.

I've used Iridium feeding a laptop on a programme I can't remember (!) a few times. Excellent, I bet you will know it. Atlantic and Pacific. Dogs doodahs.

Garmin in reach I used in a January crossing this year. Was very useful as Mrs. S did the weather routing for me. Four translates herself and great knowledge of weather, that helps!

But four crossings on our own boat, well, barometer as above plus observation.

Realistically, once you clear the Canaries, going south and a bit west til you get the trades works for lots of months and stay under the cloud trains! Wind dies, edge south....

Coming back at the usual time, April to June, you are gonna get two storms almost guaranteed and probably not dodge able. Wind will be aft, shorten sail and enjoy the ride! Halo round the sun.....tells it all.

Anyway OP, if you happen to call into Lanzarote, Gizza shout! And have a good circuit.
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Thanks yes my boat was fitted out in Bermuda and got a horrible pasting bringing her back to Sussex in 1960, so she has previous experience..just as you say, on that bit of the circuit it seems unavoidable, posters on here and many over the centuries have found storms on the W to E voyage.
 
Just rent (or buy secondhand) an Iridium satphone.

Pay per use for the data and download gribs.

You also then have a phone for emergency situations (pre-program Falmouth coastguard into it).

It's worth the money.
 
Iridium Sat phone £795 to buy, rental also available.
https://www.satphone.co.uk/product/iridium-9555-satellite-phone/#plan-type

You'd also need a boat fast enough to take advantage of weather routing.
I believe Roger Taylor removed the barometer prior to his last voyage. His view was
that as his boat is not fast enough to take advantage of weather routing the
barometer was superfluous.
 
steve350 said:
Iridium Sat phone £795 to buy, rental also available.
https://www.satphone.co.uk/product/iridium-9555-satellite-phone/#plan-type

You'd also need a boat fast enough to take advantage of weather routing.
I believe Roger Taylor removed the barometer prior to his last voyage. His view was
that as his boat is not fast enough to take advantage of weather routing the
barometer was superfluous.
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I have an old 9505A, but am told it is incompatible with the latest digital weather witchcraft, I wont spend 795 and the charges are extortionate anyway!
 
You can't outrun or avoid much in a small monohull so you just need to watch the barometer and sky. I have used a cheap ssb receiver and an old lap top to get weather faxes which were more useful on the way back. But still it was only a warning of what was to come rather than a way to avoid bad weather. I've now got a target receiver which works well and also means you can listen to nets and hear other yacht reports of their weather. Have a good trip.
 
Neil_Y said:
You can't outrun or avoid much in a small monohull so you just need to watch the barometer and sky.
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This simply isn't true. It may be so for a large depression system in higher latitudes. But for a tropical storm/hurricane/cyclone in open ocean you can and do need to get out of its way. The standard methods for doing so are explained in the RYA Ocean Yachtmaster syllabus, as well as in related books.

Old time salts may have been able to read the signs and direction of a tropical storm from the sky, swell and barometer. A proper weather forecast though gives much more warning and a better idea its strength and position.
 
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Ohlin Karcher said:
I've tried in in harbour with the exact same results, but being used to Navtex reception often being shaky in port, I thought it might not be a fair test.
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You need a good antenna and they are easy to make. You can connect a wire to the shrouds. That sometimes works well, or haul a wire to the mast using a spare halyard. It should work fine even in a marina. Switch all electrics off in the boat if you have interference to isolate the problem.
 
SV Kittiwake said:
Do you have a sailing buddy who's on shore who could send you a summary via inReach?
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On my last Transat this was the system used via a rather complex code giving 3 days of weather at predetermined points via txt messages to InReach. A lot of work for the shore contact but cheap and effective. My experience of SSB on 2 crossings has been pretty woeful.
A recent thread suggested ships maintain a listening watch on 16; not my experience in trying to obtain weather.
 
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Neil_Y said:
You can't outrun or avoid much in a small monohull so you just need to watch the barometer and sky.....
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I disagree.
It can be a beat at times, and going the wrong way up an Atlantic-sized beat is a little frustrating.

OTOH it might be your last chance to be properly out of touch with the world!
 
lw395 said:
I disagree.
It can be a beat at times, and going the wrong way up an Atlantic-sized beat is a little frustrating.

OTOH it might be your last chance to be properly out of touch with the world!
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Did you go the wrong way against the trade winds or something? Challenge boat?
 
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