oldvarnish
Well-Known Member
And the Royal Cruising Club medal for Services to Cruising
Herb Hilgenberg (Southbound II0 retires
- Thread starter lenseman
- Start date
And the Royal Cruising Club medal for Services to Cruising
KellysEye
Well-Known Member
>I'll get on to the Ocean Cruising Club about an award.
Contacted them, he got an award in 1998 and should be getting another one if all goes to plan.
Contacted them, he got an award in 1998 and should be getting another one if all goes to plan.
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Bajansailor
Well-Known Member
It is the end of an era for sure.
We were listening to his net every day 18 years ago when sailing from the Caribbean to Newport, Rhode Island via Bermuda, and his forecasts and advice were always spot on.
Woe betide though if you didn't do what he told you to do..........
We had excellent help when crossing the Gulf Stream; a boat behind us (also bound for Newport from Bermuda) decided that they knew better and left Bermuda despite Herb urging them to stay.
We arrived in Newport with the first hurricane of the season hot on our heels - the other boat was not so lucky. The best they could do was Herbs advice to 'stop', on the Bermuda side of the Gulf Stream - not much point in sailing back towards Bermuda, they got fairly pasted.
Just a couple on board; she vowed never to do an offshore passage again when we met up with them in Newport, much meeker than our previous encounter in St Georges.
We were listening to his net every day 18 years ago when sailing from the Caribbean to Newport, Rhode Island via Bermuda, and his forecasts and advice were always spot on.
Woe betide though if you didn't do what he told you to do..........
We had excellent help when crossing the Gulf Stream; a boat behind us (also bound for Newport from Bermuda) decided that they knew better and left Bermuda despite Herb urging them to stay.
We arrived in Newport with the first hurricane of the season hot on our heels - the other boat was not so lucky. The best they could do was Herbs advice to 'stop', on the Bermuda side of the Gulf Stream - not much point in sailing back towards Bermuda, they got fairly pasted.
Just a couple on board; she vowed never to do an offshore passage again when we met up with them in Newport, much meeker than our previous encounter in St Georges.
lenseman
Well-Known Member
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Bajansailor
Well-Known Member
Aye, I can think of a radio ham called David who would be brilliant at this job! 
He gave us wonderful weather reports when we sailed to high latitudes on Idea last year.
I am thinking that nowadays a lot of folk have somebody at home monitoring the likes of www.passageweather.com, and then sending the crew emails by Satcom re what this site says, but even passageweather doesn't come close to having your own personalised forecast.
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He gave us wonderful weather reports when we sailed to high latitudes on Idea last year. I am thinking that nowadays a lot of folk have somebody at home monitoring the likes of www.passageweather.com, and then sending the crew emails by Satcom re what this site says, but even passageweather doesn't come close to having your own personalised forecast.
.tcm
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Meh. I went across 11 times without "logging in". I didn't like the way ( I heard, 2nd hand) he demanded "control" of the boat. In other words, when (say) he told people to keep south and they didn't - he canned them from further personalised routings.
Also of course nowhere near as accurate as BxWx - while Herb was telling people heading East to stay south of the Azores bout 3 years ago, I headed direct to Horta and burned past, no problems, and they were dropped in windless zone for an extra half a day. Seems he was super-cautious.
Also of course nowhere near as accurate as BxWx - while Herb was telling people heading East to stay south of the Azores bout 3 years ago, I headed direct to Horta and burned past, no problems, and they were dropped in windless zone for an extra half a day. Seems he was super-cautious.
jdc
Well-Known Member
Lobby Ofcom!
Well, not quite, I fear. Herb Hilgenberg provided his service on the marine band at 12359.0 kHz, not on an amateur band.
Amateurs have to restrict themselves to a smaller and more congested range of frequencies, the 7MHz and 14MHz bands being the nearest. Frequently the best channel is above 7 and below 14, so amateur bands are not always as good, and secondly amateur bands are crowded with 'DXers' who have nothing useful to say and all evening go clog up the air time with their dreadfully sloppy 'G for Germany, S for sugar' type [lack of] procedure (I write as both an amateur and having an LRC). An additional but admittedly minor point is that a different licence, and possibly HF set, would be required for sailors were the net to move to amateur bands; I suppose not all LRC holders also have full amateur licences or have opened up the set for operation in both, and call signs could no longer be the boat's.
So if we are to encourage someone to take over it should be on the maritime bands. However it's illegal to talk to ships on maritime bands from a land station without a special licence. So one would have to apply to Ofom for one. And guess what, Ofcom won't issue them and have no procedure to do so (I asked).
It's absurd. 50 or more years ago a commercial monopoly of talking to ships on MF or HF was granted to coast stations and whole swathes of spectrum allocated to this. Virtually all (in the UK all) such maritime land stations have now closed down but still none of these frequencies have been either freed up for amateur use or made available to new commercial or non-commercial operators.
So a call to arms - or at least pens - complain to Ofcom either directly or via your local MP!
Of course their excuse will be "...blah...it's all got to be internationally agreed via the ITU...blah...conference in 2019...harmonised EU approach...tea at 3pm...blah". But frankly that's all boll*^%$. Canada and Germany, to name just two, manage fine.
What is needed is another radio ham who can forecast the weather accurately.
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Well, not quite, I fear. Herb Hilgenberg provided his service on the marine band at 12359.0 kHz, not on an amateur band.
Amateurs have to restrict themselves to a smaller and more congested range of frequencies, the 7MHz and 14MHz bands being the nearest. Frequently the best channel is above 7 and below 14, so amateur bands are not always as good, and secondly amateur bands are crowded with 'DXers' who have nothing useful to say and all evening go clog up the air time with their dreadfully sloppy 'G for Germany, S for sugar' type [lack of] procedure (I write as both an amateur and having an LRC). An additional but admittedly minor point is that a different licence, and possibly HF set, would be required for sailors were the net to move to amateur bands; I suppose not all LRC holders also have full amateur licences or have opened up the set for operation in both, and call signs could no longer be the boat's.
So if we are to encourage someone to take over it should be on the maritime bands. However it's illegal to talk to ships on maritime bands from a land station without a special licence. So one would have to apply to Ofom for one. And guess what, Ofcom won't issue them and have no procedure to do so (I asked).
It's absurd. 50 or more years ago a commercial monopoly of talking to ships on MF or HF was granted to coast stations and whole swathes of spectrum allocated to this. Virtually all (in the UK all) such maritime land stations have now closed down but still none of these frequencies have been either freed up for amateur use or made available to new commercial or non-commercial operators.
So a call to arms - or at least pens - complain to Ofcom either directly or via your local MP!
Of course their excuse will be "...blah...it's all got to be internationally agreed via the ITU...blah...conference in 2019...harmonised EU approach...tea at 3pm...blah". But frankly that's all boll*^%$. Canada and Germany, to name just two, manage fine.
Gerry
Well-Known Member
Gosh TCM you really are a superman aren't you. There is Herb with 27 years of daily experience in handling Atlantic crossings under his belt but with your, let me see it was 11 I think, crossings you got it better than Herb on ONE crossing?
Super cautious in your opinion may well be life saving in somebody else's experience. Nobody was obliged to subscribe to Herb's service but those of us who chose to do so are extremely grateful for the professional and knowledgable advice that he freely gave.