Weather forecasting (maritime) in the 1980/90s

Robert Wilson

Robert Wilson

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What equipment and forecasts would be available to yachtsmen (and other sea-users) in 80s/90s?
And how accurate/reliable would it then all be?

I'm particularly interested in the forecasting of quickly developing "Lows" between Iceland and Scotland.
I have always been interested in "weather" so know a reasonable amount of weather lore and forecasting.
I am also aware of the regular shipping forecast services

The reason for my enquiry?
I am at last finishing writing my novel which I started in 1998 and it contains a fair amount of maritime action up here. Although I did quite a bit of sailing in my youth my knowledge of the available equipment and its accuracy is sketchy.

I feel I must get weather-related action as correct as possible, because if any of you ever read the book I don't want trolling messages telling me I write rubbish! :eek:

Many thanks in anticipation.
Robert W
 
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Thre was a time when a yachtsman might telephone the Met office before a major excursion and talk to a meteorologist. I don't know when this ceased, though I believe it was available on Heligoland when I went there in 2000. My sailing around Southern Britain was mostly guided by the shipping forecasts and what was on the VHF. In '90 our departure was entirely dependant on a local VHF forecast in Flushing. Another source of information might, I suppose, have been a local airport or aerodrome. I used to write down or tape forecasts and often create my own synoptic chart from the weather station data. When compared with the forecast, this could give an indication of a low misbehaving, or a change in timing.
 
johnalison said:
Thre was a time when a yachtsman might telephone the Met office before a major excursion and talk to a meteorologist.
Click to expand...

Not just major excursions. There was a number you could call for a prerecorded local forecast (not the shipping forecast) and we regularly used to calla forecaster before going dinghy sailing when I was small. I think these services vanished when Marinecall came in.
 
In the 1980s was almost all shipping forecasts for us, backed up sometimes by inshore weather forecasts on local radio stations. Being awake for late night and very early morning forecasts was always a real chore as alcohol had usually been consumed.

From about 93 to 99 I would also pay for a fax forecast which I thought was great (Weatherfax? MarineFax?), but about £3.50 I think, before a weekends sail so we could decide whether to drive down from London to Plymouth for the weekend or not.

Once we'd been sailing for a few days then listening to every forecast became less of a big deal as we'd get a feel for the weather changes and get more relaxed about what we and the boat could do.
 
Remember standing in the rain waiting to use a phone box to call Aldergrove (now Belfast) airport who were the go to guys for wind strength and direction in the N. Channel. You got a fairly well personalised forecast taking account of your location and the timing and direction of your intended passage. In unsettled weather they could begin to get a bit tetchy after your third or fourth call.
Trying to stay awake through 'Sailing By' was always a challenge if you had already had a few nightcaps, and trying to get a null off some distant lighthouse with a hand held RDF was another challenge that is long gone.
 
I learned to note down the whole shipping forecast, with the reports from coastal stations, and use the data to construct a rudimentary synoptic chart. Very satisfying and remarkably useful. In the mid 90s there was a woman who read the forecast at Oban CG, whose warm New Zealand accented tones were a source of regular joy.
Don’t forget about navigating with the ‘aid’ of Decca. Often brilliant but sometimes useless, especially in poor visibility.
 
We used to spend many an hour trying to tune into R4 LW on the Decca 'Solent' RDF. Oh! What fun!

Donald
 
Many thanks one and all.
So, from your kind responses it seems that there was very little in the way of "instant and updating information" while afloat, i.e. no downloadable GRIB Files or the like.
The main (Only?) information available at sea would be the Shipping + Local Forecasts.

How did we manage without mobile phones and lap-tops :rolleyes: ? Someone will be along shortly to say the same way we do now when the power/signal fails!

Thanks for the help, I can now revert to my already written narrative of a "Race around Britain" culminating in a nasty northerly blow of NW Scotland which caught the skippers and crew by surprise.

Look out for my book - "The Sour Apple" which will be available in about another ten years, if ever I could find a publisher!!
 
KenMcCulloch said:
I learned to note down the whole shipping forecast, with the reports from coastal stations, and use the data to construct a rudimentary synoptic chart. Very satisfying and remarkably useful.
Click to expand...

I found a pad of the Imray sheets for writing down shipping forecasts at the Irvine boat jumble last year. Joy! I doubt I'll ever use them, but fun for reminiscence.
 
Robert Wilson said:
So, from your kind responses it seems that there was very little in the way of "instant and updating information" while afloat, i.e. no downloadable GRIB Files or the like. The main (Only?) information available at sea would be the Shipping + Local Forecasts.
Click to expand...

You could ask the coastguard (I used to do this) or, I suppose, make a link call to the human forecaster via a coast radio station (I never did this).
 
I remember in the late '90s my dad calling his office from a payphone it Holland to get them to ring the local coastguard and report back.

As I recall there was a forecast lull in the bad weather, but it was unclear exactly when it would occur. We went for it and got caught in the most tremendous thunderstorm.

I do find it weird being so isolated out at sea, and yet fully connected via technology.
 
In the 80's I wrote down the weather forecast diligently at each broadcast, it was all we had. I would plot up the synoptic chart as best as I could and then slip it into a clear plastic wallet. There were about 15 wallets or so. It became quite easy to see the developing lows and fronts by flipping the wallets to / fro and inspecting the interpretations.

I think it was 1987, summer and there was the usual series of hand written synoptic plots but now a triple point had appeared in the forecast with all the hallmarks of developing into a secondary low. I could not really tell if it would rapidly develop or not but my gut said it might very well. I decided to stay around the Oban area and do some drills instead of sailing off, as was usual. Later that night it was clear what was going to happen and I went over to the south side of Oban bay were there was a pontoon beside the lifeboat station. The next day the wind arrived for the S / SE and hit 60kts at its peak. I tended my lines and watched the lifeboat launch and go to the rescue of a small yacht driven ashore at the north entrance to Oban bay.

These days, I have a cataract over my weather eye. I slavishly stare at the Navtex or mobile phone synoptic charts before reading what the weather is likely to do without much emotion.
 
We live in such an information rich environment that it's really difficult to remember what it was like before the Internet and WWW! Although the Internet itself had earlier precursors (I used EPSS in 1987 to link to a computer in the States, and there were much earlier predecessors, such as ARPANET and DARPANET), the Web as we know it didn't really come into being until 1993. But in the 70s and 80s, MOST information that you received came either over the air through radio or TV, or in print media. That meant that we all used a lot less information than we do now! Further, even in the 1990s, a 19.2 kilobaud telephone connection was pretty much state-of-the-art for home use. Mobile data connections were very much later than that - early 2000s before they were reasonably reliable.

Further, our ability to predict the weather has improved vastly since then. Short term forecasting in well known areas probably hasn't changed much, but global scale forecasting in areas remote from detailed observations is far better. The scenario of an un-forecast deep low surprising people isn't all that far-fetched for the period; it would be now. Again, in 1980, the main computer at Cambridge University had far less memory and CPU power than the processor on your phone - or even in your smartwatch! In 1987 I was lucky enough to work at Los Alamos for 8 weeks, where I had the choice of WHICH Cray to log onto - but even those state-of-the-art, bleeding edge machines were probably less powerful than the thing in my pocket. Again, the raw data has increased out of recognition; weather satellites provide world-wide monitoring of basic meteorologocal parameters at both spatial and temporal resolutions that the forecasters of the 1970s and 80s could only wish for.

However, we all managed to sail and enjoy ourselves, and I am quite sure that my father (RIP) would NOT have regarded ubiquitous mobile phones as a good thing; he went sailing to get away from the telephone!
 
AntarcticPilot said:
We live in such an information rich environment that it's really difficult to remember what it was like before the Internet and WWW! Although the Internet itself had earlier precursors (I used EPSS in 1987 to link to a computer in the States, and there were much earlier predecessors, such as ARPANET and DARPANET), ...
Click to expand...

uk.ac.nsfnet-relay! bangpaths!

Kids today, eh?
 
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