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Hi Simon,
I finally get back to you with regards to the very thorough and well-argued post regarding routing/weather programs on computers. It all makes sense to me with a couple of thoughts to share:
1. Agree completely at the speed with which 500 mb upper-atmosphere forecasting knowledge and understandings flee from my head after I close the book. I also think that these learnings are very hard to implement unless you immerse yourself in them on a regular (daily) basis.
2. I believe that this software will serve a skipper best after a thorough grounding in conventional methods of analyzing and projecting weather trends and weaving in the likely sailing speeds and directions attained. This argument is very similar to the argument about having a thorough grounding in conventional plotting and navigation methods (parallel rules, dividers and such) before allowing charting software do the work.
3. When computers do the analyzing of data, there is a powerful tendency to treat said data as gospel. When you work from more original/primitive sources you are more likely to keep in mind its limitations. Again, this is similar to charting software where there are disasters every year attributable to relying on computer charting data as always accurate.
4. Immersion in working with data has hidden (and ancillary) benefits. I suspect I feel more connected with the “big picture” of weather and routing possibilities which might hold me in good stead when things do not unfold as forecast. I am reminded of recent extended stay in Washington DC where I was directed to all destinations by phone rather than pouring over maps and learning my way around as I would have in the past. As a consequence, I have learned little in 6 weeks in WashDC about the big picture. I did get around from the get-go without a problem, though.
5. When it comes to actually crunching numbers, I find the vagaries of the actual speeds attained and direction gone when sailing, along with the variations in the actual weather encountered to fit well with a more seat of the pants approach.
6. None of my above thoughts are in any way condemnatory, merely caveats to be aware of. I think one can conduct safe passages using computers as guidance systems for sure. I do believe that there are often “better” ways and “less good” methods, but that mostly it come down to the skill of the skipper and his/her willingness to do the work necessary to conduct safe passages. For example, I use charting software almost exclusively nowadays as it has proved its accuracy, ease and effectiveness and I also work hard to remember its limitations. I try to approach every tool in the same manner.
I plan no long seas passages in my future where I can test this out, but at this juncture, I suspect I would continue to do routing and weather the way I have always done it and spend my money on a professional router/weather group to look over my shoulder and augment. It feels like more bang for my buck and, I would expect the professional weather/routing people to have access to far more data, have the benefit of a team of meteorologists, and generate more nuanced suggestions than I could on my own and that a computer program would generate. This might be wise (money considerations aside) even if doing the computer weather/routing as then you would have an “in-house” suggestion and a “out-of-house” report. For the higher lat sailing we were doing this summer, a belt and braces passage making approach might be wise. As said in another post on the Forum, this worked well for us this past season.
My best, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy
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