Brilliant 🤩

Thank you so much Team OCC 🙏

Fair winds,


Sonia
SY Salacia

Thanks ☺️ I wonder how many lives this precious document will save?

The OCC Guide to Climate Change for Cruisers
Daria Blackwell | 10/05/2023
The Ocean Cruising Club has prepared a review of climate change for distance cruisers and how it affects decision-making in this era of adaptation.

For some time, OCC members – among the most experienced and adventurous sailors in the world – have been observing and commenting on social media about the climate changes that are affecting decisions about passage making, storm avoidance, and seasonal boat storage. Such changes are now accepted as being exacerbated by humanity’s effects on Earth’s ecosystems and may be accelerating.

The members of OCC’s recently formed Environmental Team, in a proactive move to assist cruisers, contacted prominent meteorologists and weather routers and asked for their input on what they are seeing as they track traditional cruising routes. What ensued is a review of Climate Change and Ocean Cruising (the impact on Passage Planning, Weather Forecasting and Weather Routing, etc) – with contributions from:

Jimmy Cornell
Frank Singleton
Fred Pickhardt, Ocean Weather Services
Sebastian Wache, WetterWelt GmbH
Jeremy Davis, Weather Routing Inc
Bob McDavitt.
Not surprisingly, the views differ in some respects. It is our aim to present the differing points of view while informing distance sailors of the changing patterns that may affect safety at sea and on land. Included are considerations for shortened passage-making seasons, tolerable temperature ranges, expected changes in atmospheric and ocean currents, storm-free zones, weather extremes and much more.

The collective knowledge and experience of OCC members in ocean cruising constitute a powerful source of advice and information for OCC Members and other ocean cruisers. Over the past few years, members have posted topics of interest to distance sailors on the OCC Forum and then collected and collated the input of their fellow members. The result is a series of white papers and guides to leading practices in seamanship and cruising. They provide practical steps, tried and tested techniques, and practices that have been developed and refined over time with input from subject matter experts and experienced cruisers. The practices now have been incorporated into guides published on the OCC website.

Vice Commodore Phil Heaton, OCC lead on this project, said, “The aim is to make the guides readily accessible to OCC Members and other cruisers, and more will follow. Climate Change and Ocean Cruising is the latest of these guides and we envision that it will be periodically updated.”

These guides are available as downloadable pdfs for sailors as well as global media representatives. Please reference the Ocean Cruising Club when citing the reports. High-resolution cover art is available on request.

Please note, that any advice provided is that of the individual contributors and does not constitute the opinion of the Members or Officers of the Ocean Cruising Club.




Links and Attachments
Climate Change and Ocean Cruising (high resolution edition, pdf 2MB)
Climate Change and Ocean Cruising (low resolution edition, pdf 889 KB)

Vice Commodore, OCC 

As I prefer to do most of the boat's forecasting in the iPad, I use "apps" (programs) more so than websites. Our current roster is, from more used to less used:

1. Ventusky
2. PredictWind
3. Windy (red) (the old Windity)
4. WindFinder Pro
5. Weather4D
6. Windy (blue)

The wind models offered by each program are as follows:
[ul][li]Ventusky - ICON, GFS, GEM, COSMO[/li][li]Predict Wind - PWG, PWE, GFS, ECMWF[/li][li]Windy (red) - NEMS 4Km, ICON 7Km, ECMWF 9Km, GFS 22Km[/li][li]WindFinder Pro - "Forecast (based on GFS)" and "Superforecast (Hourly)"[/li][li]Weather4D - GFS, NAM. GEMS, COAMPS, Arpége, Arome, WRF. Includes a lot of regional high-resolution models.[/li][li]Windy (blue) - GFS - ECMWF - ICON 13, O-SKIRON, O-WRF[/li][/ul]
The gust forecast offered by each of these, available for at least some models, are especially welcome for the safety-conscious sailor.


An obvious downside of all these is that 10-12 miles from the coast, poof!, you lose your broadband and all these stop working, so save screen captures of any forecasts you wish to keep while offshore. Then it is back to Sailmail (GFS gribs) and "PredictWind Offshore" over SSB or Iridium GO!


I attach a picture of the icons of all these apps. Useful for people interested in the difference between the blue Windy and the red Windy.
edited by Hasbun on 10/29/2018

As weather resources change and new ones are added all the time, I thought it would be useful to keep track of some favourite online and mobile sites. Most are for planning purposes. Frank Singleton's Weather Page has everything listed and keeps it up to date. Please add to the list resources you have liked.

[ul][li]Frank Singleton's Weather Page   [/li][li]Ocean Predication Center NOAA    [/li][li]Passage Weather             [/li][li]GRIBFiles                [/li][li]Windy                   [/li][li]WindGuru                [/li][li]Weather Online             [/li][li]SailingWeatherOnline          [/li][li]Ventusky                [/li][li]PredictWind                [/li][li]SailGRIB Weather Routing (Android)   [/li][li]SailGRIB Marine Weather (Android)      [/li][li]Earth orthographic [/li][/ul]
edited by DariaBlackwell on 10/27/2018

Vice Commodore, OCC 

The Cruising Information Section of the OCC website contains links to many relevant weather resources. I have added a few and created a pdf for download here.

[attachment=78]GlobalWeatherResources.pdf[/attachment]

Vice Commodore, OCC