Passage planning involves a skillful blend of navigation, weather, and oceanography. You need to find the wind you want, avoid the hazardous winds and seas, and use the elements to your advantage. In this seminar we’ll review some route planning and marine weather basics, learn to interpret synoptic weather charts and text forecasts, explore the pros and cons of GRIB files, learn to work with weather routers, and get data offshore. Finally, we’ll put it all together with a bluewater passage scenario, from climatology through route planning, Gulfstream crossing, enroute weather and observations.
Lisa is a retired Navy navigator, meteorologist and oceanographer, and brings those skills into play for practical passage planning. Lisa & Andy have made numerous offshore passages on their own sailboats, and instructional passages on clients’ boats. They are the primary contributing writers of ASA’s Advanced Cruising & Seamanship textbook.
This course is rated as an intermediate (201) to advanced (301) course
