I have set a plan (…remember my “no plan” plan is actually a myriad of self negating plans in perfect harmony…) to get to Baiona over the next 4/5 days.
The weather forecast is mixed – and will no doubt be totally unreliable as the past few months have shown. If you remember anything of your O-level Geography a glance at the pressure charts for the Atlantic Coasts of Europe will show a very complex and problematic situation even for the US National Weather Services GFS model. By the way everyone has a “favourite” weather site but they are almost all based on the GFS data – simply because US law enforces the US government departments to publish the data copyright free. The only difference is presentation.
To give non-sailors an insight this means I have spent much of the day comparing various weather sites; downloading GRIB files (wind and wave data) and plotting routes into a PC based software package called Neptune C-Map Planner. This is not a very easy package to use, but I have had it since 2012 and having bought digital charts (yes, charts come from separate companies) that are compatible with it, I am too mean to replace the whole lot.
This is what the plan looks for step 1: A Coruna to Camarinas for example:
Then I output the plan to a text file and save it to disc. Then, I use a little program written just for me by Rob (in his spare time!) that reads the text file and outputs a GFX file – the common interface format for GPS devices. Then, I copy that file on to a micro SD card – you know the one that is smaller than your little finger nail – and gingerly take it up to the cockpit and read it into the Raymarine chart plotter.
Since I was planning on doing one night stopovers, I anticipated that I would not have the mental capacity to get this right every night – so I plotted the entire route for each of the 4 legs:
1. A-Coruna to Camarinas: Club Nautico de Camarinas
2. Camarinas to Portosin – Real Club Nautico de Portosin
3. Portosin to Vilanova de Arousa – Marina Arousa – Vilanova
4. Vilanova de Arousa to Baiona – Monte Real Club de Yates
I also decided it would be wise to do all the looking up of marina VHF channels; phone numbers (they don’t always answer the radio); tide times and heights for each port; and pilotage warnings for the approach. All this gets noted at the top of the ships log for that leg.
That would mean that at each stopover I would only need to check the weather forecast for the next day.
All set – off to get some sleep ready for some serious loin girding at 0600 on Friday.
Very impressed with your navigational ability, Russ. I struggle to find my car in a multi storey carpark.
Rick – you really must try this..
🙂
Like me you are no spring chicken Russ. Two night stopovers would be more relaxing. I have emailed that scan to your email address.
Very thorough – good prep. Fail to prepare – prepare to fail x