Jeanne Socrates Oldest Person solo RTW attempt

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by lancelot9898

She's not alone...God is with her.

I wonder what the good folks at the Guiness world record place think about that ?

Jim

[groundtackle]

haha.. coming from jc.

[Littlechay]

Originally Posted by Paul Elliott

Agreed. There can be quite a variation between the GRIB sustained forecast and the actual wind conditions.

A few years ago I was in the same area as Jeanne is now (well, I was about 50 miles offshore, and she is about 170 miles offshore), and the forecast was showing 35 kts sustained. We were actually getting 47 kts average, and 60 kt gusts. I am sure that Jeanne is experiencing worse than what's being shown on the chart.

It's not so much the GRIB that is in error (but it could be) but often the yachties reading their instruments. There are several factors as you say.

The first is that the GRIB forecasts sustained winds (averaged over 1minute in the US and over 10 minutes else where - which often makes US reports of stronger winds appear from official sources) and then yachts rarely have calibrated anemometers, even my little 15m mast requires an adjustment factor of 10%, lastly gusts can be 40-50% over the sustained speed in unstable air masses.

But you shouldn't be reporting the gusts, they are a given, what should always be reported is the average sustained. This is why you often see a discrepancy between the old salts reports and those of the newbies or the mine is bigger than yours brigade.

So probably she is/was in a full gale (force 8), nasty enough, and seeing gusts to 50 or so, but that does not make it a force 10 storm!

[Polux]

Originally Posted by Littlechay

It's not so much the GRIB that is in error (but it could be) but often the yachties reading their instruments. There are several factors as you say.

The first is that the GRIB forecasts sustained winds (averaged over 1minute in the US and over 10 minutes else where - which often makes US reports of stronger winds appear from official sources) and then yachts rarely have calibrated anemometers, even my little 15m mast requires an adjustment factor of 10%, lastly gusts can be 40-50% over the sustained speed in unstable air masses.

But you shouldn't be reporting the gusts, they are a given, what should always be reported is the average sustained. This is why you often see a discrepancy between the old salts reports and those of the newbies or the mine is bigger than yours brigade.

So probably she is/was in a full gale (force 8), nasty enough, and seeing gusts to 50 or so, but that does not make it a force 10 storm!

I did not know that sustained referred to 10m constant wind . That surely will make a huge difference regarding 1m constant wind.

Windy was created in Europe by a single guy, Ivo, cheers to him and they use
" different weather data sources, mainly GFS forecast model, produced by NOAA and NEMS model produced by Swiss weather geniuses from Meteoblue.com.2"
and more recently:
"Prague, August 11, 2016: Global wind and weather map Windyty brings the high-resolution ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) model for free to all its users. Adding ECMWF means a fundamental improvement of Windyty by higher resolution and higher accuracy of the forecast. Despite considerable data acquisition costs, ECMWF model is available without a charge on Windyty.com.

“Major wind forecasting services for kiters and sailors rely on GFS as the only global model,” said Ivo Lukacovic, the founder of Windyty. “And that is the reason why they fail so often."

Windyty users can now easily use and compare four different weather models on Windyty: two global models ECMWF, GFS and two local models: NAM in the USA, and NEMS in Europe.

In comparison to GFS, the ECMWF model brings better resolution as well as better accuracy of the forecast."

They have available two models that you can change while looking at the weather.

[Littlechay]

Originally Posted by Polux

I did not know that sustained referred to 10m constant wind . That surely will make a huge difference regarding 1m constant wind.
In comparison to GFS, the ECMWF model brings better resolution as well as better accuracy of the forecast."

They have available two models that you can change while looking at the weather.

Yes it can make a huge difference depending on how unstable the airflow is.

Predictwind have a useful side by side view where you can compare models.

Good to see that Jeanne is back on course again.

[robert sailor]

[QUOTE=lancelot9898;2261475]She's not alone...God is with her.[/QUOT

Actually she is very much alone.

[Paul Elliott]

It is interesting to look at the difference between the GFS data (0.5 degree resolution), the ECMWF data, and NAM5 (5 km). Windytv.com lets you select among these three. Remember that resolution is not the same as accuracy.

https://www.windytv.com/?41.845,-124.607,6

[Don C L]

[QUOTE=robert sailor;2261620]

Originally Posted by lancelot9898

She's not alone...God is with her.[/QUOT

Actually she is very much alone.

Well, perhaps that depends on your definition of "alone." When I go out solo, I don't feel alone... now in a force 8 or 9 or 10 I might be found to be yelling through the spray "a little help here!!!"

[goat]

Originally Posted by lancelot9898

She's not alone...God is with her.

I tried that one in the car pool lane. Ineffective.

[Paul Elliott]

Just for fun I tried weather routing for Nereida, with the FastSeas | Weather Routing website. I used a perhaps close enough polar for the boat, and set the next waypoint off Cape Horn. This is what fastseas calculated (see attached jpeg). The wx forecast only is "good" for perhaps a week, so after that the routing program assumes that conditions don't change (that's what the dashed route line indicates). Also, I have no idea what Jeanne is planning -- this is just a guess.

So, it might take Jeanne 50 days to reach the Horn. This is the end of January, and probably still a good time for the rounding. I am curious to see how good my guess will be!

[Bleemus]

Originally Posted by goat

I tried that one in the car pool lane. Ineffective.

Lol! Now that is funny!

[Paul Elliott]

I am curious about Jeanne's course. She's heading SW, and I don't know why. Given the shape of the Pacific High now, and the band of still air that will be stretching east/west, I would expect her to be going south, or perhaps even SSE to avoid getting trapped in the dead zone. When we sail to Hawaii (for example), one of the critical decisions is where to turn west to avoid the center of the Pacific High, and I think by turning to the west now she is heading into a trap. I would be sailing south at least until I reached the latitude of Cape Mendocino, and *then* make my move (which would probably be to continue south, if I were heading for the Horn).

[Don C L]

Actually, at least the forecast I see shows that she'll be back in a southerly blast in a day, so that tack gives her more room to to tack back to the SE when it shows up... Then looks like Tues and Wed she may be reaching southward making good time and in relative comfort... I feel a sense of relief for her now... glad to see she is as far south as she is...
sure loved seeing those shots of those offshore azure blue/turquoise waves crowned with white... been a while since I have seen that color!

[Paul Elliott]

She's sailing due south again. I'm sure there's a good reason for her course choices, even if it's to avoid shipping. Don, you could be right about the room for a tack to deal with the Monday headwinds. Yes, I am also very glad to see that she's gotten through those nasty low-pressure systems, at least for now.

About the waves, isn't it interesting how the water looks different wherever you go? I've never sailed in the Atlantic, but the West Coast North American waters look different than the Hawaiian waters, and the South Pacific looks different from either of those.

[Don C L]

No new blog from Jeanne... I bet that means she's getting caught up on her sleep! Hope so! And getting a chance to cook up more stew. Or maybe she's at the helm in the quartering seas... Things are looking nicer for her now if the forecasts are right... reaching with what should be following seas soon, looks like. 10 ft or less with 20 knots, if it is steady and not too steep, that can be downright pleasant if she's not trying to broach too much. She is due west of SF now, things should be settling down now farther south and winds and swells following her. OK, I know she knows what she is doing, but I can't help feel a sense of relief for her.