Land-based meteorological support for ocean-going sailing.

Introduction.

An ocean-going sailboat must be autonomous in all aspects, particularly with regard to daily meteorological assessment. To this end, it should have robust navigation and communications equipment on board with sufficient redundancy in the event of a potential contingency or breakdown.

Furthermore, the skipper and at least one crew member (usually the navigator) should have extensive experience analyzing the meteorological situation and knowledge of the equipment and software tools used to assess the weather.

Furthermore, when a sailboat is embarking on an ocean voyage, for example, crossing the Atlantic, having shore-based support specifically for meteorological analysis is an additional guarantee that can contribute to the safety of navigation.

Those providing this meteorological support from land have the advantage of having no internet or bandwidth limitations and the convenience of being able to do so comfortably from home with a computer, without the stress that the movement (rolling and pitching) of the sailboat can cause.

This meteorological support provided on land should serve as a backup or confirmation of the meteorological analysis performed on board, where the skipper makes all decisions related to navigation and optimal sail handling (reeking, etc.). In the event of a failure of any equipment on board the sailboat, support from land will be more relevant.

The amount of information the team on land sends to the sailboat will depend on the communications equipment (and bandwidth) available. If there is high bandwidth (for example, with Starlink), there will be virtually no limitations. In the case of Iridium or Inmarsat, emails with small attachments will be sent, which can be downloaded on board.

In this chapter, we will discuss some considerations regarding the information that the meteorological support team typically analyzes, prepares, and sends to the sailboat. We will also see some videos of a real-life case of support provided from land to an ocean-going sailboat crossing the Atlantic from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean and back to Europe.