Routeing the yacht
- Interpret synoptic charts, forecasts and professional weather-routeing advice for any ocean region.
- Understand the global wind belts, the ocean currents, and the seasons and regions of the tropical revolving storms.
- Plan seasonal routeing to avoid storm regions and heavy weather wherever possible.
- Make the command decisions to divert, slow down or shelter based on the developing weather.
Worldwide command is largely seasonal planning: keeping the yacht out of the tropical-storm regions in their season and routeing with the climatology rather than against it, using the routeing charts and, increasingly, professional shore-based routeing advice. But the plan meets real weather, and the Master must be able to read a developing situation — a deepening low, an out-of-season disturbance, a forecast that has changed — and take the command decision to alter course, reduce speed, heave-to or run for shelter in good time rather than late.
WARNING — Season and region first Ocean command begins with seasonal planning: keep the yacht out of tropical-storm regions in their season and route with the climatology. No amount of good handling makes up for being in the wrong ocean at the wrong time of year.
TIP — Decide early on the developing picture Weather rewards the Master who acts on the trend, not the one who waits for certainty. A course alteration or a decision to shelter is far easier taken early than forced late in a rising sea.