entire all-professional Maxi72 fleet withdrew. In fact, the 2016 Bermuda race was a bad look for many so-called ‘top sailors’, who swiftly withdrew their services when invited by the owner to step onboard and partake of a famous ocean race classic. Against an unfortunate backdrop the symposium was a refreshing
reminder that with the right tools a crew does not need to sweat unduly about a poor weather scenario – particularly one as two years ago in Newport with an admitted low degree of certainty. Bohlen assembled an impressive cast of weather professionals
who are recognised experts in their fields. Among these Ken McKinley spoke about the fundamentals and how effective forecasts rely on an array of factors unique to the marine environment; Lee Chesneau explained how 500mb charts are important indicators of mid-atmosphere flow and can show trends that are not apparent in surface analyses; Bohlen discussed currents, waves and their interaction with wind and effects on local weather; and forecast experts Ken Campbell from Commanders’ Weather and Joe Sienkiewicz from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Admin - istration’s Ocean Prediction Center discussed their preferred methods for distilling what they need from an ever greater spread of data sources. All these experts addressed the role of advancing technology
and better tools, such as the GOES 16 satellite that can now provide Gulf Stream imagery to within 1nm resolution, and how the newest Ka-band Doppler scatterometer technology from NASA satellites in polar orbits will provide 1,300km-wide swathes of surface wind and current imagery data to help refine model inputs. Interesting too that the panel downplayed accuracy differences between the US GFS model and the ECMWF/Global Euro model, saying GFS is improving in the density of inputs and anyway both use the same sources of data (except GFS is not accepting data from China for security reasons). And the other – more obvious – conclusion is that there’s still
no substitute for experience: as experts they all review models constantly and develop a ‘feel’ for which one is more reliable, making their work very much a customised process. They also cautioned that for the non-professional diving into this
topic it’s too easy to get caught in a loop of information overload where the hunger for new data exceeds the ability to thoughtfully process strategies accordingly. They advocate studying in advance, recognising trends, developing a strategy, then keeping track of the trends with regular downloads of information like Grib files to update strategy as needed. (There is now a comprehensive online archive of surface analysis data going back to 1995 for those who wanted to practise reliving previous races.) Campbell was one of the forecasters of the 2016 Bermuda Race
and explained, ‘This race had numerous decision points – as a navigator you had to be able to “work the race”. In other words, make strategy judgements part of the equation, not just reciting and following model forecasts. ‘The predicted storm [in the 2016 race] was a model prediction
only, it was not imaged by satellites; and even now with GOES 16 we would be little better informed in the same situation. But better resolution of the Gulf Stream imagery may now help with refining our model inputs. ‘The competitors in 2016 were concerned about the sea -
worthiness of their boats and their crew… in my opinion there was too much concern about storm avoidance rather than sailing the race. For example, those who went west to avoid bad weather rather than staying on track did poorly since they hit light air and foul current. ‘Bottom line: you have to know when to push and when not to
push in the face of tough forecasts.’ Campbell cited an example of this from the 2008-09 Volvo Race
leg from Singapore to Qingdao, where with a particularly nasty forecast he produced for Puma he advised the team to stay put in Manila Bay and wait out the worst weather before setting out again. ‘Instead, they did what I always knew they would: they pushed
on, trying to hold on to their lead, and broke the boom – letting Telefónica Blue win the leg.’ Just as the song says: know when to hold, know when to fold. q
Dobbs Davis SEAHORSE 27
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