Scantlings

A couple of times we've talked about weather prediction and how important it is to good seamanship, so I think we need a "Weather" thread, weather or not (ack ack ack) anyone else does here we go.

It turns out that Europe is about to get absolutely pasted by some serious waves. Have a look at this discussion of the gale due to arrive in Europe very soon. The forecast is for 29' swells arrive on beaches Monday at one ever 22 seconds or so. That means breakers well over 50' tall as they come ashore.

Here's what wave sizes look like, with the black in the middle being 30' and over:



The article is here:
http://magicseaweed.com/news/atlantic-code-red-incoming/5954/

Clearly, if we were faced with this sort of storm in our weather forecast the right answer for almost any sailor would be RUN AWAY!!!. But, as we all know, occasionally we get "caught out". The forecast and measurement above is from a surfing web site. Here, by contrast, is the UK Met Office forecast for the area: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/marine/extended_outlook/extended_outlook.html

The Brits are calling for a Force 8 gale (see picture below for what Force 8 is) with areas of Force 9 and possibly much stronger at times. My personal experience with the UK Met Office is that they understand wind speeds even more than the USCG does. Most sailors on the deck of a sailboat would claim the weather was Force 10 when the UK Met Office calls it out at Force 8, but YMMV (Your Milage May Vary).



It will be interesting to watch this "big one" come ashore in Ireland and then England over the next 48 hours. Watching storms like this has been very educational for me personally, and I really enjoy doing a "replay" of what the forecast said three days ago, two days ago, etc.... to see if I would have made decisions correctly based on what I would have known three days ago about sailing from someplace like Cowes over to Le Havre.

BV

Beau I thank my lucky stars that Mr. Plimsoll was born. Those hot spots on the chart has the North Atlantic fleet re-routed and busting their ass to get deep south to ride it out. Pity the fool trying to leave port westbound. Poor Rick in Minnesota is going to get his pipes frozen with the next Canadian weather bomb. Nasty shit coming our way shortly. We spent our weekend digging out and sent the rest of the snow to Nova Scotia. Enjoy it East coasters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterline

I (somewhat affectionately) refer to Minnesota as 'The Weather Toilet'. Often, when lows form over CONUS, they build strength right around MN, Dakotas, WI and IA.

This weekend, the Weather Toilet will be flushing some seriously cold weather our way -20f around the TC (-50f to -60f with windchill). N. MN will have -40 to -60 AIR temps.

windchill temps:

It was chilly yesterday.

Cruel Ish. You have a gift for black humour. LOL

I hate to pile on, but will anyway. Today the Low was +39 and the high will be +60. Definitely on the cold side for our town, which you can always detect from the crowds at the homeless shelters.

Our boys hard at it, surfing the harbor entrance. From a few days ago when there were waves.

Ish wrote:
It was chilly yesterday.

You are inviting bad karma for us. I'm going to send my daughter over to practice her oboe in front of your place just to balance things out.

The big wave addicts will be awaiting the swell from that system Beau. The break at Nazare in Portugal will be at ground zero once again. Pretty phenomenal wave there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... tVQJCq2cCM

Soñadora wrote:I (somewhat affectionately) refer to Minnesota as 'The Weather Toilet'. Often, when lows form over CONUS, they build strength right around MN, Dakotas, WI and IA.

This weekend, the Weather Toilet will be flushing some seriously cold weather our way -20f around the TC (-50f to -60f with windchill). N. MN will have -40 to -60 AIR temps.

windchill temps:

Those of us in the path of that monster thank you for it. Today is supposed to be showers with a high by midnight of around 50. Steady temps through morning with the rain stopping and the cold coming in with 8-10 tomorrow night.

Second time the creek has frozen and thawed so far. It'll freeze again mid week but forecast for next weekend will thaw again.

What fun.

Tigger wrote:

Ish wrote:
It was chilly yesterday.

You are inviting bad karma for us. I'm going to send my daughter over to practice her oboe in front of your place just to balance things out.

There's a great line about the Oboe - "It's an ill woodwind that nobody blows good".

Tigger wrote:

Ish wrote:
It was chilly yesterday.

You are inviting bad karma for us. I'm going to send my daughter over to practice her oboe in front of your place just to balance things out.

Excellent! I'll get Anne to dig out her french horn, they can play together while I go sailing.

The low for Tues here is predicted to be 2° F. That would be the coldest I've seen since moving down here in 1989. I doubt my "truck" will start, so I'm happy it's only 4 mi. by bicycle.

Orestes Munn wrote:The low for Tues here is predicted to be 2° F. That would be the coldest I've seen since moving down here in 1989. I doubt my "truck" will start, so I'm happy it's only 4 mi. by bicycle.

Block heater OM, block heater.

kimbottles wrote:

Orestes Munn wrote:The low for Tues here is predicted to be 2° F. That would be the coldest I've seen since moving down here in 1989. I doubt my "truck" will start, so I'm happy it's only 4 mi. by bicycle.

Block heater OM, block heater.

Hey, this is MD, not MN! My wife is the one with the diesel, but she has glow plugs.

Orestes Munn wrote:

kimbottles wrote:

Orestes Munn wrote:The low for Tues here is predicted to be 2° F. That would be the coldest I've seen since moving down here in 1989. I doubt my "truck" will start, so I'm happy it's only 4 mi. by bicycle.

Block heater OM, block heater.

Hey, this is MD, not MN! My wife is the one with the diesel, but she has glow plugs.

At 2F it does not matter you are still in VERY COLD TERRITORY!!!

Just got off the phone with my son John, the Marine. It's pissing down rain in Quantico, VA and forecast to be 7° tomorrow morning. (I'm betting it won't be "rain" then.) He'll be laying in the mud shooting a rifle - oh the joy, the unmitigated JOY of being a Marine! I told him I'd be sung in bed - he said he'd hit me if he was there.

Going to be a strange day. 62 degrees outside at the moment with a forecast to drop to 10 degrees within the next 24 hours.

Animals know something is up. Deer were out in force feeding at sunset lat night.

Rick, that picture really made me chuckle.

Scantlings is fortunate to have the likes of OM (& others) whose humor is brilliant. Some very entertaining reading this morning, as I enjoy my coffee.

Those gloves don't look very warm. Tomorrow, I am going to wear liners, lobster mitts, and Goretex mitten shells. My feet should be OK in these:

I bought some of these fishing gloves in Roche Harbour last September. I wore them yesterday during a chilly, windy sail. Very warm and dry. I have Raynaud's and my hands can get very painful, so finding good gloves is really important to me.
Trimming will wear them out quickly. Not for fine dexterity, but waterproof and very warm. I need to order a few more pair.
I paid $24.99 for them.

http://glacierglove.com/ice-bay.html

Lin wrote:I bought some of these fishing gloves in Roche Harbour last September. I wore them yesterday during a chilly, windy sail. Very warm and dry. Trimming will wear them out quickly. Not for fine dexterity, but waterproof and very warm. I need to order a few more pair.
I paid $24.99 for them.

http://glacierglove.com/ice-bay.html

Those look very good and the price is right. My main problem with cold weather sailing gloves is getting them on and off after my hands get wet. How are they for that?

Actually, I have the same problem with cycling gloves, but we hands are, fortunately rare in that sport.

Orestes Munn wrote:

Lin wrote:I bought some of these fishing gloves in Roche Harbour last September. I wore them yesterday during a chilly, windy sail. Very warm and dry. Trimming will wear them out quickly. Not for fine dexterity, but waterproof and very warm. I need to order a few more pair.
I paid $24.99 for them.

http://glacierglove.com/ice-bay.html

Those look very good and the price is right. My main problem with cold weather sailing gloves is getting them on and off after my hands get wet. How are they for that?

Actually, I have the same problem with cycling gloves, but we hands are, fortunately rare in that sport.

I had to remove them to take a couple pictures and they were generally easy to get on and off. Later in the day they were a bit stickier as my hands were slighty sweaty, but well worth it. I could not believe that my hands were not the least bit cold and my hands are really affected by Raynauds in winter sailing. I used to buy neoprene cycling or paddling gloves, but these are ten times better. The are shaped so getting them back on was no big deal for me.
I have the Men's size Small, so they are just slightly too big. That might have made it a bit easier to get on and off, than if they were really tight.

Edit: OM, I still have the tag for mine to remind me to order some more. I bought them in a fishing supply store for 8 bucks less than online price, so might be worth to shop around a bit.

Temps this morning in Duluth were -31F with windchills at -63F...All I could think of when I was heading into work was all those spoiled rotten kids still snuggled warm in their beds since the governor closed all schools today. Jerks

Lin - thanks for the tip on the gloves. My husband and I have been looking at waterproof gloves, glad to have a review from a trusted sailor!

I've given up on trying to keep my hands dry and just focus on keeping them warm. As a result, I wear Icebreaker merino wool glove liners like these for $27USD:



Then I put leather work gloves over them to take the load of chafing on lines etc... I developed this habit while skiing in Jackson Hole in February where it was generally about 10-15 below zero F, and I can only imagine what the wind chill is when bombing down a groomed ski hill at about 45 mph. I wear the same set up when I'm bike riding, although usually it isn't cold enough to use liners.

Best leather work gloves I've found are at ACE Hardware for $17USD. I like the ones with the draw string as they stay on better when easing a sheet. The wool liners have lasted at least 6 or 7 years, the leather work gloves last about a year. When it's warm I just loose the liners and cut the tip off the index finger and thumb.



The other fun thing about this is to look at he face on my buddy from Harken when I tell him what the leather gloves cost!! A lifetime supply of ACE gloves are about the same as one pair of Harkin high end and they last a LOT longer. I seal the leather with Sno Seal, $6 from Amazon. A can lasts about four or five years of sailing, skiing and bike riding. The Sno Seal does make the leather a little more slippery when you're pulling on Dyneema.

Yesterday, I sailed with these Marmot fleece gloves. I have used them for kayaking too. They are warm and dry quickly.

One thing I learned a while ago is that warm and wet is sometimes all you can hope for. In strenuous cold weather sports, it is critical to use a vapor barrier around the feet to keep insulating layers from getting wet. That means your feet swim in a sweat bath, but they don't soak your socks. I guess the same is true for the hands.

It's really hard to keep hands dry, even with Gortex or some other membrane because water just seems to get into the gloves around the wrists. I've ended up just staying wet and warm, and giving up on dry.

BeauV wrote:It's really hard to keep hands dry, even with Gortex or some other membrane because water just seems to get into the gloves around the wrists. I've ended up just staying wet and warm, and giving up on dry.

There's nothing wrong with wet and warm. It's an integral part of #6.

So we go from a rain storm last night to -20c and a -40c wind chill from the 88 km westerlies. In a nutshell “it sucks “ Even Tegwen our dog hates it. Dropping butt isn’t much fun with -40. You can learn so much from a mutt.