Greta Thunberg sails back to Europe on La Vagabonde

[Scott T-Bird]

Have they chosen a specific destination? Are they going to Lisbon or will they pass through the Straights into the Med before landfall?

 

[Rick486]

Looks scary as hell to me, but what do I know? I don't cross oceans. I cross bays and sounds where you can pretty much see the other side Godspeed to them.....

 

[Davidasailor26]

Have they chosen a specific destination? Are they going to Lisbon or will they pass through the Straights into the Med before landfall?

Greta posted Lisbon. Not sure if they'll hold to that. The conference is in Madrid so they could probably change plans as they get closer depending on timing and weather.

 

[Davidasailor26]

The cool part of my Windy.com you can take my link and move along the route or move my point #2 to see why they are heading into a near gale.
Hover you pointer in the forecast area and move it East. Or Grab my point #2 and change their course or position in time.

Note: I clicked on Boat.
Jim...

PS: Use their link Sailing La Vagabonde | A Few Words Behind The Movies and move your pointer to the RED area... NORTH NORTH NORTH

Ah, now I see what you’re seeing. But I think the Windy view you’re seeing at points 2 and 3 is the current wind speed. If you use the Future forecast slider to see the conditions at those spots on Friday and Saturday I think you’ll see it looks calmer there, with the storm further north and east. On my phone so I can’t really screenshot it but play with the forecast slider and you should see the storm moving away. Windy doesn’t know how fast the boat is moving, so it just gives current conditions in that route planning view.

 

[JamesG161]

Windy doesn’t know how fast the boat is moving

yes it does, you move my point too what ever spot you think the boat will be, i used ≈9 knots for my point 2

 

[JamesG161]

Ah, now I see what you’re seeing.

here is new windy.com on their current course.
Tip: Don't move the weather link, the weather is shown in the course link
Windy as forecasted

 

[JamesG161]

I am chatting with @jssailem in online messaging about how this is a great example of use what the new forum is intended to do.
Weather and Forecasting

John commented to me..
"But do you trust the forecast?"
I said as Captain you can use what you have aboard too.
How about the Barometric Pressures? It has been falling for 2 days for them.

BTW this NOT Sebastian it is the trough between the LOW [ to west] and HIGH [to east]

If I was Captain, Head South East to come in behind the trough. Then you pick up speed to catch up.
Read their site, only ONE Atlantic crossing going West.

Jim...

PS: John noted they are In Atlantic Shipping Lanes, the better start their AIS up.

 

[jssailem]

This is a Thursday look at the pressure gradients of the various systems along with their size, and close proximity of the wind particles give a graphical representation to the weather systems.

 

[JamesG161]

This should be their course plan.
Note: I move the forecast ahead one day on this example to show where they WILL be in 24 hours. Now the course picker shows them in clear weather with good winds and no rain.
Windy as forecasted

Clean shot to Lisbon and I might lose my OVER bet, if they get their average speed up to 14 knots.

Jim...

 

[jssailem]

They can Receive AIS and not transmit, a possible scenario. Or due to the lack of forwarding by marine traffic their AIS transmission may be limited to local area and not picked up on global mapping like Marine Traffic. (I think this is likely ).

 

[Davidasailor26]

Or due to the lack of forwarding by marine traffic their AIS transmission may be limited to local area and not picked up on global mapping like Marine Traffic. (I think this is likely ).

Agreed. If they leave the transponder on it might relay back to Marine Traffic when they pass the Azores if there are any internet connected relays there with adequate range. In the mean time just the Predict Wind tracking on their website.

Read their site, only ONE Atlantic crossing going West.

True for Elayna and Riley, but they also have Nikki Henderson as crew, who's a bit more seasoned (Nikki Henderson - Wikipedia), and they indicated they're working with a professional weather router presumably by sat-phone. So they're not just winging it.

I've tweaked my guess in Windy a bit. Here's my current guess - Windy as forecasted

At around midday Saturday that puts them in conditions that look like point three here -

https://www.windy.com/distance/36.0....79?2019-11-30-12,34.053,-40.540,5,i:pressure
If they hold my (still likely wildly optimistic) line, they arrive on December 4th. That's assuming no surprises pop up (very low confidence) and average boatspeed of about 7.3 kts (very doable). So for now I'm still pretty happy with my previous ETA of early on the 8th.

 

[JamesG161]

I've tweaked my guess in Windy a bit

Great job!

You show them slowing down to let the Trough Pass. Just staying on the edge of the Easterly LOW. Then speeding up EAST, after it passes.

But here is the clinker in that scenario...
1) They seem to go "slack" when night falls and go in for "Comfort". Depends on who has the night watch [guessing].
2) Their Barometric Pressure [BP] will continue to Fall from the LOW to the North West.
3) If the Night watch heads South instead of last night's North. They will see a increase in BP. [A good thing]

Since I don't know the real crew, hard to out guess that and, what other weather info they are getting.

If I was Captain, I would leave orders for the Night Watch to steer SSE for comfort, but if they see BP rising, steer more Eastwardly.
My last scenario suggested about 2am, their time, they could be heading ESE at ≈9 knots.

Jim...

PS: Falling BP is always a bad signal, to most Captains.
PSS: We will see in the morning.

 

[JamesG161]

True for Elayna and Riley

And their current boat.
Jim...

 

[JamesG161]

I've tweaked my guess in Windy a bit

I just tweaked yours by adding wave heights to the current conditions.
Windy as forecasted

Now what do you do Captains?
Jim...

 

[jssailem]

@JamesG161 that would be 14 days to Lisbon... What is they travel an average of 8.5 knots (current speed is predicted at 10.2)
They get to Lisbon in 10 days. Closer to my Dec 2-5 window. I'll revise my arrival time as I see what they do over the next couple of days.

https://www.windy.com/distance/boat...66,-9.27?pressure,35.425,-31.729,5,i:pressure

This boating routing feature is a new Beta item. It has one issue. It is assuming you are tracking across the route under the current conditions. It is not interfacing with the weather forecast "yet". So wind and weather conditions are not shown for future days in the listed report at the bottom of the page. You have to advance the day scale and look at the weather along the rout as it advances to try and put a picture together.
Here is the same circle rout to Lisbon spaced at 8.5 knots average 250nm per day average. with the weather advanced to Wednesday the 27th - 6 days forward. The wind conditions look to have calmed right down as they have followed the front on a great circle route to Lisbon

Windy as forecasted

Wind map and weather forecast

www.windy.com

 

[Will Gilmore]

East. They'll go into Horta.

-Will (Dragonfly)

 

[Davidasailor26]

For what it’s worth, Elayna posted on Instagram that there’s “a chance” that Lenny “could turn 1 out here”. According to their website Lenny’s birthday is December 6th.

 

[shemandr]

Still under. I'm not reconciling Sebastian on weather.gov with this Windy projection. I don't even recognize Sebastian on it. Another look at routes above still has me looking for East and petal to the metal. Stay South of the L's north and North of the H's South.

 

[JamesG161]

Looks scary as hell to me

Current conditions aboard...
Barometric Pressure 1004 hPa and dropped during the night. Rainy 68°F. Wind gusting to 32 knots.
Waves 11 feet, period 8 seconds. Direction from North West East [on their Port beam, so no wave surfing].

VMG ≈ 8 knots
_____
Tropical Storm Sebastien moving in their path ____ NE at 15 knots and amazingly higher Barometric Pressure [on their current course]
____
Their Captain must have better weather info than I do, to maintain their course.
______
@jssailem laid out a plausible course and boat speed [ average VMG of ≈14 knots] in his post #95. Basically running the edge of the Trough and TS Sebastien on his tail. Plus he has experience on 42' catamaran.

Run, Forrest, Run...

______
Crew Safety first, me, Bermuda here I come.

Jim...

PS: Odds of UNDER winning, now dropping.

 

[Scott T-Bird]

They are sailing on a schedule … Greta HAS to be in Madrid.