WEATHER FORECASTS & Safe Voyages

May 31. This morning we had a fitting session for clothing. Helly Hansen has donated a huge amount of clothing such as deck shoes, boots, rain ponchos, fleece, t-shirts and many more to this blind sailing project. We are so grateful. Thank you very much. Now, we are ready for any kind of weather. When I mention that the quality of our attire affects our focus and performance out there, many people think I'm exaggerating but it's true. Say that it's raining and I'm freezing. It can get really difficult to focus on steering the yacht. If I were freezing, my mind would just keep wandering off to eating a warm cup of noodles. If I'm unable to concentrate, then there is that much room for human error. It is very important to be dressed appropriately for the weather to be able to sail the yacht safely. That is why we are so grateful for this donation from Helly Hansen because now we have attire for every weather imaginable. Afterwards, Mr. Numada from Osaka Electro-Communication University came to the Aeolus to test the new version of SailSound. This new version allows me to use the function that is already installed in the iPad mini to read out the information on the screen such as the heading, boat speed, wind direction, wind speed and such as many time as I set it to read out in a minute.  They also added the function where an alarm will go off is the LAN or NavNet has any issues and stops sending information. From 4 pm, I had a meeting with Baba-san at Yomiuri TV, something I have been looking forward to. Baba-san is a marine weather forecaster and he provides weather forecasts to all vessels on the water around the globe. Should a strong weather front or a low atmospheric pressure be approaching, he advises us a route that will be least affected by these weather conditions. Baba-san's deep knowledge and vast experience accumulated by assisting many vessels across the Pacific is very reassuring. He taught us some basic weather forecasting skills and gave us advice on what we should be prepared for from a weather forecaster's perspective. Being prepared for wind speeds to be at 15 m in 12 hours reduces our stress level considerably. And of course, knowing that Baba-san is looking out for us takes a load off our minds.  

Originally posted by Hiro in Japanese on 6/03/2013
Translated by SWIS Project