A few days ago we presented Sailing Living Lab, their project and their current plan to cross the Atlantic. Find part 1 of this article here. Their Captain, Diego de Miguel explains how he uses TZ Navigator on-board their boat, the Acrobat. After having spent time sailing across the Mediterranean, the team feels it is time to raise the anchor and set sail for Central America.

In the first part, thanks to the video demonstrations, Diego de Miguel tells us how to prepare and carry out a transatlantic route. In this second article, we will see how to download your weather forecasts that are optimized.

Step 3: Optimize downloading meteorological weather data

To ensure that you have the best possible weather forecast data at the lowest price, you need to optimize the download of data. To do this, first you need to choose the geographic area that is as small as possible without risking affecting the weather routing module covering the next 2 days.

The weather data includes wind, currents and waves. As for the number of days of the forecast, we can extend the forecast to 3 days, to see if there are any possible variations. With these settings adjusted, the file size is only 14.4Kb. If we wanted to only download wind weather data, then the file size would be reduced to as little as 2.55Kb! This tactic is only possible if you’re in a zone where currents and waves will make a negligible difference. It is important to always remember these details when downloading weather forecasts as it will make a big difference, notably from a cost perspective.

Click on the image below to watch the video:

On our  Facebook page, you can follow all the latest news from Sailing Living Lab as well here: http://bit.ly/2F1YIh8