SSANZ 60 - Don't be fooled by Friday

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com NZL on 8 Jul 2016 Auckland was battered by strong winds and rain on Thursday night. Winds gusted to 45kts at bean Rock before midnight and averaged 35kts before dropping to a zephyr at 6.00am Friday.

While Friday is a day of light to moderate winds from the SW, however the forecast from Predictwind is to expect a repeat of Thursday night on Saturday. The two feeds provided by Predictwind show some discrepancy between the the average and gust strength with one averaging 23kts with gusts to 39kts from an SE direction. The second feed shows and average of 19kts gusting 34kts.

A look at the wind maps for 10.00am Saturday morning shows plenty of wind from the SE, and similarly on Sunday, with winds expected to ease on Sunday afternoon.

127 boats have entered for the NZRigging 60 two handed race which is scheduled to get underway at 0900hrs on Saturday.

Conditions are expected to be marginal for a race start. To read the risk management plan for the event click here. Please note the comments regarding boats withdrawing from the race, and informing race officials - always a good idea to speak to a race official personally than leaving a voicemail message, or if this is not possible send a txt.

Follow the race progress with the Predictwind tracker

About Predictwind - Developed by former Olympian, Jon Bilger (470, 1992), www.predictwind.com!PredictWind application was used by the Swiss team Alinghi to win the 2003 and 2007 America's Cups, and has become the leading wind system used by racing and recreational sailors around the world. It is available on a subscription basis and also with a free forecast option.

A mobile app for Andriod and iPhone is available and www.predictwind.com!PredictWind is the most used app on the Sail-World NZ mobile devices.

Real time local wind observations have been added as further functionality. Wind, rain and cloud maps are now available in the vivid graphical format seen below.

You can check the weather anywhere in the world, and get a five day forecast, plus a variety of other features and functions of www.predictwind.com!PredictWind. The app is synchronised with your PC, so that your latest set of locations are always available without resetting each time you change a device.