SSANZ postpones 60 miler for 24 hours

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com on 2 Aug 2008
In the face of a gale warning issued by MetService, organisers of the second race in the B&G SIMRAD Two handed Triple Series have postponed the start of the race for 24 hours to Sunday 3 August.

The message to competitor from SSANZ states:

'Unfortunately the weather forecast for this afternoon has forced the postponement of the B&G Simrad 60 by 24hours to 0900 Sunday 3rd August. There should still be plenty of breeze but we won't have to deal with the front expected this afternoon. A key factor in this decision was the wind direction being Northerly which will generate a bigger seastate and the fact most boats would be on a lee shore when the worst of the weather is due to hit this afternoon.

See you all tomorrow

Cameron Thorpe'

The warning from the MetService reads:

GALE WARNING A05 FOR THE HAURAKI GULF AND FROM BREAM HEAD TO CAPE COLVILLE :

Northwest rising to 25 knots gusting 35 knots this morning, to northerly 35 knots gusting 45 knots this afternoon and to 40 knots gusting 55 knots for a time this evening. Tending northwest tonight.

The very accurate www.predictwind.com!PredictWind.com forecasting model showed winds of around 18kts from the North prevailing for the start, before increasing rapidly to around 35-40kts at Colville in the outer Hauraki Gulf late in the afternoon.

The winds were predicted to ease overnight, but would still be a very generous 25-30kts for the rescheduled race tomorrow, Sunday at 0900hrs.

Below the graphs show the build of the wind shown in knots and the second the direction the wind is expected to take at a given time.

The solid line represents prediction data from US sources, and the dotted line represents data from Canadian sources. Where there is significant gap between the two lines, there is a discrepancy between the two prediction feeds meaning the real prognosis lies somewhere between the two lines. Where there is only a small gap, it indicated the two prediction feeds are in near agreement, and the and the confidence in the prediction is much higher.

Sequence of peak winds in Hauraki Gulf 1600hrs to 1800hrs on 2 August 2008