The importance of PCs for cruising sailors—World Cruising news

by David Schmidt, Sail-World USA Editor on 14 Aug 2015 A colleague recently posed an interesting question to me: How has the advent of personal computers (PCs), laptops, notebooks or tablets changed the face of cruising? At first, the question seemed simple, but-after some pondering-I realized that PCs in their varied forms, coupled with either cellular modems (for coastal cruising) or satellite communications (for true bluewater work), have had a massive impact on cruising, from accurate weather forecasts to efficient weather routing to information access and the ability to communicate with the outside world.

While there’s no doubt that staying in contact with friends and loved ones ashore can do miracles for a crew’s morale, there’s also no doubt that accurate weather forecasts are vital to offshore safety and expediency. Because of this, it’s fair to say that routing and forecasting are the two most important cruising-related tasks that PCs regularly perform, given their ability to import weather files into routing software, which can determine the fastest and safest course.

Stir in the ability to pipeline NMEA 2000 instrumentation data into the PC, and its onboard value increases substantially.

Provided that a PC has Internet access, one of the best sources of wind-related weather information comes from PredictWind, which is available as either a smartphone/tablet app or as a PC application.

“In our opinion, the best form of seamanship is not getting caught out in adverse conditions,” said Jon Bilger, PredictWind’s founding director and a two-time America’s Cup winner. “Safety and comfort are paramount for cruising, and an accurate forecast that you can trust anywhere in the world is essential. Since releasing the PredictWind Offshore App, now cruisers have access to complex routing algorithms and not need a computer science degree to use it.”

“The departure planning/weather routing tools from PredictWind are designed exactly for that task,” continued Bilger. “More importantly, the accuracy of the weather models we provide give [our] customers the confidence to make these decisions.”

In addition to complex algorithms and weather-routing options, PredictWind draws real-time live wind observations from some 15,000 world-wide weather stations, and the New Zealand-based company advises its customers that they are always willing to add more stations, should there be any localized coverage holes.

Unlike multi-function displays (MFDs), which typically come loaded with proprietary software, PCs allow users to run any (compatible) software that they like, while also tapping any information resource (i.e., PredictWind) that’s compatible with their other existing software, thus giving tech-savvy cruisers a ton of options.

So how much has the advent of PCs changed cruising? With the exception of a few of the boats that I race on, almost every single cruising boat that I’ve sailed on in the past decade (or more) has benefitted from a PC. And while I’m not always hovering next to the nav station, I know for a fact that weather-routing software has helped to reduce our arrival times on several long and lumpy passages.

And while MFDs can also offer weather-routing packages, when one considers the communications (Read: Skype, email, SMS) and information (read: Internet access) platform that a PC also provides, their onboard value quickly spikes.

So, if you haven’t tried cruising with a PC, bring one aboard and give it a spin. Odds are excellent that it will find a permanent home in your nav station, likely complimenting your existing MFDs and other dedicated electronics. And should your itinerary call for bluewater cruising, odds are excellent that a PC, coupled with some form of satellite communications (either a full-blown sat-comms dome, or a smaller satellite-communications hotspots such as Iridium’s Go) that allows for personal communications ashore will keep your crew happy, especially if a following breeze is involved.

May the four winds blow you safely home,