America's Cup: Predictwind appointed to run Common Weather Program in Barcelona
by Richard Gladwell/Sail-World.com/nz 28 May 2023 10:54 AEST
Alinghi Red Bull Racing - AC75 - Day 55 - April 21, 2023 - Barcelona © Alex Carabi / America's Cup
The Challenger of Record and Defender (COR/D) have announced that Predictwind, the world's leading marine forecast organisation aimed at sailors at all levels, will be establishing the Common Weather Program for Barcelona.
Already the first of six webcams have been established in Barcelona for the 2024 America's Cup and Preliminary Regattas. It will be running for the mandatory sailing period in Barcelona running from July, 2023 to October 31, 2023 and through to the end of the 2024 America's Cup.
One realtime weather station is running at Olympic Port in addition to the webcam on W Hotel Barcelona. The webcam is fixed angle, but is high definition (1080p) and can ve viewed on Youtube as well as within Predictwind.
The full announcement reads:
The Common Weather Programme anticipated by Article 40.1 of the Protocol is currently being implemented by PredictWind in Barcelona. It will comprise a total of six new wind stations, some of which are now coming online, and two webcams.
The first webcam, stationed on the W Hotel, has just become live and is available to PredictWind account holders by navigating to Barcelona and looking under ‘Observations’.
COR/D have considered any potential reconnaissance implications of the webcam and have agreed that it does not breach Technical Regulation 10.13 (a) because the camera will remain entirely under PredictWind’s control and cannot be panned or zoomed by any Competitor to follow
another Competitor’s yacht. As such, COR/D believe that observation of the publicly available webcam footage by a Competitor is not “carrying out their own reconnaissance”.