A weather seminar on line

[Norm L.]

This may be too much for most trailer sailors but of interest to anyone doing coastwise or even for those who live on coasts subject to heavy weather.

This is a 44 minute presentation by a ship's captain who is also a maritime instructor and an expert in meteorology, and it is done for meteorologist. Much may be of no use to you but in one section he goes over sources for professional weather data that can be downloaded to computers.

At this newsletter page go down to the bottom article, open it, and in the article is a link to the webinar.

https://www.maritime-executive.com/newsletter

[Riley Smith]

Thanks Norm. I nosed around the whole lot instead of just looking at the weather information. Lotta stuff there including sail assist tankers! (Cool!) And a tug built right here in Pascagoula! And there was a small amount on something I've been looking into, anti-ship missile and attack drone risks. As you probably know, the Red Sea is currently a hot spot of such activity. The USA recently suffered the loss of land based service men and women from a drone attack in the area. (They claimed they saw it but thought it was ours). And the Army just cancelled a contract for a scout helicopter because of such data, after spending megabucks on development. Although there are defenses against such weapons, they tend to be asymmetrical to the prices of many of the missiles/drones, so if anything, this problem will get much worse. What has me concerned is the mentality of the admirals that think nothing short of a nuclear weapon can sink an aircraft carrier. Which may be true; I'm not privy to every snippet of information about such stuff, including defenses and tactics. I do know that active tests indicate that carriers are very hard to sink. But with piles of fuels and weapons aboard, there is always that chance of a lucky shot that would be a disaster IMHO. I know that the current combat radius of the aircraft on those carriers have become a problem and yes, drone refueling of the planes is hotly in development to alleviate such concerns. At any rate, the problem is only going to get worse and (it is my opinion only) that the aircraft carrier is currently being relegated to the same forces that made the battleships dinosaurs. Which has HUGE implications.

[Norm L.]

I've been writing my blog mainly on green fuels, one last year on wind assist, which is hot as it is comparatively   easier and cheaper to install on ships and reduces fuel burn by 5-15% depending on the ship and the route. Last months was on new battery science and what all the new lingo means.

On your other subject I just read two articles on military "efficiency". The first was well written for a military newsletter on how the U.S. has been fighting the last war since after Korea. And unsuccessfully. The other one was on the skill of senior officers. WWII was won by leaders who thought outside of the box and had the nerve/strength to go against long held assumptions. Current senior officers have been brought up more on staying in line to get ahead. Don't make waves or someone will cut you down.

Well, a difficult subject and not for here, but winters here on the board tend to lead to stray discussions with existing weather too crappy for sailing and too warm even for ice sailing. No one has talked about sand sailing on those wild three wheelers for years.

[Riley Smith]

The lack of reasonable spaces to sail those three wheelers probably cause their existence to be as rare as hen's teeth. I guess out west somewhere there are places but here in the east everything is covered up with people that don't want you to walk on their grass. There IS hope ahead, as the weekend is slated to be in the 70s and rain free. I dearly hope the weather guy got this one right, although a wedding will negate any chance of me being able to participate   I perhaps enjoy the OT conversations even more than the ones about a soulless plastic boat with rags in the wind which someone envisions as one of those schooners underway that take your breath away. At least those folks aren't in fear of drowning from having their nose in the air like that classic wooden crowd! Proof positive that those of us with a voice will say anything and the worst of the lot is someone that hasn't ever posted something about the bits of their soul that gets fed ( or fired up) from our meanderings. I owe this place a very lot and those that have endured those meanderings of mine, but sure get frustrated at such. Yes, it's work to make a comprehensible paragraph but anything worthwhile is earned, not given.

Oh yeah, poking someone in the eye is sure to get a response