Please, please, please do not depend on free GRIB files for weather,
and FAX files are too large for sailmail, and probably large enough to
be impratical on Winlink. Anyway, the free GRIBs are mostly GFS
(because NOAA gives them away), and while they are better than nothing,
the model is wrong, often wildly wrong, often. The people who draw
weather fax charts are looking at several wx models (typically the EU,
the navy (NGP) and (GFS)) as well as getting bouy repots and space
immaging. They are also typically professional meterologists with a
great deal of experience in the part of the world for which they are
responsible. I have been looking at GRIBs on my boat for years (first
AVN -- hopeless at sea leve -- and now GFS models) and have just
finished over a month at sea working with them and they are wrong so
often that I stopped looking at them by the end of this passage.
Weather faxes (where available) are a far, far better source of
information, and you can download them with a recieve only SSB cabable
radio and a computer, plus, perhaps a small opAmp.

-- Tom.