On Feb 10, 6:01 am, Rosalie B. wrote:
"Bob" wrote:
On Feb 8, 8:39 pm, Larry wrote:

Stay tuned - this will be the last mail from me before we're safely
back on the boat in the Keys Boat Yard, Marathon, which we anticipate
to be tomorrow. Yay for that - I'm ready to kick butt again ?

With love, Lydia (and Skip)

I read in other post the weather that brought these two down was:

NE at 25 and seas of 7-8 feet.

Is that true?????
Bob

Sea height is VERY hard to estimate accurately, at least for me and I
suspect for other people as well. More important than just the height
is the wave period (that is how close together they are). Waves of
7-8 feet out in the Atlantic someplace are almost non-events. Waves
of 7-8 feet in the Chesapeake, and I suspect also along the Florida
Gulf Coast, and certainly in the Gulf Stream resulting from a NE wind
are entirely different and a MUCH worse problem, because they are
close enough together that the boat is burying the bow in the next
wave while still on the crest of the previous wave.

Good points you describe. I agree. But was that weather I read above
an operator observatoin or from NWS/OPC?
Bob

"Bob" wrote:

On Feb 10, 6:01 am, Rosalie B. wrote:
"Bob" wrote:
On Feb 8, 8:39 pm, Larry wrote:

Stay tuned - this will be the last mail from me before we're safely
back on the boat in the Keys Boat Yard, Marathon, which we anticipate
to be tomorrow. Yay for that - I'm ready to kick butt again ?

With love, Lydia (and Skip)

I read in other post the weather that brought these two down was:

NE at 25 and seas of 7-8 feet.

Is that true?????
Bob

Sea height is VERY hard to estimate accurately, at least for me and I
suspect for other people as well. More important than just the height
is the wave period (that is how close together they are). Waves of
7-8 feet out in the Atlantic someplace are almost non-events. Waves
of 7-8 feet in the Chesapeake, and I suspect also along the Florida
Gulf Coast, and certainly in the Gulf Stream resulting from a NE wind
are entirely different and a MUCH worse problem, because they are
close enough together that the boat is burying the bow in the next
wave while still on the crest of the previous wave.

Good points you describe. I agree. But was that weather I read above
an operator observatoin or from NWS/OPC?
Bob

I don't know, but IME the wave heights reported by NOAA aren't very
accurate either. I don't really know how wave heights can be
accurately measured.

When I'm in our boat, I measure them against the topsides of the boat
if they are close enough and at an angle that I can do that. If the
wave is crashing down over the bow and green water rolling down the
deck of our boat, I know the waves are at least 10 feet.

From an airplane or from a large ship, it becomes more difficult,
because there's no scale to go by. (Unless as happened to Bob once,
the green water is crashing over the flight deck of the aircraft
carrier and then you know that the waves are probably 50 feet)

I'm not sure how they do the waves from the buoys, but there aren't
that many of those.

As far as weather forecasts go - more than once the forecast has been
15-20 decreasing during the day, and it has actually been 15-20
increasing to 25-30 with gusts to 50.

I don't know, but IME the wave heights reported by NOAA aren't very
accurate either. I don't really know how wave heights can be
accurately measured.

I'm not sure how they do the waves from the buoys, but there aren't
that many of those.

Bouys, satellites, ship obsevations....





As far as weather forecasts go - more than once the forecast has been
15-20 decreasing during the day, and it has actually been 15-20
increasing to 25-30 with gusts to 50.

More important at the top of every Ocean Prediction Center weather fax
you'll read:
SIGNIFICANT WAVE HEIGHT IS SHOWN (THE AVERAGE HEIGHT OF THE HIGHEST
ONE-THIRD OF THE WAVES)

In other words, the forcasted/observed wave hight means you gonna see
lots bigger ones too. Average = mean.
Bob

"Bob" wrote:


I don't know, but IME the wave heights reported by NOAA aren't very
accurate either. I don't really know how wave heights can be
accurately measured.

I'm not sure how they do the waves from the buoys, but there aren't
that many of those.

Bouys, satellites, ship obsevations....

It's the ship observations that I don't trust. We just got back from
a cruise and the wave heights that they reported were just
unbelievable to me. Either they said it was calm with no significant
waves when it was not, or they said that the waves were 7-8 (feet or
meters can't remember which) when there looked to me that there
weren't any to speak of.

As far as weather forecasts go - more than once the forecast has been
15-20 decreasing during the day, and it has actually been 15-20
increasing to 25-30 with gusts to 50.

More important at the top of every Ocean Prediction Center weather fax
you'll read:
SIGNIFICANT WAVE HEIGHT IS SHOWN (THE AVERAGE HEIGHT OF THE HIGHEST
ONE-THIRD OF THE WAVES)

In other words, the forcasted/observed wave hight means you gonna see
lots bigger ones too. Average = mean.
Bob

I know what average and mean are. But if it is the average tallest
1/3rd, I would expect to see more smaller ones (the other 2/3rds). (I
don't get weather faxes as a rule, so I would not have seen that)

When they report the weather at Thomas Point light, they say the same
thing about the wind speed and the waves there. And what they report
is sometimes significantly different from what we see at our boat even
though we are within sight of the light.

Also when we go past Cedar Point at the mouth of the Patuxent, the
wind there is often completely opposite of any other place on the
Chesapeake.

My point is that a lot of weather is really localized and broad
observations may not really reflect what is happening at a specific
boat.

On Sat, 10 Feb 2007 20:14:27 GMT, Rosalie B.
wrote:

As far as weather forecasts go - more than once the forecast has been
15-20 decreasing during the day, and it has actually been 15-20
increasing to 25-30 with gusts to 50.


Amen to that! Once on the way from Dog Island to Anclote Key, leaving
with a forecast of 10-15 with 2 to 5 ft seas, we were in 30-40 with 15
ft seas. NOAA was still giving that same forecast/conditions that
night, but when the bouy (about 15 or 20 miles away) report came on it
agreed with what we were experiencing. Don't the NOAA folks check
their own bouy reports and listen to their own computer voice
forecasts? Believe the bad forecasts / don't believe the good.

Rick