"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.