Practise passage planning from home: forecast, route and options in a real-time race

A passage plan on paper is easy to admire and hard to test. You work out the legs and the times, then the trip does not happen, or the weather makes it pointless. You seldom find out whether the plan would have been any good.

A race in real time gives you the test. You plan a long leg with a real forecast, you commit, and a day later you can see what it was worth.

The four questions of any passage plan

1. Where am I going, and what is in the way? On the race chart, a dashed line shows a suggested safe way round the land to the next mark. It is deliberately wide of dangers and is not the shortest way, so your first decision is how far to trust it.
2. What will the wind do on the way? The forecast buttons on the chart step ahead (+1 H, +3 H, +6 H and on, as far as the forecast reaches), so you can watch the wind develop along the leg.
3. How long will it really take? The DATA BAR shows SOG, COG, BTW, DTW and VMG, measured along the sea route. INSTR adds ETA and % OF POTENTIAL, so you can compare your plan with what is happening.
4. What is the way out? If the wind fails, which side of the leg do you want to be on? Where do you have room?

An exercise: plan one leg before you sail it

Choose the next leg and spend ten minutes on it before you give an order.

• Step through the forecast and write down the wind at +6 and +12 hours where you expect to be.
• Decide which direction the wind will force you to take, and where you would need to tack or gybe.
• Estimate your time of arrival. Use the boat's rough speeds: in 12 knots of true wind the 30 ft cruiser of THE BALTIC LAP made about 4.7 kn close-hauled at 40° and 6.2 kn on a beam reach; each race shows its own boat's speeds.
• Write down one sentence: "I am going this way because…"

When you get there, compare. How far off was your time? Was the sentence still true? This small habit trains more than any number of finished races without notes.

The forecast changes, and so must you

A real forecast is revised. In the race the wind takes in the newest MET Norway forecast regularly, and you can have a NEW FORECAST notification on your phone. A plan that was smart at breakfast can be wrong by lunch.

That is exactly what a skipper needs to practise: noticing what changed, and deciding whether it matters enough to change course. Changing your plan every hour costs distance, and so does never changing it.

Why you are planning for hours, not minutes

The boat is sailed on the server around the clock. If you set a heading and go to bed, she will hold it for eight hours. So you have to think ahead as you would before going off watch: What will she meet in that time? Is land on that line? Will the wind shift put her in a bad place? The console warns of THE SHORE AHEAD and she rounds up near the coast, but losing the hours is your own bill to pay.

Going further: waypoints on the chart

By default you sail the race by orders, with the dashed sea route as a guide. The race extras (with the Race Pass, Premium or a simulator subscription) add your own route: ROUTE lays the waypoints and TRACK has the autopilot follow them. To practise classic chartwork, use the simulator's plotter. There you read the passage plan with course, distance and ETA, and run CHECK ROUTE against your safety depth, because depths count there. Our chart plotter article covers it in detail. The plotter comes with the simulator subscription.

What this leaves out

Depths do not count in the races, only the coast. THE BALTIC LAP was sailed in still water; THE ROARING NORTH SEA adds the real tides and tidal streams, so there a fair or foul tide becomes part of the plan. On a real passage you must also work with depth, tide, harbours of refuge, the crew and the boat's state. Those belong in your course and on your real boat. What the race trains is the habit of looking ahead and being honest about the result.

FAQ

Is this real weather routing?

It trains the thinking behind it: reading a forecast along a route and comparing options. In the public race you make the routing decisions yourself; it is not a professional routing tool, and it is not for planning a real passage.

Can I use this forecast for my real trip?

No. Always use official marine forecasts and proper charts for real navigation.

Related reading

• Sailing strategy: wind shifts, choosing your side and when to follow the fleet
• Think like a skipper: how an online regatta becomes virtual practice for real decisions
• Learn a sea through a race: capes, straits, islands and stories on the way
• "Chart plotter (ECDIS) simulator — plan a passage on real depths, then prove it for your boat, in the browser"
• Online sailing regatta simulator — a series of long races round real seas, now THE ROARING NORTH SEA
• All articles · Open the simulator

Boat types are described generically; SkipperCheck is not affiliated with any boat builder or class association.