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What are your 2022 sailing plans?! Whatever they are, this episode will help you plan a cruise or an offshore passage.
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Hello everybody and welcome to this week's technical Tuesday. Yes this week
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you have me. After years of dealing with Nick on a technical Tuesday this is what
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he's doing right now. Yeah standard. So today I thought I would talk to you about planning a cruise and
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how to plan a cruise and we'll also go into how to plan kind of an offshore
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passage. In a lot of ways that's actually more straightforward so I'll leave that
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to last. We recently came to New South Wales to do a cruise and it occurred to
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me that I had no idea about the cruising ground here. I had literally no clue
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whatsoever about where to go, where nice anchorages were, what type of cruising
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there was to be done around here. I was starting from a position of zero local
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knowledge. No idea. I had to start from scratch when it came to preparing and
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researching where to go and how to cruise around this area and it occurred
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to me that might actually be of interest to a lot of you because I've heard a lot of questions over the years about like how do you know where to anchor and how
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do you know where to go and how do you know what kind of local weather there is
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Basically how do you know where to take your boat? It sounds quite basic but
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it actually is a very valid question and today I'm gonna talk to you about the
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resources that I use to plan a cruise and this might be when you're going on
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charter somewhere perhaps for like a week or two and you're flying into
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somewhere that you've never been to before picking up a boat and going for a cruise. This might be if you are kind of picking up a new boat for example but
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perhaps you're getting a boat built somewhere like Vietnam like we are right now and you're flying in picking up your new boat and you're wanting to cruise a
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local area but that's not where you're from or maybe you have bought a boat in
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your own locality and you're wanting to go for a cruise to somewhere kind of
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nearby perhaps you're in the US East Coast you want to go down to the Bahamas maybe you're in the UK you want to go down to France. So this episode is going
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to be all about talking about those resources that I use to plan our cruise
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or our cruising season sharing them with you and hopefully you know if you
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guys have any other ideas anything that you use that I don't or any other
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methodology then just comment down below and keep that kind of exchange of
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information going. So number one if you have either the paper charts or the
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electronic charts to hand then that's a great way of just getting an overview of
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the cruising ground that you are planning to go to. We don't always have
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that obviously if you're going on charter somewhere you won't have access to the charts until you get there but if you are planning to take your own
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boat or you are planning to pick up a boat there then the chances are that you
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will buy paper charts you will buy electronic charts you might be able to
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see your electronic charts on your phone or your tablet or whatever before you
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actually arrive. So I think that's a good first step to just have a look at the
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charts you can see by looking at a chart where a lot of possible anchorages are
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you can see certainly where it's feasible to sail and where it's not so
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you're looking at depths and shipping lanes or lots of navigational hazards
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then you know that that might be a bit of a trickier part of the cruise. You can see what islands perhaps are better protected from different wind angles you
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can get a lot of information just by looking at a chart. However the charts
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won't only take you so far because they don't often show you anchorages. They do
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sometimes some of the more popular anchorages there'll be a little anchor symbol but they really don't aren't very good for planning purposes in terms
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of where to anchor for the night. So that's where in my opinion old-school
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cruising guides are fantastic. I have one right here for example this is the New
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South Wales cruising guide by Ellen Lucas. I'm under the impression that this
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is really the only cruising guide available and often that is the case that there is a cruising guide for that cruising ground. Usually it's a written
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by a person or perhaps sometimes a couple of people who are very very
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familiar with that cruising ground and they impart a lot of local knowledge. So
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it's not just about for example where to anchor it's also about where to find
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fuel, where there might be you know bins ashore, where to get water from, where you
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can get your groceries from. Some cruising guides go a step further for
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example the Caribbean cruising guides by Chris Doyle and he gives a lot of
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local information about you know what restaurants are good, some local hiking
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trails, local dive spots or snorkeling spots, that kind of thing. So you can get
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a lot of information from cruising guides most of the time. In my opinion
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despite the fact that you know technology is kind of superseded books
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in a lot of ways I think by a hard copy cruising guide is still the best way of
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familiarizing yourself with a cruising ground before you actually get there. On
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top of that there are a lot of online resources so there are apps for example
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some are more useful than others and some are useful in certain areas where
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that same app might be less useful elsewhere. For example Active Captain is
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a fantastic app it basically just shows you loads of anchorages and it's based
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on user feedback so you can create your own profile and then write your own kind
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of reviews or feedback about certain anchorages and that's that's the formula
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So that's really great when there's a lot of users inputting information into
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the app. When a lot of local people don't use the app then obviously it's less
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useful. So for example in the Bahamas and the Caribbean Active Captain was
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fantastically useful up the east coast of the US because it's used by a lot of
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people in that cruising area. Another great app which is essentially the same
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idea but it uses Google Maps instead of Garmin charts is Navili or Navili
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depending on how you pronounce it and that is very useful in Europe because
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it's used by a lot of Europeans particularly I noticed a lot of French
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people use Navili and it only uses Google Maps so there's no charts or
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anything that you have to wade through therefore it's easy for everyone to use
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you don't have to subscribe to any any particular service although Navili now
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they do have a subscription option and you get more kind of features if you
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actually subscribe. But even with the free service you can see a lot of
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information so people can put in anchorages that they're aware of that
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they're familiar with and write reviews and talk it also gives you information
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about the holding about the wind protection the swell protection that kind of thing really useful information facilities and amenities that are
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sure so it really those type of apps that are always up to date because they
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are being updated by people in real time and also where everyone can put in that
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information and it's basically a big information sharing platform is really handy because sometimes these cruising guides are out of date for example this
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one is actually 10 years out of date it was written in 2010 oh 11 years now
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we're in 2021 now aren't we the other resource that I use often actually and
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this might surprise you because it's you know kind of not very sailory is Google
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Earth so I use both the satellite and kind of the non satellite imaging
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options and that gives you a lot of information it might not give you
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information obviously it doesn't give you any information about things like depth and holding and that kind of thing but it can show you certainly what
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is a sure whether the anchorages accessible by road for example even
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things to do is sure so if you arrive somewhere and you're like you know what is there to do around here Google Earth or Google Maps is a really
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handy website to use and it also gives you a lot of information about you know
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perhaps you want to go ashore and have a drink or you want to go ashore and you
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know buy some groceries it will show you what local services and amenities
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there actually are in real time which again the apps don't necessarily do and
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the cruising guides some are really good at that and some kind of skim over that
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level of information it really is down to what the author considers to be
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important and not all of the cruising guides give you that depth of information
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sometimes that's a really good thing because sometimes you do tend to be wading through all this information that isn't useful to you and it is good
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just to have that concise what you need to know in terms of how to get into the
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anchorage what kind of navigational hazards there are how to actually like
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navigate your way down that river or into that port you know these things are
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genuinely useful so I think that kind of wraps up the resources that Nick and I
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used for planning a cruise and we don't just use one we use all of them so it's
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not just a matter of like cherry-picking what you prefer they're used best when
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they're used like as a whole all of them together if you guys have any other
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resources that you use particularly apps because that's kind of something that is
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changing a lot all the time then please comment down below because I'm always
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interested to find out new apps for the you know sailing and navigation and
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cruising so please um please let us know that information the other important
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piece of information to always have to hand is weather and sometimes an app or
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a website that you use in one location is less useful in a different location
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so it's always good to be using the local weather services so for example
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here in Australia the best service to use is the Bureau of Meteorology here in
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Australia as a result I can't really give you information on you know kind of
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which website or service to use because it really depends on where you are
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locally but there are certainly some websites that I use often irrespective
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of where we are I'm a big fan of windy windy you can choose which weather
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service you are actually looking at so they have the GFS they have the euro and
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they have several others so windy.com here in Australia I've been using
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something called sea breeze calm and again that just uses the Bureau of
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Meteorology their forecasts and kind of collects that information and presents it in a user-friendly way but often you just have to choose what website or what
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what app or whatever you prefer in terms of how user-friendly it is because the
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actual data that they're using is often the same it's just that the way that information is presented can be more easy to understand than others so having
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an app or ideally a couple of apps that you use for for weather local weather is
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crucially important often it's easiest just to ask what you know if you pick up
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the boat from a marina go into the office and ask what they they recommend
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or what the local weather service is. Finally I want to talk about doing
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offshore passages that might be an ocean crossing that might be something like the
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Bay of Biscay that might be for example going from between the US East Coast and
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the Bahamas. How to plan for an offshore passage I think that the very first
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thing I would recommend is again a book and that is the Jimmy Cornell world
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cruising routes it is the Bible when it comes to planning offshore passages it
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literally has every single offshore passage that I think you could possibly
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do in that book and it is absolutely brilliant but the other great thing
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about that book is it is kind of timeless you know we have an edition that is probably 10 years old by now and that information is still very useful
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because these weather systems yes okay weather is changing but it's still
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fundamentally the same you know you still get the same prevailing winds you
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still get the hurricane seasons at about the same time so it is still
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fundamentally the same whether you have an edition that is you know one year old
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ten years old twenty years old whatever there are sometimes other books that are
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specific for a certain offshore passage so for example crossing the Atlantic
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there is an Atlantic crossing guide book crossing the Pacific I believe that
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there is a Pacific crossing guide book so sometimes there are books that you
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can buy that are specific to the offshore passage or the ocean crossing
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that you're about to do and it's always useful to buy those and to read those
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and to take note because obviously they will have a level of information that is
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far more pertinent to your particular needs than a generalized book for kind
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of all ocean or offshore passages and all of those kinds of books will give
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you information about weather so if you're doing for example an Atlantic crossing then there's a very well established season to do that so there
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are established weather patterns that you can follow in order to complete
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your crossing safely and enjoyably of course another really useful resource just in general and I don't want to be promoting my own videos but I do this
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it's useful to watch videos or go on websites blogs for example and follow
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people's real-life experience in the cruising ground that you're planning to go to and you might just enjoy the videos for what they are but you might
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actually get some genuinely useful tips so for example if you're planning to
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cruise the Bahamas then I mean there's plenty of YouTube videos of sailors in
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the Bahamas so you have a lot of information at your fingertips there and
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as I said it could serve just for generalized inspiration or you might
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actually get some some really helpful tips and advice from those YouTube
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videos finally again in general another fantastic resource are Facebook groups I'm part of lots of Facebook groups which are focused on cruising different
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parts of the world for example in the Mediterranean there's several really
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great Facebook groups which are fantastic for information sharing you know there are Facebook groups for the Caribbean islands for the Bahamas for
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basically everywhere for the Pacific so you can join a Facebook group that is
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dedicated to the cruising ground that you are wanting to explore and and that's
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gonna provide a lot of really useful information as well I think that just
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about covers it that could be a lot of information for a lot of people I'm
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going to link down below to the resources that I mentioned if you have
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any other suggestions particularly any other resources that you like using then
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please comment down below because I personally am always interested in finding other resources particularly when it comes to weather and navigation
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and kind of planning so please put those down in the comments below and let
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us know you know what you prefer are you kind of a little bit old-school and you like using the books I do or do you prefer using apps and kind of internet
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resources so let us know down below in the comments I know that you guys are
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used to Nick doing these technical Tuesdays don't you worry he will be back make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel so that you don't miss those
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episodes click that notification bell so you don't miss an episode and I
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really hope you guys are having a great day we'll see you next time bye
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