gribs at home

[haulback]

HELP......

Would like to tell someone (who is not a sailmail member) how to order and view grib files on their own computer. I have absolutely no idea how to do this as just a non-subscriber...

It is dead easy to do within sailmail, but have no experience or idea how to do so otherwise..

I recall Stan Honey telling us about it at pre-race weather seminar, but of course, paid no attention whatsoever at the time.

Simple step-by-step instructions would be most helpful...using windows XP

All suggestions gratefully accepted.

Thanks

Jim/Haulback

 

[sleddog]

Jim,
If you have internet access and don't want to turn on the SSB, the easiest is to go to
http://www.passageweather.com/

Another option is to register at http://www.grib.us/

Or were you asking how to obtain GRIB files offshore via SSB? This will require either SailMail or Winlink.

 

[haulback]

Skip:
Thanks for the response... No, I am not trying to figure out free way to get gribs onboard - I am, as you know, aready a sailmail member.

Discussion over coamps gribs was with towboat skipper while we were 'waiting weather' up in Prince Rupert area.

What I would like to find is a way to get access to coamps model for coastal gribs via internet connection. Appears that neither gribsUS or passageweather website offers these - GFS only, it looks to me.

Plan is to see how the coamps model works as a prediction tool in real life on this coast.

Must be a simple way to get at it somehow.....

Bye for now.....Jim

 

[sleddog]

Jim,

Saildocs provides COAMPS grib files at no charge. Simply send an e-mail to [email protected] with similar text in the format:
send coamps:32N,34N,124W,122W|0.2,0.2|0,6...48

If you use a spam filter you may have to take steps to accept the
responding e-mail from [email protected].

You should check the info files available from saildocs.com to see
whether the coamps grib files are available for the area you wish
to cover.

You may be confusing methods that can be used to obtain the grib
files with methods or software that can be used to display the data
contained in the grib files. As you know, the Airmail software
includes software for displaying the data, although only rather crude
outlines of the coast are displayed in the Airmail software.

Expedition software can overlay the wind arrows onto any
of the charts that you download (for free) and install in
Expedition. Although the Airmail display of the coastline is crude and
not attractive, it is perfectly usable for orienting the wind arrows
relative to the landmarks.

Hope this helps.

 

[Alchera]

You don't need to be a Sailmail member to use the Airmail and Viewfax software, only if you want to send/receive email. What I often do is to use Airmail to set the grib area I'm interested in and to format the message to be sent to Saildocs. Then instead of sending the email request via sailmail, I cut the message out and paste it into another email message which I send to [email protected] using Iridium and Google's (free) gmail, which has no size limits on the grib files I get back. Then I just drop the grib file attachment onto Viewfax to see the gribs, or drop into my Maxsea application for doing weather routing. No sailmail membership required. This is similar to what Stan Honey described at his TransPac seminar.

This works just as well ashore, without the Iridium part.

- Mark

 

[seabird51]

Hi Jim
Here is another source of gribs at sea and at home with internet connection.

GRIBs from Global Marine
email: [email protected].

GMN Phrases into SUBJECT:

Pacific 5day
or
20N:110W:1000 3day this is the layout for a custom grib. The lat/lon is the centerpoint and the 1000 is the radius or diameter of the area. You can request 1-6 days. This allows for paring down the response to save airtime on Iridium. Not an issue with a wifi connection. Their response is less than one minute from submission.

I put these gribs directly into GPSNavX on a mac but they should work with a pc program also. If not I think Global Marine has a pc grib viewer.

Must be getting dark and cool up there. We missed you at the fantastic Alchera Tree ll Party.

Lou
Seabird