Sail and surf

East Coast of Australia, July 2009 :

Saltonay, a 43-foot catamaran from Sydney skippered by Ian Sloan went to Goldcoast marinas, large urban area south of Brisbane.
-> see place on Marine GeoGarage

Following a gale, the waves in the harbor entrance (called Southport Seaway) were about 2 meters high!
After a night of waiting, the skipper and 2 crew decided to go ...

How to prepare your navigation plan

In the GeoGarage tools (at the top left corner of the map), select :

• the flag logo in order to create waypoints on the map
• the broken line in order to create routes

Then click on the map :

• to create some waypoints : the Edit window proposes you to enter the name of the waypoint
  

• to create some route :
  

Notes :

• don't forget to click twice to end the creation of the route
• the Edit window proposes you to enter the name of the route (by default 'route#1' : you can rename it selecting 'route#1' and entering a new name with the keyboard)
  

• you can also change the color of the line clicking on the blue square
• the total length of the route is displayed (ex.: 311 Nm) : the route also shows the cumulative distance from the start for each waypoint and the bearing between each waypoint
  
• and you can of course choose to delete the whole route
• you can also choose to edit some of the waypoints belonging to the route, to delete it or to move it with the mouse (releasing the button of the mouse when the new position of the waypoint is correct)
  

Then when your navigation plan is ready, click on the 'reload button' to see all your data :

In our example, we have now 1 route and 1 waypoint.
If you have several waypoints or several routes, the Edition window displays all the list :

To select a specific waypoint or route :

• click on the name in the 'Edition' window
• or click on the object directly on the map

Xynthia, back to the future

Movie of wind forecast from grib.us (HiRes GRIB model)

As forecasting models improve, forecasters are able to issue more accurate and timely storm warnings and advisories.

Ex.: Weather forecast from wunderground.com,

February 26, 2010 (2 days before the passage)

"A large 1000 mb low pressure system named "Xynthia" is over the eastern Atlantic, and is expected to rapidly intensify Saturday morning into a meteorological 'bomb' that will bring high winds and flooding rains to Portugal, northern Spain, and western France. The models are coming into better agreement now, and have shifted their position for the storm's maximum intensity eastwards. France is now in the bullseye, and the storm is predicted to be at maximum intensity on Sunday morning when it will be positioned over northwestern France. The storm's powerful cold front will sweep ashore south of the low, bringing sustained winds of 50 - 60 mph (80 - 95 km/hr) to the coast of France's Bay of Biscay, with gusts over hurricane force (120 km/hr). The central pressure at that time will range from 966 mb to 972 mb, according to two of our top computer models, the ECMWF and GFS."

How to use Marine GeoGarage : quick overview

Online nautical maps of the world, regularly updated

• Marine GeoGarage is a website that will allow you to look at the NOAA charts. It will open in a new window that you can then maximize to get the best view. Also, if you sign up with the site (free), then you will be able to save waypoints and routes.

• When you open the site, if you first see a satellite view, then zoom into your favorite area by clicking on the map several times and then click on the “Map Content” box in the upper right hand corner of the chart to drop down the menu. Under the “NOAA” box, there is a slider. By moving that slider to the left, the background map will start to show through. The background map you see depends of the little drop down box under “background” at the top of the “Map Content” box. “Hybrid” is a good choice. Click on “Map Content” again to close the box. It is interesting to compare the shoal areas on the chart with the view in the satellite view.

• In the lower left-hand corner of the chart, you will see a lat/lon box giving the lat/lon of the mouse cursor.

• In the upper-left hand corner of the chart you will find the typical navigational tools of a Google Map. You can zoom in and out and move in four directions. You can also zoom with the thumbwheel of your mouse.

• To the right of the navigational tools, there is a tool box. The “hand” lets you move the map around, the “flag” lets you set a waypoint and the “lines and boxes” lets you make a route. Just click on the one you want.

• In the lower right-hand corner, there is a small map. If you grap the shaded box in the middle by clicking and holding your cursor, the can move the box all around the chart quickly.

• Once you play around with the site, it becomes very easy to use.

Press release : Marine GeoGarage, nautical charts web portal

Updated : May 12, 2010

Marine GeoGarage ushers in a new era of nautical mapping services with the launch of its marine charts portal, built on Cloud Computing technology.

http://marine.geogarage.com/routes

The web site is the world's first online nautical map service allowing to display maps coming from different international Hydrographic Services.

Today the catalogue of charts regroups all the public raster charts from NOAA (US), DHN (Brazil), Linz (New Zealand).
Marine GeoGarage's web interface also gives site visitors viewing access to all private charts from UKHO (UK), CHS (Canada), SHN (Argentina) accessible via some monthly 'Chart Premium' subscription (9.9 €/month)
Today more than 3000 electronic charts are available in the GeoGarage servers; additional providers' layers are in preparation.

The big advantage is that all the layers are kept updated regularly so the user is sure to visualize recent documents.

But the web site is not only a seamless chart viewer overlaying charts at different scales on aerial and satellite imagery from Google Maps.
It also allows the user to plot waypoints and to prepare some navigation routes which can be saved in his account after free registering and uploaded to GPS (in gpx format or directly to Garmin GPS via its Communicator web plugin)