Forecast for Rotto swim looking horrible

Good luck to any skippers on here doing the run, will need to head SW to counteract the likely strong surface drift to the north with the predicted winds Friday / Saturday 


Josh's picture

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 I am looking at it closely,

Mon, 2018-02-19 09:05

 I am looking at it closely, definitely hopefully the forecast changes! 

Darren253's picture

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Sunday AM is was showing a

Mon, 2018-02-19 09:40

Sunday AM is was showing a 14kt Easterly dropping by afternoon with next to no swell.

By Sunday PM the forecast had flipped and looking horrendous on Seabreeze. Willies are still holding the Easterly forecast.

Who knows and too early to tell with the trough hanging around from the bad weather up north.

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 Skippered it one year for a

Mon, 2018-02-19 11:09

 Skippered it one year for a team of four, told myself I would never do it again. Long way when the southerly comes in and your trying to keep the boat straight at smimmers pace.

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Not looking good

Mon, 2018-02-19 11:30

I'm doing my first one this year, I wouldn't want to be in the water or on a kayak in 15-20kn southerlies.   

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 This is my sixth year.  Last

Mon, 2018-02-19 11:59

 This is my sixth year.  Last forecast i saw on fish ranger was 15 kt easterlies.

 

My concern will be how to slow the boat down with that sort of tail wind.

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Fish! HARD!

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Seabreeze is forecasting

Mon, 2018-02-19 12:31

Seabreeze is forecasting 22knot SE with a 1.8m Swell for the 6am Start. Drops to 16knot Southerly by 12noon before picking up again to 21kts! 

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 Which is completely

Mon, 2018-02-19 12:32

 Which is completely different to fish ranger.  Fish ranger has easterly blowing all day at both swanbourne and rottnest.

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Fish! HARD!

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Not quite

Mon, 2018-02-19 12:51

Must be looking at a different Fishranger.  I see the forecast at Swanbourne as S/SE early morning, up to 20kn, then dropping off to 10-15kn and changing to easterly by midday.  Rotto is showing SSE in the morning at over 20kn, changing to ESE during the day, briefly below 15kn. 

Not a huge difference but definitely not easterly all day.

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 Yes agreed.  What i saw was

Mon, 2018-02-19 16:40

 Yes agreed.  What i saw was generally ese. When i said easterly, i wasnt being as specific as i should have been.  Lots of reverse i think.  Which is difficult because youre not actually allowed to make way astern.

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Fish! HARD!

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Yep

Mon, 2018-02-19 12:53

Might be lots of time in reverse... 

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sea anchor

Mon, 2018-02-19 19:15

Maybe try the sea anchor off the back end.

hezzy's picture

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keep an eye on meteye here

Mon, 2018-02-19 14:45

keep an eye on meteye

here if you want to get a good forecast on wind direction and speed

http://www.bom.gov.au/australia/meteye/?loc=WA_FA001

hezzy

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OFW 11

evil flourishes when good men do nothing

 

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The best site

Mon, 2018-02-19 15:02

yep that's the one I use Hezzy. 

Fishranger uses the same data but displays in different formats.

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Posts: 126

Date Joined: 07/12/15

 Yep. Bom's Meteye is the

Mon, 2018-02-19 17:26

 Yep. Bom's Meteye is the best. SE/NE during the swim and 34C - happy days. Expecting North to South current based on fishing drift. Hope the forecast holds. Crossing #7 for me.

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 They all display the same

Mon, 2018-02-19 16:42

 They all display the same data.  Just bom seem to play it safe and add 5 knts onto the windspeed.  Last time i tried i couldnt get meteye to display that well on my phone.  Has it improved at all?

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Windy.com

Mon, 2018-02-19 17:08

 is the best

Darren253's picture

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Nice app... a lot more user

Mon, 2018-02-19 18:24

Nice app... a lot more user friendly than BOM

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 Cottesloe looking a touch

Fri, 2018-02-23 06:11

 Cottesloe looking a touch better for start time and rotto looking better just after midday (finish time).  So hopefully the trip wont be too challenging.

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Fish! HARD!

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Date Joined: 13/09/16

Whats everyone's plan of attack?

Fri, 2018-02-23 07:52

 Not trying to steal race ideas here but having only skippered in ideal conditions the stronger than expected easterly has got me thinking a bit.

I was just going to track the Rhumb line and attempt to "idle" in referse to reduce the drift of the boat.

My main concern is that the wind will push the vessel faster than the swimmer can swim and i may be in a situation to do a U-turn (which i will be trying to avoid at all cost)

 

Any clever dieas or suggestion to keep things flowling smoothly will be apppreciated.

 

 

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 Would like to see the risk

Fri, 2018-02-23 08:31

 Would like to see the risk assessment completed by the organisers for this event when such conditions will see a lot more interaction between boats and swimmers as suggested above with boats in reverse and turning around to get back to their swimmer.

Big test for boat skippers, Stay safe everyone.

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Tom M

sunshine's picture

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The canoeist stays in touch with the swimmer

Fri, 2018-02-23 08:45

 You should never put boat in reverse, move ahead and run a turn when needed.  A few years ago in perfect conditions we saw a boat almost reverse into their swimmer before they panicked and ran into us after throwing it into forward.  Good luck everyone skippering this year, stay safe, be patient and enjoy (if that is possible) the experience

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 It is against the rules to

Fri, 2018-02-23 11:53

 It is against the rules to make way backyards, but you can use reverse to stop forward motion.  Skippers / Spotters will need to be keeping a very good look out.

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Yeah forecast is rubbish,

Fri, 2018-02-23 08:59

Yeah forecast is rubbish, this is about my 6th year in a row and probably the worst forecast in that time.

 

20-25kn ESE winds until 10am, all boats will be pushed NW, so stick south i reckon.

I suspect a lot of teams will be pulling out with sea sickness.

 

i wouldnt bother with how to stay near your swimmer in these conditions its too dangerous, change swimmer and pull out of thew swim lane and do a loop coming back for a swap over.

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That's my plan

Fri, 2018-02-23 11:17

With 15-20kn ESE winds I'm almost certainly going to be drifting at least as fast as my swimmers. 

I've never done the event supporting a team before (although I've done Port to Pub as an official boat).  My plan was to loop around away from the swim channel then back into position for the changeover.

We have a small tender but not sure how it's going to go in the conditions. 

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sunshine's picture

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Totally sound and safe approach

Fri, 2018-02-23 12:52

And for solo swimmers loop around and watch closely for hypothermia.  Given the strong southerlies this afternoon / evening it would be reasonable to expect a northerly surface drift exacerbated by the ESE in the morning ........setting a lay line for the swimmers will be critical in such conditions  

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 yeah its probably ideal  to 

Fri, 2018-02-23 13:07

 yeah its probably ideal  to  act as a marker of reference for your swimmer and the canoe. so they have a direction to swim and then do a loop and drop back to see how they are going....  rather than sitting right on top of them....i guess trying to give everyone as much space as possible  is going to be the aim of the game for the skippers. 

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 so a boat has sunk and

Sat, 2018-02-24 12:45

 so a boat has sunk and swimmers out of water because of a shark

 

 im a little suprised the race went ahead with all the drama of mandurah at the moment

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Some bloke broke the record

Sat, 2018-02-24 13:35

Some bloke broke the record just scrapping in under 4 hours. What an amazing feat!

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Officially off the Pies bandwagon

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Sat, 2018-02-24 15:40

 Perth Now have indicated the boat capsized due to excess water flooding the boat. Give that person a medal.

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