Weather Routing

[FS Neroform 100]

well well well ....... first I made a routing and didn't change the destination ....... didn't satisfy me at all ........ then a cleared all routes and pointed the destination south of Panama .........
As I have the Isochromes all two hours my computer did work some moments ........ but the result ........ well ........ just and simply FASCINATING !!!!!
CONGRATULATION ...... this is overwhelmingly GOOD
Well, some of the routes would make me carry my boat across Bahja California and throu Mexico, but there are several routes that are similar to the ones I had in mind - just great.
At the moment I'm about 60 miles west and 40 miles south of most the others and I'm trying to keep my southern advance .... and with the help of the now perfectly working VRTool it might eventually be possible - THANKS
Whenever I pass near Rio in the future, I'll make a stopover and bring you my thanks in liquid form ..... bottle of rhum ?

Might be you could help also a friend of mine .... she is a fanatic sailor and quite good (beyond the first 100 in the JV). I tried to help here install VRTools, but we couldn' find any files from the firefox in the cache ....... you have an idea what's the problem ?

[FS Neroform 100]

Dear Omar
Something is still wrong with the weather routing ......
If I'm calculating a route withe the ruler, then I go about 95 miles farther in 72 hours than the weather routing would make me go in 82 hours ! Weather routing would make me pass through small winds - calculating with the ruler I go around ...... more distance to go, but in the end much faster.
What could be the problem ?

[Neptune]

I also noted that the routing has limited use. Better results are obtained manually.
It seems that it looks straight ahead to the destination even if it means to go trough light wind areas. In one instance I was 10 KM from a square with winds twice as fast as the one I was in but it was NOT suggested.
In my opinion it's looks at too narrow a path or the wind square are too large. I tried to increase the angle to destination but made little difference.
It is very good if the wind are the same in the path to the destination. In my opinion the earlier version with the TRACK TOOL ( Using the ALT Key ) was more accurate.

[FS Neroform 100]

I'm glad to hear that you are making the same experience - as this morning the winds and specially the weather-forecast changed dramatically to smaller winds, I wondered if eventually the weather-routing would use other forecasts - but this seems to be impossible. Where sould it get the forecasts from ?
As the forecasts near Panama are not reliable, going directly to the goal might not be wrong. But an other point is, that the forecasts from MBAR (Brezil) do show fair winds at 5°N, so that staying south and continue east might be better.
Anyway - since the beginning of leg 8 of the clipper I followed my feelings and not the weather-routing. Comparing with the weather-routing I was wondering whether I was wrong ....... As my two boats are at the rankings 280 and 303, I now think I was right to follow my instincts and not the weather-routing.
I did even set a max angle to destination of 150° - didn't change anything. Weather-routing would still leed me into the small winds - which might be best, but I'm hoping to be faster by going around.
Friends of mine are using Zezo - they have the same problem. And as they were following zezo, they are and will be far behind (if the goods of the winds will not help them)!