BMEA

Understanding the weather patterns and the tidal activity at key points during the J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race is vital for competitors to achieve their best possible result on the day. 

For the 2010 race (taking place on Saturday 19th June), race partner Raymarine will once again be providing weather, tide and tactics tips which are freely available to all competitors via SMS, email and a face to face weather briefing which takes place at the Island Sailing Club in Cowes at 1800 hours on Friday 18th June.

This year top meteorologist Libby Greenhalgh will be providing the weather and tidal data which is available online from Wednesday 16th June, giving competitors vital day by day updates to plan their race strategy.  A Met Office trained and experienced forecaster, Libby works for Skandia Team GBR, the RYA’s Olympic squad, providing education, planning and forecasting for the sailors.  She was an integral part of the highly successful British Sailing team at the Olympic Games at Qingdao and combines her detailed understanding of the weather with a strong heritage in offshore and inshore racing.  An experienced sailor to Olympic standard herself, she races now in everything from J105s, a boat in which they won Cowes Week, to Mumm 30s, and is a regular racer in the Solent.  As well as being an accomplished sailor herself, she comes from an impressive sailing family – her brothers Peter Greenhalgh is an Olympic medallist in the 49er class, and Robert is a Volvo Round the world sailor now campaigning in the Oman Sail Mumm 30 team.  Her father David is also a regular competitor in the J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island race.

In her role as the Raymarine weather forecaster for the J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race, Libby says the information will combine vital weather forecasting advice alongside tidal data, as for many competitors, the tidal effect is key. Libby will use Raymarine’s award-winning RayTech RNS navigation software to demonstrate the weather forecast for race day, complete with the progression of tides, currents, wind speed and direction for the Isle of Wight and surrounding waters.  Working with Steve Adams from Yachting TV, Libby says “We’ll be filming from a variety of strategically important points on the Isle of Wight in the days pre the race, which will be available for competitors to view online from the Raymarine website. This will show the effect of weather and tide in a variety of conditions, enabling skippers, navigators and crew to make informed decisions about their best strategy, depending on the weather conditions on the day and the tide at that time. Even experienced racers get it wrong sometimes, such as hitting the boiler, so we’ll be talking through race strategy at all levels, with time breaks so smaller and slower boats get as much help as the faster record-breakers.”

The weather briefing, which takes place in the bar at the Island Sailing Club will be repeated on big screens in the downstairs bar to accommodate the number of attendees which regularly attend this vital briefing.  The key points and summaries will be available on Raymarine’s website and competitors can sign up for SMS notifications by logging onto http://www.raymarine.co.uk/news-and-events/rtir-2010/weather-briefings/