50:9.2N 005:3.8W

With Concerto in Falmouth and the final preparations now in mind thoughts have been turning to weather information and the best way to receive this.

All the boats in the race have to carry some form of satellite communications and Concerto is no exception.  We have teamed up with the very friendly and helpful folk at MailASail (www.mailasail.com) who in addition to being able to provide phones, equipment and airtime have an excellent software suite that manages and compresses email, allows the download of Grib files and blogging on their web-diary all over a low speed sat-phone connection.

On the weather front, if you excuse the pun, we are reasonably capable at using a Grib viewer and getting an idea of what is on the cards but there is so much more to forecasting and we just donât have the knowledge and experience to make the most of the information available.  Therefore we are extremely pleased to announce that Simon Keeling of SWIS (www.SailingWeatherInformationService.co.uk) will be providing Concerto with daily weather forecasts for our sea area.  Simon is a self-confessed weather anorak and it is likely that you have seen him working on TV, he has also written two books and has a number of private weather forecasting companies.  We are extremely pleased and excited to have Simon on-board.