Yottimet

Serendipity
David Caukill
Thu 22 Nov 2012 04:42

Thursday 21  November, The Bay of Islands, Northland,  New Zealand  South Pacific Ocean 35 14.0S 174 10.3E  Today’s Blog by David (Time zone GMT+13.00; UTC +13.00)

 

Up bright and early this morning to enjoy the forecast first rays of sunshine for several days. We motored to Russell, a port with some considerable history as a centre of sin and debauchery among the whaling trade some 150 years ago. Today it is a picturesque tourist destination – particularly for Big Game Anglers.

 

Our journey to Russell was hampered not a little by the visibility which at times was less than 500 yards.  It improved a little by the time we got into town though:

 

 

And after we had had lunch it had improved even further:

 

 

The perspicacious among you will have spotted rather low levels of ultraviolet light in these photos and remarkably reflective tarmacadam. It has rained all day. It seems there is an occluded front on top of us (it’s OK it’s legal) which is not moving – however much it is forecast to do so.

 

This continuing diversity between the NZ Weather forecast and the actual outcome led me to wonder whether the New Zealand Meteorological Office Golf Club is perhaps away on its annual  golf tour, or something.  It calls to mind an excellent book “Sod’s Law of the Sea” by Bill Lucas an Andrew Spedding -  an irreverent satirical exposition of practical cruising; I commend it to you. On meteorology:

 

In addition to the standard knowledge and equipment, the Yotti needs two pieces of special equipment: an Alarm Clock and the Meteorological Office Golf Club Fixture List.

 

Alarm Clock

“This is vital and you should set it to ring just before the shipping and other forecasts you may wish to hear. If you don’t have one you can go for weeks waking up or remembering to turn the radio on just as the nice gent at Broadcasting House says ‘We now rejoin Radio 4 for the cricket scores/farming news’ or whatever comes after the forecast. (If you just miss the end of the forecast but the BBC gent says ‘That is the end of the Shipping Forecast. Good sailing and good luck gentlemen’, either stay at home or head for yours or somebody else’s quickly).

 

Meteorological Office Golf Club Fixture List

“Met men do not go sailing (they know the weather is too unpredictable): they play golf, and can generally read the portents well enough not to be caught out too far from the clubhouse in a heavy load of ‘precipitation’.

 

“You may have been conditioned by the publicity department of the Met Office and kindly television ‘forecasters’ into thinking that Meteorology is now a highly organised , accurate and computer reinforced science. So it is; the computer predicts accurately what is likely to happen from the last available information of some satellite or selected weathership report. It still requires human interpretation and it  is, quite correctly, called a forecast. So, if you recall, is the name given to your effort with the football pools week by week in the winter.

 

“On weeks for ‘away’ fixtures of the Golf Club, the senior Met men organise an apprentice Mettie for duty whilst they travel by coach to Argyll. The apprentice is given a number of  highly sophisticated options predicted by the computer together with the office set of poker dice. Four jacks and a ten…. Humber, Thames,  Dover … Light variable. Full House, queens on tens….Wight Portland Plymouth ….southwest 4/5,  decreasing later …. And so forth.

 

“This works quite well, and nobody can tell the difference except for the rare occasion when a low pressure system has crept in under the eyes of the satellite,  is tailing a bigger system and creaming up the Channel at fifty knots. The apprentice Mettie is still churning out low throws like three nines when to his alarm Coastal Reports and ships from the Western Approaches start giving him the tip that he should be up to at least four kings. He then has to wait for a respectable hour at which to telephone the Ancient Argyll Golf and Curling Club to tell the Club Captain that something is definitely not three nines off Penzance.  The boss then takes a hand with Fate and tells him to update the forecast to at least five queens in Wight, Portland, Plymouth four kings and an Ace on the rest of the South Coast and  three jacks and two queens backing to five queens with heavy rain later for the East Coast.

 

“You can tell the away fixture weekends without a fixture list when something nasty happens which is predicted twelve hours after you had it. It is , however, prudent to be expecting the unexpected.

 

“All weekend with home fixtures will give you very good forecasts. You might not get it quite when they say …… but you will get it.  “

 

The NZ Met Office golf tour must have come to an end because the forecast for tomorrow – according to the  New Zealand Meteorological Office -  is for continuing rain.  We have taken that as positive news and plan to sail North  tomorrow to Whangaroa. This is in part based upon the perverse notion that the Met Office will get it wrong again and partly on having obtained a personalised forecast this afternoon from One well qualified to do so:  

 

 

Wish us luck!!