Course Description:

For many years pilot charts have been the most important aid for voyage planning. For the last 150 years navigators have been using them for route planning and in spite of the advances in weather forecasting and the availability of weather information while on passage, their importance has not diminished. They are still the only means of route planning to take best advantage of favorable weather conditions. Monthly pilot charts for each ocean depict mean wind direction and speed, ocean currents, tracks of tropical storms, location of high pressure cells, thus providing all essential information for planning a voyage during the safest seasons and most favorable sailing conditions.

Jimmy Cornell will describe the history of this, the passage-maker’s best friend, and discuss the impact of the current climate changes on the data contained in the current pilot charts. The seminar will make use of Cornell’s Ocean Atlas, a comprehensive atlas of pilot charts based on data from meteorological satellites from 1987 to the present. Jimmy Cornell will demonstrate how to use them to plan a voyage from the US West Coast to New Zealand and from the US East Coast to Tahiti. Also, he will show how the latest satellite data confirms the recent changes in weather conditions which are not reflected in the pilot charts that are still being sold and used by sailors.