The Passage Planning for Power Boating with PredictWind webinar was recorded on April 17th 2025.

Here is the link to the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/1deQkRgkaDE

In this webinar, Craig Smith, PredictWind’s weather routing specialist, shares his notes on how he prepares for power boating passages. Whether cruising or preparing for your next trip, this session will boost your confidence with practical tools and expert guidance.
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Craig explains his step-by-step approach to checking the 10-day weather outlook, departure planning, switching to Power Routing, and using the Offshore App for real-time updates.
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This webinar includes:

There are multiple ways you can view a PredictWind forecast:

Power polars describe your boat speed and wind angle in any given weather situation. Setting the polars in your PredictWind account is essential for an accurate weather route. You must set the polars in your account before using the weather routing and departure planning tool on any of the PredictWind platforms.

For detailed instructions on setting up boat polars, see the help article: Power Routing Overview, Set Up and Use

With PredictWind Weather Routing, you can set your Wave Polar not only to define the performance of your boat in various wave conditions but also to view the Roll, Vertical accelerations and Slamming Incidence that your boat will experience through the route. The router outputs these data points at each route point. For safety reasons, reviewing these after running a route is important. For detailed instructions:

Power Routing Wave and Swell Output

Because fuel, comfort, and safety matter. PredictWind’s Power Boat Routing is designed to help you avoid rough conditions and pick the smoothest, most fuel-efficient route for your trip. Unlike standard forecast maps, our routing tool takes your boat’s speed, fuel range, and sea state limits into account, so you get a personalised route that’s actually realistic for your boat.

The Departure Planning tool lets you compare different departure times over a 4-day window, so you can pick the best weather window instead of guessing. This helps you avoid pounding into head seas or getting caught in uncomfortable or unsafe conditions.

Whether you're doing a long coastal trip or an offshore crossing, these tools are all about helping you make smart decisions, save fuel, and have a more enjoyable passage.

You can visually view the GMDSS text forecast on any weather map.

The text forecasts are analysed in the PredictWind cloud, and then each weather system, front and warning region is plotted accurately on the map, giving you a world-first, global view of the GMDSS forecast.

For detailed instructions on GMDSS and Extreme weather warnings, see the help article: AI-Generated GMDSS Maps.

CAPE stands for Convective Available Potential Energy and is the amount of fuel available to a developing thunderstorm. More specifically, it describes the atmosphere's instability and approximates updraft strength within a thunderstorm. So, CAPE is used by weather officials to understand what the potential might be for thunderstorms and how powerful those storms might become if they do materialize.

The standard measurement of energy is represented as Joules Per Kilogram. Weather experts might also express A high CAPE value using the term “high instability”. When we talk about a highly unstable atmosphere, CAPE values are usually more than 2500 J/kg, which would supply ample energy for strong updrafts and violent thunderstorms, should they develop.

Learn more about extreme weather warnings and other indicators for predicting potentially dangerous conditions by viewing this article: Extreme Weather Warnings.

The Professional package gives you access to the best data that PredictWind has to offer. The Professional level allows access to the following:

Any weather route or departure plan calculation using either the Standard or Professional subscriptions will consider your choice of ocean current data and wave polars when calculating a route. However, only the Professional subscription will show you these details when viewing the results in the tables and along the routes.