The Standard and Professional levels of PredictWind both offer weather routing, departure planning and access to weather data via satellite systems when offshore. The difference is that the Professional level also allows access to the following:
High-resolution forecast GRIB files (1km and 8km PWG/PWE, 9km ECMWF, 27km GFS, 14km SPIRE & 10km UKMO)
Ocean current GRIBs (Mercator, Hycom and RTOFS)
Sea Surface Temperature (SST)
High-resolution tidal currents
Wave modelling of your boat (including Roll, Vertical accelerations and Slamming Incidence). Please learn more with this 1-minute video.
AIS data in the Offshore App, accessible via satellite when offshore. Please learn more with this 1-minute video.
A side-by-side comparison table of all features can be found here.
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.
The Professional version is a must-have for the following reasons:
To view ocean currents like the Gulf Stream, English Channel, Straits of Gibraltar and Panama-Galapagos
To view tidal currents in your local area
To view the wave modelling data for your boat. Often, the sea state is the most dangerous factor.
AIS data to know, for example, if you will likely encounter a large commercial fishing fleet at night.
The professional package gives you access to the best data that PredictWind has to offer, and this is the best choice, in our opinion.
This article explains how to use Ocean Data on a PC / Mac.
This article showcases the new Wave Routing features, only available with a Professional Subscription - Weather Routing - Using Wave Polars.
You can learn how to use AIS here.