Weather Rules when Cruising

It’s often said that weather rules when living on a boat and cruising. I thought I knew what that meant when we moved aboard Que Tal to start our cruising life. Each day, weather would dictate what we did or didn’t do. 

Weather Categories

One of the biggest lessons of the first year aboard was that it wasn’t just what would happen that day. No, there really were three categories of weather that I always had to be conscious of.

Immediate Weather

What might happen in the next couple of hours, and next few days. Is there a squall immediately on the horizon that I need to prepare for? Are the winds going to be shifting in the next few days, necessitating a change of anchorage? Read more about why you need to watch the weather even at anchor. 

Weather Windows

If you’re going to be on the move soon, you need to be on the lookout for a good weather window. That is, favorable conditions for your trip, whether it’s a simple day hop or the start of an ocean crossing. Read more about picking a weather window, particularly on what to look for in forecasts. 

Seasonal Weather

This is the “big picture” weather. The first weather season everyone thinks of is hurricane season, but there are many others as well.  
 
Where I’ve cruised in Florida, the Bahamas, and the Sea of Cortez, winter northers are a fact of life. They can make it hard to move around (it’s not unusual for boats to wait over a month to get a weather window to make the one-day trip from Florida to the Bahamas across the Gulf Stream, whereas two-week windows are common in the summer), restrict activities (it’s chilly for swimming), and make it hard to find a protected anchorage. 
 
In the summer, there can be heat and a lack of wind for sailing. Some locations are notorious for wicked thunderstorms (I’m looking at you, Panama, but they’re also common where we’ve cruised in South Florida and El Salvador, not to mention the chubascos in the Sea of Cortez). 
 
Cool winter temperatures are another type of seasonal weather, as are the “Christmas Winds” (stronger trade winds) in the Caribbean.  

Seasonal weather affects your big picture planning: where do you want to be when? Weather windows affect your ability to “meet” those deadlines. It was the intersection of these two types of weather that took us by surprise when we started cruising: where did we want to be when, and would we get the weather to do that? How long in advance did we need to start our planning? 

And then there are the restrictions imposed by insurance. Your policy may only cover you in a certain area during certain dates (hurricane season is the most common restriction but others exist). These may not be true “weather rules” as they’re imposed by the insurance company but I consider them as part of the seasonal restrictions that a boater has to be conscious of. 

Learning About Weather

This trifecta of weather concerns is one of the biggest frustrations for new cruisers. First, let me say that it does become easier with time, as you learn the patterns that affect your area. But how to cope as you’re learning?  

• Find a few experienced cruisers in your area who just never seem to be caught in the wrong place at the wrong time and sit down with them, one at a time, and pick their brains about both the seasonal weather patterns and what to look for in weather windows and how the windows may change over the course of the year. Compare what two or three different people say.  

• Consult Jimmy Cornell’s World Cruising Routes or pilot charts if you’re thinking of some offshore hops.  

• Look at historical maps for hurricanes, cold/hot weather, and winds by month. 

Little by little, you’ll build your own understanding of the weather patterns that are going to affect you. The one caveat I’ll add is that while it’s great to talk about all this with other cruisers, never assume that anyone is 100% right: get multiple opinions. 

And above all, apply a bit of critical thinking. Many people are shocked when they hear that Dave and I went to the Bahamas in the summer – it’s hurricane season. But our “home port” was in the Florida Keys! There are just as many, if not more, good hurricane holes in the Bahamas as in South Florida. Either place, we kept a close eye on tropical developments and always knew where the nearest hurricane holes were. 

Weather rules but you can learn to work with it and not against it. 

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