If you don’t have full internet access at sea but do have email you can recieve NWS weather fAXs using email. The same ones you get on the weather fax but on your computer.
Ocean Navigator has a post with instructions here.
Basically you have to send an email to
EDIT NEW EMAIL: NWS.FTPMail.OPS@noaa.gov
Subject line doesn’t matter, leave it blank or put in whatever you like.
The chart will come back as an attachement, not too big, just did a trial run and the chart was 296 KB
Here is a sample of the body:
open
cd fax
get PPAE10.TIF
get PWAE98.gif
quit
PPAE10.TIF is a specific chart.
A list of the charts can be found at these sites:
Western Atlantic charts — http://weather.noaa.gov/pub/fax/rfaxatl.txt
· Eastern Pacific charts — http://weather.noaa.gov/pub/fax/rfaxpac.txt
· Tropical waters charts — http://weather.noaa.gov/pub/fax/rfaxmex.txt
Here is a sample of the some of the charts available
00Z Preliminary Surface Chart Analysis 45W-85W N. Hemisphere PYAA10.TIF
06Z Preliminary Surface Chart Analysis 45W-85W N. Hemisphere PYAB01.TIF
12Z Preliminary Surface Chart Analysis 45W-85W N. Hemisphere PYAC01.TIF
18Z Preliminary Surface Chart Analysis 45W-85W N. Hemisphere PYAD01.TIF
Preliminary Surface Chart Analysis (Most Current) PYAD10.TIF
00Z Surface Analysis Chart, Part 1, 10E-45W N. Hemisphere PYAA01.TIF
00Z Surface Analysis Chart, Part 2, 40W-95W N. Hemisphere PYAA02.TIF
06Z Surface Analysis Chart, Part 1, 10E-45W N. Hemisphere PYAA03.TIF
06Z Surface Analysis Chart, Part 2, 40W-95W N. Hemisphere PYAA04.TIF
12Z Surface Analysis Chart, Part 1, 10E-45W N. Hemisphere PYAA05.TIF
12Z Surface Analysis Chart, Part 2, 40W-95W N. Hemisphere PYAA06.TIF
18Z Surface Analysis Chart, Part 1, 10E-45W N. Hemisphere PYAA07.TIF
18Z Surface Analysis Chart, Part 2, 40W-95W N. Hemisphere PYAA08.TIF
Surface Analysis Chart, Part 1, (Most Current) PYAA11.TIF
Surface Analysis Chart, Part 2, (Most Current) PYAA12.TIF
24HR Surface Chart VT00Z Forecast 40W-98W Northern Hemisphere PPAE00.TIF
24HR Surface Chart VT12Z Forecast 40W-98W Northern Hemisphere PPAE01.TIF
24HR Surface Chart Forecast (Most Current) PPAE10.TIF
48HR Surface Chart VT00Z Forecast 10E-95W Northern Hemisphere QDTM85.TIF
48HR Surface Chart VT12Z Forecast 10E-95W Northern Hemisphere QDTM86.TIF
48HR Surface Chart Forecast (Most Current) QDTM10.TIF
96HR Surface Chart VT12Z Forecast 10E-95W Northern Hemisphere PWAM99.TIF
It’s FTP so you have to be careful to get it right. If you make an error it might just not respond.
Last December I was U.S. West Coast and the weather routers had me in 6.5 meters seas which is acceptable but a couple hours before sailing I downloaded the NWS forecast and they showed 8+ meter sea. I called the routers and they told me the low was deepening rapidly. The routers sent me an updated route and I ended up staying in port another 12 hrs.