Hurricane Avoidance at Sea

Hurricanes are an ever-present reality if you plan to sail offshore in the North Atlantic during the Summer and Fall seasons. In fact, hurricanes have occurred there every month of the year. Many hurricanes originate in the eastern Atlantic off the west coast of Africa and leave a historical record over a two week time frame to give advance warning of their character and the predictability of their probable track and intensity when they eventually reach near the US East Coast. But, many others originate in numerous other locations of the North Atlantic, Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, open ocean, and wherever, and these can spring up with little or no advance warning to the mariner who has committed to a particular ocean route. So it is necessary good seamanship for Atlantic Ocean sailors to understand the nature, characteristics and forecast data sources available to safely deal with these destructive weather phenomena. This video discusses our past experience with some of the storms we encountered at sea and lesson learned from those experiences.