Author Archives: David

An Adventure in Corkscrew Slough

Posted on by under misc

One of the big draws for being where we are is the access to the wetlands. We have canoed into Smith’s Slough and Steinberger’s Slough, we have canoed up Redwood Creek, as well as down it into the main channel towards the Bay. We have also sailed our inflatable dingy, a Tinker Traveler, in those same places. For some reason, however, I have not been successful in doing the loop–specifically Smith’s Slough to Steinberger’s Slough to Corkscrew Slough and back via the main Redwood Creek Channel. The loop is only about 10 miles, but something always caused previous journeys to return back the same way and not complete the loop. Reasons for turning back included too much wind (while canoeing), not enough wind (sailing the Tinker), passenger getting bored, late for another engagement, etc.

This morning, I decided today was the day. The sun was out, the wind was calm, there were no other obligations for the entire day, and I would do the trip alone–in a nut shell, no excuses. OK, there is the tide to consider. I checked the tide just before launching the Merrimac (canoe) and the ebb tide was 1.5 feet 30 minutes before a low of 1.2 feet. Definitely a low, but nothing extreme (which can be as much as -2 feet). About half way through Smith’s Slough, I met a rower heading back. He said that the channel was impassible for him a ways ahead and that his draft was 9 inches. I thanked him for the information and figured I draw about 2-3 inches and the tide should be flooding by now, so I was probably OK. While in Steinberger’s Slough, I realized that I had never been there during a tide this low. The only navigable channel was through wood pilings near the San Carlos airport. Shortly after that, the channel split into two, so I took the right branch which split into two again. I expected to see Corkscrew Slough up on the right, so I took the right channel again, but started to drag on the bottom. I moved my weight forward to amidships to minimize my draft, but soon I was stopped. I stood up and could see that my channel gradually narrowed to nothing up ahead. Time to back up and try another channel–it’s great that canoes have points on both ends and can easily go either way.

corkscrew slough

At the branch, this time I noticed a slight current coming through the left fork, so I took it. It was very shallow–only a few inches deep–so my paddle was dragging on the bottom mud. This would be fine, except the current was rapidly increasing and it was trying to push me backwards. Soon, the current was so strong that there were standing waves in the 6 foot wide channel and I couldn’t paddle hard enough in the shallow water to keep forward movement. When I poled off the bottom, my paddle became stuck and when I pulled it out, would stop all forward progress and even move me backwards.

I always travel with two paddles, so I grabbed the spare and with one upside-down paddle in each hand, I poled off the muddy bottom with the fat handle end of the paddles while keeping the blades up in the air. I was able to make progress against the ever faster current, but I felt like a pin-ball bouncing off the muddy walls of the narrow channel when one or the other of the paddle handles stuck in the muddy bottom and pulled me off course. There wasn’t enough width to the channel for these bouncings to turn me around, but sometimes I would stick on the muddy embankment. I decided to try working just one side of the channel. I poled on just one side which turned the canoe against the embankment, but I would just keep pushing. The canoe would slide along the muddy embankment. I thought this just might work, but it was very tiring. On the other hand, the scenery was fabulous. The early morning sun was reflecting off the mud and water in an amazing way. If only I had time to take a picture–the water was getting faster and faster, so I couldn’t stop and the picture probably wouldn’t have captured the beauty anyway.

Up ahead was the now obvious entrance to Corkscrew Slough, I was momentarily ecstatic. Then I saw that there was a substantial rapids flowing out of Corkscrew Slough–I could see the uphill incline I faced and the fact that there was even less water moving at an even higher flow rate with no mud embankments. This would be tough. I carefully entered the right side of the rapids so as not to let the current take the bow and spin me around. I used the two-paddle handle poling technique and all was going well when the right paddle dug deep into the mud and stuck. While trying to unstick it, the bow swung to starboard and the current started to push me sideways over the stuck paddle. I could hear and feel the creaking from the hull and paddle under the strain. I didn’t want to break either one, nor to loose my second paddle. Eventually I got the port paddle to brace on the starboard side and I was able to extract the stuck paddle.

I finally made it to the top of the obvious rapids and the water widened. But, I discovered that the Slough was still only inches deep and, although wider, was still running fast against me. I spent the next hour poling forward with the bottom of the canoe dragging in the bottom mud the whole way. The water was so murky that I couldn’t tell where the water was 1/2 inch deep or where it was a few inches deep. I found myself zig-zagging up the Slough looking for water that was deep enough to paddle in and not drag against the bottom of the canoe–there was no deeper water. This was hard work and I was starting to get tired.

Corkscrew Slough is called that because it bring new meaning to twisty. I could see a construction crane almost next to me but it wasn’t until rounding the next bend that I could see that it was sitting on the bank farthest from where I had first seen it. More concerning was the fact that there was a metal dam across the Slough. I figured there had to be a route around the corrugated metal dam. As I got closer, I wasn’t so sure. I wasn’t sure I had the energy to go back the way I had come, and besides, I wanted to finish the loop damn it–pardon the pun. I paddled up to the dam and stood up in the canoe. I couldn’t come close to reaching the top and the side was smooth and slick. I went to the right bank where the crane was. There was lots of mud between me and what appeared to be terra firma. I went back down stream a little and found place where the path to hard ground seemed shorter. Although the canoe was firmly aground, the paddle-turned-walking stick sunk deeper and deeper and I had yet to step out of the canoe. Borrowing from another sport, I decided to use my two paddles like cross-country skis to get across the mud. That worked, but what I found was not promising. On the other side of the dam, the path back to the water appeared impossible.

Looking across the Slough, I decided that the other side was a safer bet. I carefully returned to the canoe using the paddles to keep me on top of the mud, relaunched and went to the other side near the dam. What had appeared to be rubble was actually recently dropped blue muddy clay. Totally impassible. Again, I went down stream and went ashore using my paddles on the mud. I reconnoitered this side and now, where my view from the other side had been blocked by a big steel barge, I found that the prospects looked little better than the first side. I headed back to the canoe disappointed, but determined to make something work.

I had strung out the bow painter as far as it would reach ashore, so I pulled on it to bring the canoe up onto the levy.  Not having anticipated the need for acrobatics, I had my ceramic mug of coffee sitting on the sole in the middle of the canoe.  Pulling the canoe up the embankment without spilling or causing the cup to slide aft was a bit tricky, but spilling the coffee wouldn’t have mattered since the inside of the canoe was splattered with mud from my poling, so really this was just an exercise and besides, I needed a caffeine hit.  Once up, I downed the rest of the coffee, put the mug in my jacket pocket and secured it with the rest of  my stuff inside the canoe, flipped the canoe and put it on my shoulders. Using the two paddles as walking sticks, I carefully walked past the dam. I briefly considered going further along the levy, but then figured that wouldn’t probably reveal anything better. I put the canoe down onto the mud and almost lost my balance slipping and as a result sunk a few inches into the mud–I was wearing Topsiders which were definitely not the right choice in footwear for this outing.

There was a long sloping muddy expanse yet to cover and I didn’t have a plan. I knew I couldn’t take one more step further without sinking to far into the mud. The only thing to do was to step into the back of the canoe and think about what to do next. I could just barely step into the back, back end of the canoe and as I did so, the answer slid into place. Well actually, the canoe started sliding down the muddy embankment. I was balanced at the tippy end and felt like I was skiing with my two paddles as ski poles. The only problem with this rapidly evolving plan was that where the canoe was going to hit the water, the water was only slightly wider than the canoe was long, and then I would crash into the side of the big steel barge. As soon as my paddles could reach the water, I carefully back-paddled to slow down and I just kissed the side of the barge with the bow. Standing in the far back of a canoe is absolutely the most precarious place to be in an otherwise empty canoe. The bow was miles up into the air and I was holding my breath as we touched the barge. I then eased myself forward until the canoe was once again stable and I could paddle again.

I was beat and really, really hoping that this was the last obstacle in my path. About a half an hour later, I encountered a kayaker heading the other way and I breathed a sigh of relief. Soon, I was exiting Corkscrew Slough and entering Redwood Creek. I looked back and saw a sign that said “Through Passage Temporarily Blocked”–no s??t, why isn’t there a similar sign on the other end of the slough? The really good news and the one thing that went according to plan was that I now was riding the flood tide and I even had a tail wind. I just sat back and let the current and wind do their thing. A paddle boarder came close by and asked me with curious intensity where I had been. I said I was just getting some exercise and paddling about. He didn’t seem to believe me. That didn’t make sense until I got back to Mahdee and as I was bringing the Merrimac aboard, discovered giant globs of blue clay mud stuck all over her bow–curious. Of course, the mud was now sloughing off onto Mahdee’s deck which Brenda had just cleaned a couple of days ago. Well I now had the opportunity to scrub off the stubborn blue clay mud from Merrimack and then off of Mahdee. All in all a great day. I finally did the loop, and I got to play with clay-like mud.

Just last night, we watched a film “180 Degrees South.” The great quote was about how trips are planned, but when things really go wrong, you have an adventure–you can’t plan an adventure. So I did an internet search on the loop to see how I might have “planned my trip.” Brenda thinks this is a backwards process, but it was my trip after-all and if I want to do my planning at the end, so be it. All the links say that a minimum of 4-5 feet of tide is required (a bit more than the 1.5 feet I had!), and nothing about any “temporary blockage.” Well 50-50 on the planning information–4 feet would have eliminated the need for poling and made that part of the passage easier, but far less beautiful. But what about info on the dam? If I had done my homework (i.e. planned my trip) and believed the tide info, I wouldn’t have had my adventure and proved both the required water levels and the blockage sign on the water wrong.

Electric Decisions and Evolutionary Design

Posted on by under misc


Towards the beginning of our work on Mahdee, we attempted to settle on an electric plan that would be simple and meet various performance goals.  That proved much more difficult than expected.  Two contradicting factors dominated the debate: the only DC-powered windlass motor that can lift our 500′ of 1/2 BBB chain and 120 lb anchor requires 36V (actually 32V, but almost everything designed for 32V may be run on 36V, so we will call 32V devices 36V for simplicity), and virtually all mobile and marine accessories use 12V (there are also some high power devices that use 24V).  In addition to the 36V windlass, Mahdee also came with 3 high volume 36V bilge pumps and a 36V autopilot–all compelling reasons to have 36V, but not enough to exclude a 12V system.

It is interesting to note that when Mahdee’s original owner in 1931 had her built with two 10kW gensets and a large high voltage battery bank to support her 25kW electric drive, he wrote in Yahting magazine that if he were to do it all over again, he would get rid of the large battery bank and run the electric drive directly from the gensets and switch most electrics to 110V supplied by the gensets.  The only battery would be a small 12V battery for starting the gensets and safety essentials such as nav lights for those rare occasions when a genset wasn’t available.  It’s interesting to see that many problems remain the same over long time periods: batteries still suck and electric drive is great, but you need to run the electric drive directly from electric gensets because batteries suck.

The best thing to do with a newly acquired boat is to work with what one has and evaluate how it works.  We already had 3 AC powered 12V battery chargers, so we used one charger for each of the three batteries in our 36V series.  This approach has the benefit that each battery in the series can be different and devices with any of three different voltages (12, 24 and 36) can be used.  This approach also has wonderful redundancy since any battery charger can be used to charge any battery should one or two chargers fail.   With all three chargers working, battery charging may be done 3x faster than with a single 36V battery charger.

Mahdee also came with a 32V engine alternator which we haven’t yet used.  So we must turn on a genset or plug into dock power often enough to charge up the 24V and 36V batteries in the series–the first 12V battery is charged when the engine is used.  We have considered buying a balancer which could be used to charge the entire series when the engine is running, but we haven’t really needed that capability yet.  When we re-launched boat, we bought some 12V instruments and a small AC inverter to power laptops and cellphone chargers.  All was good, except that we needed a bigger 12V battery to extend the time between running the genset.  Although batteries still suck, their prices have dropped since Moffat’s articles on Mahdee in the 1930’s and fuel prices are going up, so it makes sense to use batteries to enable the gensets to run as efficiently as possible.

At first, each battery in the series was a 100Ah AGM and our 12V battery was also the engine start battery.  The need to keep that battery sufficiently charged to start the motor and power the windlass if we needed to quickly exit an anchorage really limited how much we could rely on battery power.  Thus, the next step was to upgrade the 12V battery to a 400ah “main” battery and add a 100ah “engine start” battery.  We designed the space to make it possible to further enlarge the main battery to 800ah, or to put in 400ah at the 24V level depending on how our power usage evolves.

Notice that I have made no mention of lighting.  That is because until now, we have not had any DC lighting.  We have used kerosene lamps, candles, and AC lighting on either an inverter or the genset. Then, last Fall, we started working and we’re on a dock that has shore power for our AC lighting.  I wanted to re-evaluate our electric situation and invest in some green-tech to show my support for it.

On a classic yacht, it is hard to implement wind or solar power without it looking all wrong; but I decided to take another look at those technologies.  It’s amazing what data is available out there, so to evaluate cost-benefit, I wrote a program that calculated the power I could obtain from a 135W solar panel.  I used data from the nearby airport (less than 1 mile away) and imported cloud cover and visibility data.  I used that to calculate the distribution of direct solar radiation and the diffuse radiation hitting the solar panel for every hour of every day for the last two years.  The depressing result is that solar panels suck. More than batteries suck. Compared to what we pay for electricity at the dock, a $500 solar panel will save us a puny $8.50 a year in electricity.  That equates to roughly a 59 year payback if one ignores the cost of capital.  Hardly a wise investment especially since we would require many panels to meet our full electrical requirement, so we still require a genset.  Remember here that we are professionally engaged and thus work aboard our boat; we can’t conserve our usage down to nearly nothing.  Using the higher cost of electricity from a genset (both fuel and depreciation of the genset) as a cost basis helps, but even then, the payback is over 11 years.  Solar data in San Diego, a more southern latitude, yielded a little faster payback as should be expected, but anywhere on the US West coast, the only way to make solar have a reasonable payback is to use reflectors.  Think: big parabolic monstrosities. On a 1931 schooner, the need for reflectors is a deal breaker.

Although we are in San Francisco which is notorious for the wind, the wind turbine analysis was only slightly better–28 years payback based on market rate electricity at the dock and 5 years 3.5 months for genset electricity.  If we were planning to spend most of our time at anchor, a wind turbine might be viable.  But, similar to solar power, a wind turbine will not meet our full demand, so we will require a genset. It really sucks having a MBA married to an EE–between the cost analysis and performance analysis, we’re dead in the water every time. Yes, one way or another, a lot of things suck.

The additional need for heating forced me to consider another option–more efficient use of our gensets.  The new larger 400ah main battery bank already moves us in the right direction by increasing the time between genset runs.  In fact, our Honda EU2000i is pretty well loaded by our Xantrex 50 amp charger.  With a 400ah main battery, we have 100ah usable and charging will max out the charge capacity of the Xantrex which means that we can recover our 100ah usage in a little over 2 hours.  That is pretty efficient, but the Honda uses gasoline which we must buy in jerry cans and tote aboard–a logistics cost–and it does waste a lot of heat…

In contrast, our diesel Onan genset runs on our large main fuel tanks, but needs a load of about 4 kW to match the Honda in electrical efficiency.  Right now, we can’t come close to that unless we turn on nearly every appliance on the boat at the same time.  But, the Onan has water cooling and there is a lot of heat in that water.  In places like Japan, people often install gensets like the Onan, but with waste heat capture systems.  If you can use the waste heat, the electricity is basically free.  Put another way, with waste heat capture, total fuel efficiency can exceed the electric grid and power utility efficiency.  My rough numbers show that for an investment similar to the wind turbine, we can implement a waste heat capture system.  We would need to have much bigger AC battery charge capacity to put a bigger load on the genset, but that is doable.  And then we would have lots of heat energy available and a total equivalent energy bill at or below what we are paying at the dock–all while sitting at anchor somewhere. Somewhere cold.

We designed a flexible electric system on Mahdee that was not fully implemented.  We are happily living aboard her.  Depending on what we do and where we go, we now have several options that will increase the green-ness of Mahdee while allowing us to live a comfortable and productive existence.  If we go South of the Mexican boarder, solar becomes reasonably viable as a power source with a lower logistic trail than the Honda.  If we stay here, we may consider a wind turbine.  If we go North, the genset waste heat becomes the resource to pursue.  What electrical path we take, time and our actual physical path will eventually tell.  That’s part of the fun of living onboard a boat.

What is Reality?

Posted on by under Musings, sailing

San Simeon is sort of a fanciful spot.  The water is fairly clear and has a nice green color that evokes exotic anchorages.  The pockmarked and stratified rocks on the shore of the bight are fascinating and above them there are groves of tall pine and eucalyptus trees — some of which are draped in a bright green moss.  North of the rocky shore, there is a wonderful beach.  Just past the expanse of beach, the shoreline has a number of buildings in the Spanish style used by the missionaries who built this place.  High up on the mountain one can see the turrets of the Hearst Castle.  It would be easy to imagine being in some cove on the Mediterranean.  Yet here is this great spot right here on the West coast of the USA.

This fanciful place that defies expectations started some thoughts on reality.  I know that many think that sailing around is a fanciful way of life that enables one to escape reality.  In fact, I think a firm grounding in reality is absolutely necessary at sea and probably optional for land dwellers.   At sea, one must know where the dangers are  — unseen and seen,  Sight of land and rocks is straight forward, but there are many rocks that lie just below the surface, and a vast expanse of water may be only ankle-deep.  Good charts and navigation skills work well with those dangers.  Then there are tides and currents.  Tide tables and currents are often published, but the publications are only predictions which can be very wrong if winds, currents and even rainfall are different from the ones used in the predictions.  That gets us to the big unknown — the weather.

With all the generations and generations of recorded personal observations and now satellite and sensors strewn across the planet with powerful computer models running day and night, one would expect that the weather would be well known in advance.  Amazingly, even the current weather seems elusive to weather reporters which is why I have always thought that a window should be mandatory for every forecaster.  Sadly, from many of the weather observations we have heard, even such a simple thing as windows in weather offices don´t seem to exist.

Many sailors find themselves becoming amateur weather forecasters.  The best technique is to obtain the raw prediction data from 500MB to the surface which is available from the current state out to 96 hours.  Then, one records the actual conditions one is in.  Then one decides what must have happened to explain any difference.  Based on that explanation, one re-interpretes the forecasts.  With some of the new models, there are significant differences over a few miles whereas the traditional NOAA data has nowhere near that much fidelity.  We often find the high fidelity forecasts very useful in coastal waters.  Nonetheless, sometimes forecasts deviate far more than can be expected with higher fidelity predictions.

Unfortunately, our mast-top weather station has been inoperative since we launched and that has made determining our actual conditions difficult.  Even so, it has often been obvious that the predictions are very wrong.  And then we wonder, what is really happening.  As we sped down the Big Sur coast, the winds went from almost dead calm to around 25 knots.  I am sure that big rise was unforecasted.  The waves were probably about the forecasted height, but the period was much shorter than forecast and that made for the really uncomfortable ride.

With a forecast for bigger waves with very short periods, we left San Simeon so as to be in the more protected harbor at Port San Luis before their arrival.  That worked out well and there was certainly a big swell coming into the port during our several day stay.  Finally with a forecast for smaller, long-period waves, we departed Port San Luis to round Point Conception.  I think the waves were about as high as forecast, but even longer in period.  This made for a very comfortable ride.  Unfortunately, the forecast winds never arrived and we motor sailed all the way to Cojo anchorage.

Cojo is a nice place to get out of Northwest wind and waves.  Moderate Northwest winds and waves  were forecast for the night — actually for the next couple of days — and both Brenda and I expected a peaceful sleep with light to moderate winds blowing off the shore — there was no lee shore to worry about.  The hazard of that anchorage in Southeasterly winds was obvious by the hulks of two sailboats up against the cliffs of this remote place.  Actually, despite the wind-block afforded by those cliffs, there were remarkably large breaking waves hitting the entire shoreline.  Despite the waves, Mahdee was pointed straight at the cliffs to the Northwest.

Brenda had just gotten into bed and had the Nokia tracking our position at anchor when she said something is wrong, we are moving in a straight line to the West.  I could hear the wind starting to whistle in the rigging so I jumped out the companionway door into the black of night — I did mention that Cojo is in the middle of nowhere.  I searched to see the faint anchor light of the Westsail on the other side of the kelp and the Nordhaven trawler.  But looking up into the sky at the brilliant stars, I spotted Polaris, and the North star was sweeping down our port side.

I announced to Brenda that we were turning and pointing to the Northeast, but did not appear to be dragging.  Mahdee kept turning and I got out the binoculars with the lighted compass to take bearings and headings.  Mahdee´s turn stopped at a heading of 080 magnetic.  The wind came up to about 25 knots and that wreck-strewn cliff was almost dead astern — we had a nasty lee shore.

We immediately turned the VHF radio to the weather channel.  It reports that we currently have 10-15 knots of wind from the NW and that the winds will become light and variable below 10 knots later.  Nothing about a strong Easterly blow.  We were monitoring channel 16 and there were no notices of strange weather.

We pulled out the cruising guide books to help us make a good decision.  Fagen´s book states Cojo is a great anchorage in most conditions but that one should immediately leave Cojo in Southeast winds.  Well the true winds are South of East — how much South of East is a problem?  We used Fagens book for our arrival and he is very explicit that one should arrive in daylight so as to navigate through the kelp beds so as to be in the calmer water between the kelp and the shore.  We did that and had to pass within 20 feet of the Westsail because it was sitting just outside the kelp and the passage through.  He also notes that one should never attempt to enter Cojo after dark because not only are there no navigation lights, but the kelp is impossible to see at night.  This makes one wonder how to leave at night now that the kelp is invisible, there is a Westsail 32 in the passage and, now that the wind has changes, the kelp is probably in a different place too.  Departure doesn´t seem like the right plan — at least not yet.

Brenda usually can´t sleep in tense situations like these, so she volunteers to take the first anchor watch.  I can usually sleep, especially knowing that Brenda is on watch because she notices everything.  I get into bed with my salty clothes on just in case a quick response, or getaway is needed.  I can´t sleep.  I keep thinking that the forecast is completely wrong, so what big change has happened.  I think about the warnings by Fagan about the Southeasterly winds and the wrecked boats.  With the Easterly blow, the entire Santa Barbara Channel allows for a big fetch to Cojo.  This is a kelpy anchorage and kelp can foul the anchor which will reduce its holding and let a boat drag anchor.  I wasn´t worried about that when we anchored since the forecast was for moderate NW winds.  Nonetheless, I think we have good anchoring technique and that may mitigate the kelp´s negative effect.  I keep thinking and hoping that the wind will die down before the fetch builds waves that could surge-load the anchor and pull it loose.

As I lay trying to get some sleep so that I would be ready for a late anchor watch, all I could do was listen to the whistle of the wind in the rig.

My thoughts went something like this: I think the wind is calming, the whistle is gone … no, there the whistle is again … well maybe the fetch is more to the Southeast … no, there come some waves … Mahdee is bucking into building waves on her bow and this is not good … the waves are gone and Mahdee is riding smooth … I think the winds are increasing … Mahdee is bucking into waves again and this is not good … I wonder how we will get out of the kelp without clogging the raw water intake with kelp or fowling the prop … the wind seems to be dropping … uh oh, Mahdee is bucking again …

I was tense and for me, this not knowing and uncertainty was far worse than our night coming down Big Sur.  On our Big Sur passage, I knew we had sea room and I was at the helm where I had control of Mahdee.  Steering was a chore, but Mahdee was responsive and that made me comfortable.  At Cojo, the lee shore and unforecast high winds almost 180 degrees from the forecast direction in an anchorage that was marginally safe now all added up to stress.

Finally the whistling stopped and Brenda and I slept fitfully for the remainder of the night.  The next morning we changed our destination from Santa Miguel island for the calmer weather forecast for Santa Cruz.  I was initially for keeping to our original plan since the forecast might be wrong.  But, Brenda argued with a logical analogy that there was little sense sailing into the path of a hurricane thinking that the forecast could be wrong.  I couln´t argue with that logic, so we set a course for Santa Cruz.

The winds were extremely light and blowing from the SE — directly where we wanted to go.  Then the radio announces a weather alert for Santa Cruz Island.  Severe thunderstorms with water spouts and cloud to water lightning and high winds.  Depending on the forecasters — who all use the same NOAA weather data — the winds would be either from the South or from the North — so which forecast do we believe?  There are no anchorages on Santa Cruz that are safe in both North and South winds.  Ironically, Santa Miguel, our original destination, was now forecast to be much calmer weather than Santa Cruz.

In the end, Brenda and I are tired of dealing with big weather uncertainties, so we turn to Santa Barbara and tie up to a slip in the harbor.  Now we are protected from winds no matter their direction and intensity and if lightning strikes, there will be lots of other boat masts around us that might get hit instead of us.  And, we discovered that this is a nice harbor.  We had a nice meal out, and have purchased fresh groceries and we will top off with water.  We would never have come here if we had had better weather information.  So that´s a good thing.

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