Southwinds Sailing June 2004 - Southwinds Magazine

DONATEYOUR BOATTampa Sailing Squadron is lookingfor boat donations for theiryouth sailing program. Take a taxwrite-off and donate a boat toYOUTH SAILING, INC.a non-profit organizationto help kids learn to sail.Call Bud at 813-645-5704www.tampasailingsquadron.orgExplanation of Wind RosesEach wind rose shows the distribution ofthe prevailing winds in the area andmonth. These have been recorded over a long periodof time. In general the lengths of the arrows indicate howoften the winds came from that direction. The longer the arrowthe more prevalent were the winds coming from that direction.The length of the shaft is generally to a scale to indicate the percentageof the winds from that direction, but not as printed in themagazine, but the proportions are correct and as a general indicator,the diameter of the circle is a little over 15 percent.The wind blows in the direction the arrows fly. When thearrow is too long to be printed in a practical manner, a number isindicated. In the sample here, that would be the number 32, whichmeans that 32 percent of the time the wind blew from the west.The number of feathers on the arrow indicates the strength of thewind on the Beaufort scale (one feather is Force 1, two is Force 2,etc. See below). The number in the center of the circle shows thepercentage of the time that the winds were calm. They all add upto 100 percent. In this example, 32 percent came from the Westand 9 percent were calms (a total of 41 per cent), so the remainingarrows add up to 59 percent. These symbols are used here to generallyshow where the winds came from during that month, howstrong and how often.In this example we can see that about a third of the time thewinds came from the West, about 20 percent of the time from theNE, Force 3, about 20 percent from the SE, Force 4, maybe 15 percentfrom the south, Force 2, about never from the NW, and 32 percentfrom the West, Force 3. It was calm 9 percent of the time. We hadsome winds from the East at Force 4 and the SW at Force 2.Beaufort Scale (in knots): Force 1(1-3); Force 2(4-6); Force 3(7-10);Force 4(11-16); Force 5(17-21); Force 6(22-27); Force 7(28-33); Force8(34-40); Force 9(41-47); Force 10(48-55); Force 11(56-63); Force12(64-71 Hurricane)62Wind Roses are taken from Pilot ChartsJune 2004 SOUTHWINDS www.southwindssailing.com