Racing the Wind’s Hands-on Weather Course
Taught by Jason Christensen, the visionary behind Racing the Wind, and a dedicated instructor at Seattle Sailing Club. At Racing the Wind, he has passionately focused on providing Weather, Navigation, and Routing tools and invaluable advice tailored specifically for adventurers, racers, and delivery captains.
Offerings:
Hands-on Weather:
- October 5 & 6
- 8:30am – 5pm
- Cost: $450 per student
Hands-on Expedition Navigation Software Course
- October 1, 3, 8, & 10
- 5:30 – 9:30pm
- Cost: $800 per student (includes 2 week Expedition demo license)
Tipping: Tipping your instructor is customary within the industry, typically ranging from 10% to 20% of the course fee, and it is greatly valued and acknowledged!
Hands-on Weather Course:
Course intro:
Not your typical weather class! You’ll work with real-time data and experience the elements firsthand. Gain the skills to interpret weather forecasts, understand sailing conditions, and navigate with precision. Don’t just read about the weather, experience it!
Important information:
This course will take place outdoors, so please prepare for varying weather conditions. The course will make use of both paper Pacific nautical charts and smartphones. Additionally, students will receive the “Racing the Wind” lesson book and a course outline.
Before the course begins, students are advised to download the following apps:
- Navionics
- Squid Mobile and/or QTVLM
- Windy
Class Structure
Racing the Wind’s courses are hands-on in order to show how weather data and the sailing environment come together. This course allows students to better determine what is happening with the weather, what will happen with their weather, and what factors could change what they see in a forecast. We utilize charts, forecasts, gribs, and observations from the local area and teach the class outside in the elements.
Schedule and pricing:
- October 5 and 6
- 8:30am – 5pm each day
- Cost: $450 per student
- Capacity: 20
- Minimum: 6
The course was created with the following goals/ideas in mind:
- Weather is best taught outside; we use the outdoors as our classroom, and use barometers, our phones for data, an Atlantic (NGA 00120) and Pacific (NOAA 530) nautical charts, and thermometers.
- To observe and monitor pressure and discuss the association between what winds are experienced at any given point given the synoptic pressure, local pressure influences, and local topography.
- To understand directionality and orientation of wind and what that indicates over the course of the next few minutes, or few hours, or few days.
- To provide a deep dive on the interpretation of the current physical environment based on a crisp clear understanding of various data and sources for these data: grib data, synoptic charts, forecasts, observations
- Global Weather Regions and how this regionality plays into weather patterns overall
- Understand currents and their influence on weather and tradeoffs of wind vs currents strategy
- Understand topology and it’s effect on wind and currents
Hands-on Expedition Navigation Software Course:
Course intro:
Expedition Navigation Software is one of the premier routing applications for racers. When used effectively, it can help chart a competitive path across an ocean or for your local out and back race. We will cover everything from installing Expedition to advanced features for those difficult navigation decisions enroute.
Jason has almost 10 years of experience with Expedition for both onboard navigation and remote routing. He has used Expedition to help navigate Pac Cup, Caribbean 600, and other named races and to route racers around Cape Horn, through the Southern Ocean, and across the Eastern and Western Pacific.
Important information:
- Students should plan to bring personal laptops capable of running Expedition, though students may share if needed. Computers/laptops will not be provided. Please note: Expedition does not work on Apple devices.
- Students should be familiar with the material in Hands-on Weather (models vs forecasts vs gribs), and with weather models, weather observations, and forecasts.
Materials:
- For this class we recommend students have a laptop or Windows tablet with one of the Expedition Installers downloaded. Any Windows device that meets the specifications on the Expedition website will work. Please note: Expedition does not work on Apple devices.
- A course outline will be sent to students directly from the instructor (not Seattle Sailing Club) prior to the lesson
- The instructor will reach out prior to the lesson with instructions on how to set up the demo license
Before the course begins, students are advised to download the following apps:
Class Structure
In this class we will cover:
- How to install Expedition and the license file
- How to set up Expedition for your boat and begin routing your boat using the optimize feature.
- Introduce features for adding, validating, and choosing weather model files (gribs) for winds, currents, and weather.
- Deep dive into the optimal routing feature, ensemble routing feature, multi routing feature.
- Introduce how to integrate with your vessel’s existing instrument systems and chart plotters
- For specific configurations additional training/consultation is available.
- Having worked with Expedition over Starlink for the last year, we will also look at some advanced methods that weren’t possible until recently.
Schedule and pricing:
- October 1, 3, 8, & 10 (must be able to attend all sessions)
- 5:30 – 9:30pm
- Cost: $800 per student (includes 2 week Expedition demo license)
- Capacity: 20
- Minimum: 6
About the Instructor
Meet Jason Christensen, the visionary behind racingthewind.com and a dedicated instructor at Seattle Sailing Club. Over the past 6 years, Jason has thrived as an offshore racing navigator and weather router, consistently achieving podium finishes in prestigious events like the Pacific Cup and Nelsons Cup. His expertise extends to supporting ocean adventurers and ensuring their safety.
Jason’s reputation as a weather expert has made him a sought-after consultant for race teams, providing pre-race briefings and tactical analyses for renowned events such as TransPac and the Rolex Big Boat Series. He also collaborates with delivery captains to navigate weather challenges and anomalies during their voyages.
With a background in firefighting and complex computer systems, Jason’s passion for weather began as a child in Tornado Alley and has driven him to merge his experiences into founding Racing the Wind’s training division. His commitment to sharing essential sailing and racing weather knowledge underscores his role as a trailblazer in the sailing community.