Sailing writer Andy Rice talks about the modern curse of Windguru and other very useful weather sites.

In an age before the internet (if you can remember back that far), sailors used to go down to the club and they’d see what the wind was like when they got there. These days we are inundated with excellent websites that produce very accurate forecasts. One of my favourites is Windguru, but there’s Windfinder and a myriad of good alternatives. And there are the weather vanes that are linked up to the internet and produce live wind readings every five or ten minutes, sometimes every few seconds.

For Solent sailors, Ian Millard’s aggregation of live wind readings is one of the best I’ve seen. It’s an impressive use of modern technology. Seeing as I live 30 miles away from my club of choice, Stokes Bay Sailing Club, watching these live data sites could save me a wasted 60-mile round trip.

Thing is, there have been days when the wind has looked rubbish and so I’ve said, ‘No, I’m going to give the club a miss and go on a bike ride instead.’ If I had the discipline to stop there and never look at a weather website for the rest of the day, then maybe I could be happy in blissful ignorance. But who can resist a peak later in the afternoon to see what the wind is doing now? And what if you now discover that a nice sea breeze has come in and it’s a perfect, warm Force 4 blowing in from the south-west? Aaaaargggh! Should have gone sailing!

Sometimes it would just be better to go down to the sailing club like you did in the good old days and see what came along. Because going to the club is not just about the sailing, it’s about the atmosphere, the banter, the bar, even the boat bimbling. I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of many times that I’ve been to the sailing club and regretted going, even when I haven’t actually made it on to the water. So, a note to self, and maybe it rings true for you too: from now on I won’t let Ian Millard or any other wind guru rule my decision about whether or not to go to the club. When I find myself dithering over the big dilemma (should I stay or should I go?), I’m going to go anyway.

In any case, a well-planned trip is never a wasted trip. There’s always a list of jobs to be done on the boat. I could try setting up the rig with that heavy-wind set-up I’ve been thinking about for months but never quite got round to. Or you could just have a chat with your mates and just waste some quality time doing nothing in particular. In our busy, busy, always-on world, there’s no better place than a sailing club to tune out and switch off. And if you get to go sailing too, well that’s a bonus.

Andy Rice is a successful sailor who started his career in journalism in 1992. He writes write regular columns for Seahorse, ShowBoats International, Yachts & Yachting and Boat International.