Auntie Helen said:
What do you class as 'usually'? No, the average joe public in the street doesn't do it, but amongst the sailing fraternity it's something that many people do. I know eight or nine people who've done Transats. It's not particularly unusual amongst sailors.
It's you who seems incapable of seeing that this isn't a black and white thing 'no sailing boats cross the atlantic and therefore the shipping forecast is pointless'. Some sailing boats DO cross the atlantic and they find the shipping forecast extremely useful. I have no desire to do a transat but I love listening to the forecast anyway, there's something wonderfully rhythmic about the words and exotic about the locations listed...
LOOK:
*MOST sailing boats don't cross the atlantic
*but SOME do
*small sailing boats aren't normally referred to as SHIPS
*a ship is generally taken to mean a large, propellor driven cargo vessel
*but if you're being VERY pedantic, which you are, then the strict definition of a 'ship' includes sailing boats, but not in common parlance
*the shipping forecast is therefore not useful to small boats as they don't NORMALLY* cross the atlantic (*but since you seem to be very defensive in taking this to mean they never do, I'll re-stress AGAIN the caveat that this doesn't mean they never do, or can't)
*it isn't really useful to container ships as the only reason a storm is going to affect them is if they get delayed to a strong headwind, and as piemaster says in pretty much the only valid point apart from me in this thread, this costs money. But, isn't that good a point since the ship can simply evaluate its current speed at any given time and increase it as necessary. I suppose the shipping forecast may therefore be useful in terms of predicting how much fuel to take on board, but that's effectively its only MAINSTREAM use (which before you get all uppity is a different thing from saying 'its ONLY use'
