Satellite Weather GRIB Files On Android Devices

Over the years, XGate has teamed up with a number of third-party GRIB retrievers and viewers to help deliver GRIB weather files over satellite connections. Until now, all of these programs (WeatherNet, iNavX, Weather4D, WeatherTrack, etc) have been for Windows, Mac, or iOS.  

But we’re happy to announce that there is a great new option for Android: SailGrib! 

SailGrib is a GRIB retriever and viewer all in one. Using SailGrib in conjunction with XGate satellite email service will allow you to retrieve GRIB files through email using XGate and then view them right in SailGrib using their Android app. 

SailGrib Features

SailGrib is a handy little app that goes beyond simple GRIB files. Here are a few of the features sailors find most useful:

SailGrib Over Satellite

We’ve already mentioned it, but we’ll do it again - using SailGrib with XGate means that you aren’t tied to land to get your weather files. Using leading-edge compression, XGate allows you to download your GRIB files over satellite connections that are very, very slow by land standards. XGate works with any IP-based satellite phone (which is the vast majority of them) so you can get your weather anywhere you can get satellite reception.   

SailGrib "talks" to XGate directly by spooling the GRIB request to the XGate outgoing email queue (through SMTP).

Fully Featured Weather Info

The weather information that comes through with SailGrib is pretty extensive: colored wind barbs, isobars with low and high values highlighted, precipitation map (rain and snow), cloud cover map, air temperature map, significant wave height map, mean wave direction and period arrows, and CAPE map. 

You can also loop through time, allowing you to see weather movement and make decisions based on mobile patterns. 

SailGrib can retrieve worldwide oceanic and European tidal currents, making it a truly robust resource for weather information around the world. 

You can see SailGrib in the Google Play store here. 

SailGrib WR

SailGrib Weather Routing calculates the fastest sailing route to your destination with a powerful method based on the isochrones method. An isochrone is a curve representing the points that a sailboat can reach in a given time. This curve depends primarily on the forecasted wind and currents plus the boat speed for that wind. The boat speed is derived from polar curves that represent the speed of the boat for a given wind speed and angle. We optimize the route calculating all the effects of the current on your boat as long as a current GRIB file is loaded. 

All the calculations are done directly on your device, so you don’t need to consume any satellite airtime to get your sailing route. 

SailGrib WR Features

Once you get your GRIB files into SailGrib WR, you can create the route to your destination on a map as well as by adding waypoints along your route. 

• Set parameters by hand or automatically to specifically calibrate your passage.
• Specify upwind and downwind speed limits for low and strong winds
• Specify a minimum upwind angle for comfort while cruising
• Specify a night efficiency loss 
• For cruisers, use mixed routing: decide when to start the engine and specify your motoring speed.
• Create a KML file and a GPX file of the best route
• Create an Excel file of your roadbook
• Choose to display best route courses, isochrones, isochrone segments on the map
• Go through time and overlay the boat with the weather forecast. 

 You can see the SailGrib WR app in the Google Play store here.