Page 23: of Marine News Magazine (July 2026)

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or as long as ships have crossed oceans, mariners have looked to the sky to guide their decisions.

Today, however, the art of reading the weather has

F evolved into a sophisticated blend of meteorology, arti? cial intelligence, proprietary data and human exper- tise that is helping ship operators save fuel, reduce emis- sions and protect lives on the water. Few companies illus- trate that evolution better than Weathernews (WNI).

While many know the Japan-based company as a global provider of maritime weather services, its roots stretch back much further. According to Jesse Vecchione, Head of Busi- “I think anybody that has an internet ness Development, Americas, WNI, a 23-year veteran with connection could use tools to create a product the company, the heritage of modern voyage optimization that would try to push a forecast or try to do traces back to military forecasting efforts in the 1950s and weather routing type solutions. But ? rst of all, the pioneering work of Ocean Routes in the 1970s.

you need to have the best quality weather data “It’s a very interesting story,” Vecchione said. “This rout- to start, and you also need to know how to ing tech actually has very, very deep roots going all the way utilize that data and make it actionable.” back to the ’50s and ’60s in the military, and here we are now leveraging a lot of the same philosophy, but using dig- ital tools and technology to help make it more ef? cient.” –Jesse Vecchione, Head of Business

That history matters because weather routing is no longer

Development, Americas, WNI simply about avoiding storms. It has become an essential op- www.marinelink.com MN 23|