1. Agreement
These terms and conditions are considered an agreement between the service provider and any user of services provided by GreatCircle sprl. By using this service you are regarded as accepting not only the following terms and conditions, but also the conditions of our data providers listed at the end of these terms and conditions.
2. Definitions
- User: Any persons or company who direct or indirect uses services from GreatCircle sprl
- Service provider: GreatCircle sprl, registered in Belgium No 0830642276.
- Data provider: All external and internal data providers for the service.
- This site/ the site /this service/ the service: Any information/data/products made available to the user by the service provider. Including but not limited to, forecasts, routing, data, pdf files, analyzes, web pages, tabs, illustrations/maps/charts, and programs available for offline use, made available to the user through any communication channels, including but not limited to, the domains and/or sub domains ofwww.greatcircle.be or by mail, phone, voice, VHF.
- Forecast data/ other data/ other forecast data: All forecast data available from the service. Including but not limited to forecast charts/maps, point and/or quick forecasts, tables and/or text with forecast information, pdf files, grib files.
3. The user
This service is available for natural persons as end-users only. Business to business agreements for other services may be allowed with a written permission from the service provider, in this case the specifications in this permission are considered a part of this agreement. Service provider has no obligations towards users which do not meet the requirements of the section above.
4. The product
Human made forecasts, weather routing, Grib files, observations (SYNOP, METAR & BUOYS), sat images and historical analyses
The service includes products as mentioned at the description page of each event/race available at this site, and/or for the individual costumer by mail, telephone or voice. These specifications are regarded as a part of these terms and conditions for the individual user. In the case of differences between individual specifications to a user and this agreement, this agreement will apply and override these specifications. The product only contains information about the services and variables specified for the individual user. All products are based at the average conditions for the actual area, high resolution WRF and/or local variations are not considered a part of the product/service. Some phenomena’s and systems are not under any circumstances considered as a part of this product/service, including but not limited to, earthquakes, long period ocean waves such as tsunamis, rapid developing systems such as tornadoes/waterspouts. Unless specified for the individual user, the service provider does not deliver services during the official hurricane/tropical cyclone seasons for the actual area, or for areas containing drift/sea ice or icebergs. The service provider reserves the right to deny or end a service at short notice, even if already agreed with the user, if they find the service conflict with this. This does not mean that the service provider find other sailing routes/areas/times of year to be risk free for hurricanes/tropical cyclones/sea ice/drift ice/icebergs. In any case the service provider is not responsible for any harm, damage, loss or personal injuries that should occur as a result of information which is delivered to the user.
Grib files and other data
This service provides a large number of different atmospheric and oceanographic numerical models. Many of the models are made available for the service provider in the public domain or under a free of charge license. Parts of the data are computed by the service provider with input from the public domain or under a free of charge license. Grib files and other forecast data are numerical products, and the data available at this site is not validated by the service provider or any other institutions or individuals. The run of a model, the connection to the server and/or the server itself may fail from time to time. This implies that not all the described models will be available at all times. Delays and incorrectness may be expected, and should therefore not be regarded as a breach of contract. In cases where a model becomes unavailable to the service provider by internal or external reasons, the service provider has the right to remove this model from the service. If possible, the service provider will try to replace the model with a similar without any guarantee for this. A decrease in the total number of available models (CEP, GFS, GEFS, GEM, WW3, Mercator, OFS) of less than 33% is not considered as a breach of this agreement, and the user has no right to claims or paybacks. For a decrease of more than 33% in the total number of available models the user has the right to cancel his subscription and get a refund similar to the prepaid fee for the remaining period if the subscription. The data are meant for informational purposes only, it should only be considered supplemental to other official sources for weather information, and shall never replace official weather forecasts.
5. Availability of the service/the product
The service/the product may become temporary delayed and/or unavailable because of network/server faults and/or human factors. Shorter delays and/or unavailability of less than 18 continues hours are considered as minor breach of the agreement and give the user no right to payback under any circumstances. For delays and/or unavailability over 18 continues hours the user has right to a payback equal to the fee for the service in this period. The user’s rights to payback from the service provider because of unavailability and/or delays are under any circumstances limited to the fee the user has paid for using the service in the affected period..
6. Payment, user registration and traffic log
Online signup to www.greatcircle.be and/or www.squid-sailing.com
Online payments for all services are made at/by an external provider, Paypal, and credit card information will be given and/or stored at this external provider. The service provider has no access, nor responsibility for this credit card information. User personal information is stored at a server hosted by the service provider. The service provider logs the site’s data traffic, which includes IP addresses, user information and grib downloads. None of this data will be sold or redistributed in any way. Unfortunately break-in to servers/networks may be possible. In the case of any data is taken/stolen from the service providers servers/network the service provider disclaims all responsibility for this lost data.
7. Termination
Online signup to www.greatcircle.be and/or www.squid-sailing.com
No termination of prepaid services is allowed. If the service provider closes down the service, this will be warned 2 weeks in advance by email to all users. Prepayment for this period will be refunded for the affected users.
Other services
Pre and postpaid forecast and routing services can be terminated without fee until the agreed start date of the service. If this service includes preparations for area analyses or model setup, which already have been done at the time of termination, these preparation services has to be paid in full.
8. Redistribution, unlawful and prohibited use
The users username and password are strictly personal. Data accessible through the site should never be resold, redistributed or republished in any way. Professional routing services are as such prohibited from redistributing, reselling forecasts and observations which are not in the freely available public domain. By employing this service, you guarantee that you will neither make use of the service in any way contradictory to these terms and conditions, nor for any purpose that is unlawful or that could harm the site. Such employment is considered a fundamental breach of contract, which gives the service provider the right to terminate the user’s access to the service without refund and/or further notice.
9. Risk and liability’s disclaimer
Human made forecasts, High resolution WRF, weather routing and course proposal
Although the service provider works hard to make an accurate forecast, this does not guarantee conformity with the coming conditions. The accuracy of forecasts decreases with time, and a long term forecast will therefore have a lower degree of accuracy. The provider specifies that the actual conditions, including but not limited to, wind, weather and waves in many cases will not be as forecasted. The forecast must only be regarded as a possibility for expected conditions. Course proposals, including but not limited to weather routing, are only imprints from the available data on the basis of the forecasted wind and wave conditions. We do not guarantee that these course proposals will be the best choices in a retrospective view.
All products and services from the service provider are for illustrative purposes only, and all decisions before and during the voyage or regatta are entirely up to the user and/or the boat's skipper. This applies both to the choice of sailing route; departure time and sailing courses on the way. Any decisions made on the basis of information from this service, is entirely at the users own risk. The service provider, and any of the external data providers, is therefore not responsible for any harm, damage, loss or personal injuries that may occur as a direct or indirect cause of the use of the information from this service. The user’s right to payback is under any circumstances limited by the value of the user’s paid fee for the service in the affected period. Users who not have paid a fee for using the service, has no right to any payback under any circumstances.
The service provider will under no circumstance be responsible for any harm, damage, loss, personal injuries or delays caused by an impediment beyond his control which he could not reasonably be expected to take into account at the time the service was provided or to avoid or overcome the consequences of. Such circumstances include, but are not limited to, earthquakes, long period ocean waves such as tsunamis, rapid developing systems such as tornadoes/waterspouts.
Grib files and weather data
There is no guarantee that the gribfiles and/or other forecast data will conform with the coming conditions. Some grib viewers at the market do not use the grib standard available from this service. It is the user’s responsibility to check that the data is displayed the right way. As inaccuracies and delays may be expected, the user is always responsible to evaluate the data and back them up with forecast from official sources. Critical decisions shall never be based on gribfiles and/or other data from this service.
10. Modifications
The service provider reserves the right to change these terms and conditions. The user shall therefore regularly check these terms and conditions for updates.
11. Applicable law and disputes
This agreement is complemented by Belgian law. The Parties shall seek to resolve any disputes amicably. However, if attempts of amicable settlements fail, claims shall only be brought before Belgian courts.
12. Terms and conditions of external data providers
By using this service you also accept the terms and conditions available at the links below:
- ECMWF (http://www.ecmwf.int/en/forecasts)
- NOAA (http://www.weather.gov/disclaimer.php)
- Environment Canada (http://dd.meteo.gc.ca/doc/LICENCE_GENERAL.txt)
- EUMETSAT (http://www.eumetsat.int/website/home/index.html)
- MyOcean (http://www.myocean.eu/web/27-service-commitments-and-licence.php?domain=safety)