Does one exist for the F16?

I never found one.

Ditto for the F18.

I think I once saw one for the classic Tornado and the single trap C class..

I would very much like to see a reliable one! (not mathematically derived from a sailmaker)

What does it take to make one?

A very good sailor with good sails.
A GPS
Patience
Time

The crew needs to sail all courses in different windstrenghts with optimum speed and record the results. Then repeat to build a statistical base.

Well, that ain't happenin'! Plan b: what does it take to get one from a sail maker?

Contact North Sails and ask for it. Prepare to pay for a development program in F16 sails before asking

Why North? Wouldn't one of the lofts making F16 sails be better?

Depends on the software and expertise the software have available. North have some nifty software for generating polars as part of their in-house software environment.

Well, you're looking for a quality activity why not cobble one together?

What would a polar graph for the F16 look like? I'm guessing concensus from the group would provide a reasonably accurate graph.

I've made one for a yacht a few years ago, pretty easy to do when all of the instruments are networked together.
You do really need wind instruments to calculate VMG accurately though, not easy to do on a small cat (and expensive!).

I was thinking to put some points on a graph generator, purely out of conjecture, then talk it to death until we believe it is accurate.

With all the small, cheap gps units out there we should be able to get a huge amount of data.

I think you need accurate TWD and TWS as well as cog and speed (to account for any current, right?).

Wire up your boat Pete and sail a lot. Post your data and someone can crunch the numbers...

Processing the numbers is not hard. Getting accurate data is.

Nope. On second thought, the graph generator isn't even necessary.

We just need someone to plot the points and keep the chart. If people would submit their gps tracks or individual data points, in time we'd have a very accurate graph. The bs data would fall far outside the norm leaving the rest as valid.

To obtain accuracy can you not simply plot the raw data from a variety of sources and deduce best possible vmg?

Example: plot the course of two boats to weather. The higher boat is likely to be going slower but not necessarily making the best vmg. The data can be obtained on different days on opposite points of the globe. With enough data points an accurate picture will emerge.


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A polar shows the best performance for given windstrength and heading. Comparing the results from weekend warriors will create a suboptimal polar

If two boats are going to weather and one is pinching waaay too high and another is footed off to a reach it is still possible to plot their data, yes?

Though neither represents the optimal course, the best vmg will lie between the two, correct?

If so, it is then only necessary to have the two alter course gradually towards each other. One or the other must then sail the optimal course if only by accident.

Plotting large numbers of isolated data will eventually demonstrate the optimal course.

You are right Pete. There is just one problem..

For best performance we need really good sailors when doing the averages. If we have "average" sailors, the polars will indicate less performance than what really is in the boat.

Remember that the polar is supposed to show the best speed obtainable on the different courses at the different windspeeds. The "sailor" variable is pretty large I would say.

Maybe polar is the wrong term for what I'm interested in. I'd just like to see what people of all skill levels are doing in the real world. It would be nice if everyone carried a Spot during regattas.

In the GPSAR program you can upload gpx files.
Then you can get the spikes out (which I didn't do now) and get your polar of that day. (bases the winddirection upon the angles you sail around the course) This is ofcourse only a polar for upwind/downwind and not anything in between.
I guess this will enable you to compare performance of a specific boat at a specific event.

Ofcourse windshifts, wind lanes etc. will influence one time off measurements as these.

Gill