tradewinds wind

Rick: As usual I was lost and carried starboard tack much further upwind than the front runners. (no it didn't occur to me to just follow them) Then when I flopped over to port, I was much further below the mark than I'd expected to be. The top guys seemed to be sailing in the middle of the course.

What did they see that I missed?

Inquiring minds and all that...

Pete,
We found if you stayed on starboard tack all the way to the lay line or even a little past you would be headed at the end of your starboard run but lifted on port when you tacked. The port tack would lift you all the way to the mark with a little header at the end if you tacked early on starboard it seemed like you would sail more of a header on port.

Hmm.. now I'm really lost!

I carried starboard a long way and thought I carried it too far but apparently not because I never got the lift.

In any case, most of the F16s seemed to be tacking to port fairly early and working that side of the course. It worked for the leaders, I just never picked up any clear signal that it was time to tack.

When all the leaders take off the other way - How much clearer of a signal do you need?

we went to the right on day 3 almost every race (mainly due to crappy starts and needing to get some clean air). didn't pay off

Fundamentals - get to the race area early, sail part of a beat, see what's going on. At the very least, you can watch as others do this and see which side is favored.

Failing that, keep an eye on the competition like Matt suggests. Every once in a long while, leverage pays out; most of the time, though, if you're headed to a private corner and you don't know if it is favored, it probably isn't.

I did this and found that I was getting bad air off the fleet of F18 that would continue on Starbord Spi run rounding the offset.

On day 1 (Friday) the wind was going right all day, you'll recall the RC reset the course after we could one-tack A mark on Stbd. When the wind is going right, you want to get right asap and ride the lift into A mark.

On day 2 it was still going right, just not nearly as much, and occilating more, but you had to decide if you were going to go right early to avoid the F18 spinnaker parade (and resultant bad air) or if you were going to hit the left corner to avoid same.

On day 3 it was light and fluky, you really had to watch out for the holes going upwind, and try to stay in the puffs downwind, hope for the best on the gate laylines.

Pete,

You should get a good book on strategy & tactics. The old Stuart Walker and Eric Twiname books helped me alot.

I know. But without picking up on the physical signs i.e. a shift or change in pressure I'd just be following. I'm still trying to figure out what they saw and felt that I missed.

Jack- reading and understanding are not the same. If anything I've read too much. I think I'm fixated on some old habit that I still haven't identified.

In any case we had the best weather we've had in at least three years and I'd rather sail in the Keys than any place I know.

I'm about thirty miles south of Charlotte Harbor and the weather today is absolutely gorgeous. Just in case any of you are thinking about coming down.

Hi Pete,
Two rules for sailing upwind
*If oscillating wind, tack on the headers and hold the lifts
*If persistent, go the direction the shifts are going.

Almost every day saw persistent shifts going right, and almost entirely the right side was favored.
On the Orange course it was even more so, as we were closer to land.

So, another little big of lore: If land on the right and water to the left(as it was), go to the right.
When you were at my seminar I think you quit midweek before we got to the tactics and windshifts, as I recall.
However, in the magazine I do a tactics column and much of it is about this sort of thing

I did leave mid week, but what I got was enjoyable. And I always read your column.

Pete, your next move (assuming you've read enough Stuart Walker), in regards to "seeing" what the wind is doing, would be to get some type of compass, a speed puck or tactic, onto your spin pole, and learn how to use it to identify shifts, both persistant and occilating.

We didn't need a compass because we had the land (as well as other boats) as a backdrop to see what was happening, ie. lifted or headed.

My approach was:

A) get a clean start - find favored end. After day 1, throw everything away if needed to prevent Trey from banging out a port tack start because whether or not it was part of my game plan, the F18 fleet (who was watching everything waiting for their start) was going to give me another load of crap about it.

B) wind was supposed to work it's way to the right every day. When in doubt, or especially if you find yourself in trouble getting washed/dirty air, go right.

C) there usually was better pressure but worse angle to the left (starboard beat) and patchy pressure to the right. If you worked the middle, you could usually find a better angle and more consistent pressure. When in doubt, refer to B and plan to shift gears often.

D) If you find yourself completely screwed (capsized, way late to the start, mechanical issue, etc) bang hard left to perform an unlikely "Hail Mary".

You guys are making my head hurt! But thanks for your input. It seems like following is the easiest solution. I'll worry about the rest if I ever catch up.

What do you do after Mary shows up?

Just a tip: always keep asking yourself if you are sailing a header or lift. And always know. Headers are your friend.., after you tack it becomes a lift.
Another off the cuff: after rounding C, is the angle to mark more or less than 45-degrees? Less is good.

Stay away from the corners (unless your hoping for Mary to show up). Once you get to a layline, you're out of options.

Jump for Joy.

Thanks again everyone. This is all good stuff.

problem I have with following is unless you can get higher than them you will suck their bad wind and just get further behind. what does everyone else do if you have a somewhat poor start and are behind everyone? I know the correct answer is to have a better start (I am not as aggressive as I should be starting... just plain not good at it)

to clarify: if sailing on stbd and you get persistent lifts (meaning wind is shifting right?) then you should tack and go right?

You can't really go right in response to headers/lifts - it's too late at that point (see below). Taking advantage of those gradual course-wide shifts is a game of anticipation. If we were scientific enough to measure and chart the wind before a race, we would likely see some steady patterns to work with...since this isn't usually practical, use the forecast to see which way the wind is expected to shift to throughout the day.

This is something that Astella's online sailing simulator (can't recall the name at the moment) helped me to really visualize and I offer you this exercise. Visualize a race course in front of you with A-mark near the ceiling. Hold your hands out as the "boats" who are dead even on port tack with one further left and one further right. Now, give them both an equal header (the wind is shifting right across the entire course) and turn your hands appropriately as the skippers compensate for the header. Notice now that the boat on the left immediately lost ground on the boat to the right and is now looking more at his stern whereas they were dead even before the shift. It's an instant boost to the boat that was on the side the wind shifted to (upwind).

If you wait for the header before you go right it's too late. You have to be there when it happens and the more cross course separation you have from your opponent(s), the more gain you make if the shift shows up. Playing the anticipated course shift is a little gamble but if it's gradual and persistent, it's usually worth a boat length or two if you position yourself properly for it - but you only gain on boats that were on the wrong side for the shift.

While I reading through Jake's explanation, spot on by the way, I thought about other issues that have not been mentioned. Boat speed and boat handling. If you are losing by a couple of boat lengths and wonder how you could have them back then a lot of what is mentioned here applies. But if you are 30 seconds or more behind you need to look within. Do you have pace with the other boats? If yes then, do you have equal boat handling skills? I am not only talking about whether you think you are steering and turning corners correctly, also how are you meshing with the crew, providing you are sailing with one? If you are single-handing against double-handers I think you are at a disadvantage tactically. It is beneficial to bounce ideas off of someone else.

Just trying to gain some different perspective:
Dan

Basically I drive like a tourist... Oh wait! I had crew, it's all her fault.

Seriously, my game could stand a lot of improvement all the way around. Mostly, what I didn't do was work the shift to the right. For some reason I had it in my head that later in the day there would be something very dramatic and as a result missed the whole thing.

My crew was just fine, btw.

Joanna? You want to chime in here?

We started at the pin end almost every race. Stayed on starboard until we got about an 8 degree header, flopped to port, and sailed in foot mode all the way to the weathermark. I don't think we ever rounded out of the top 5, and more than once, we were the first boat to the weather mark.

Traffic at the gate dictated whether we went left or right on the next upwind leg. Left was my preference, but we went right on a couple of legs and didn't seem to loose any boats.

Pete,

Sounds like you are looking for the obvious. Most of time sailing is about playing trends and not having some huge literal sign telling you to go. Watch where you are sailing on each tack every lap and compare it to the previous times. In a race like Tradewinds there are boats everywhere, be very aware about who went which way and how they did, this will tell you loads about favored sides.

As Dan pointed out you realy need to be honest about your relative boat speed. If you can not make the start and have equal if not better boat speed than everyone else, upwind and down, then all the course reading tips in the world will not help one bit.

This is a great thread. I want to second what Matt is saying above, particularly with catamarans. Boatspeed and VMG can have a huge impact on my perception of a race as well as the shifts and tactics. And with catamarans in particular, different sailors can get significantly more or less out of the boat in terms of this boat speed and VMG. Life gets a lot easier if you can go fast.

We sailed an N20 and worked both sides of the course to good effect when we were sailing well. The classic land effects noted above were there, but people could do great by seeing what was going on ahead of them through other boats' point\speed\heel as well as breeze on the water.

BTW, I felt like the start line and course generally got more square over time.

And we often were surprised by the header on the final short beat to A.

Maybe you'd like to come aboard as crew some afternoon and give me a few pointers?

Go left, go right?

Which thread am I on anyways?

;-) LOL

[quote=Just Todd]Go left, go right?



"Yes!"

Yes, good thread.

Have you guys in Florida who are always racing against each other ever considered licencing the Kattak or similar software? With everyone's GPS track you can see how far you sailed and how fast you were versus the other boats on each leg. It becomes pretty easy to see who read the shifts, where they were etc.


CRAW used these in Racine and now most of the members have a Garmin so we're able to track each race. Embarassing for some (like me) but a great learning tool.

What is this -Kattak- you speak of?

And more importantly, what does it cost??

;^)

It's a company that does sailing race tracking software. I don't know exactly how it works or the exact cost. It might be a little pricey, but when you split it up among a group, it may be more reasonable.

How it works is X number of boats get a GPS. You can put it just about anywhere - tramp pocket or even in your hull. After the race, someone gathers them up and reads them in to the software via a USB cable. You mark the start and marks and assign names to each participant. It generates a movie of each race.

Anyone can watch the race on-line once its posted. There are two players - one is a web player with limited functionality and another is one you download. The one you download gives you all the metrics to analyze the race. You can toggle on and off the various boats to track whoever you want to track. You can also tell it to follow a certain boat.

What I like about it is that it seems to work with a wide variety of GPS. I don't know if they have to be Garmin, but in CRAW, I think there are about 3 different types of Garmin GPS now being used.

It is the reverse of the Velocitek model where you buy this expensive tracking unit and the tracking software is free. I believe that Velocitek only works with the Velocitek units and I think you can e-mail race files to each other, but no online viewing.

With Kattack, you buy a cheap GPS, but license the software each year. We pay for it out of our CRAW dues. I think about 20 boats now have a compatible GPS.

Here is their web site. Anyone can register and watch races.

Kattack

I like the level of analysis you can do. For example in one race, I think I found about 10% of the difference between my time and the boat I benchmark myself against was due to poor start, 20% due to slower tack/jibe/round times (this requires you do additional analysis not done in the software) and the rest due to sailing further/slower on the downwind legs.

Others have heard me on my soapbox before, but I believe with software like this you can mathematically analyze a race and pinpoint why a boat won or lost. You can have stats like baseball. Within a single race, I know it can work, but forming a basis for comparing like statistics between races or regattas still has me scratching my head a bit.

I think Kattack does something to the GPS's and you have to get them through them. I know JJ couldn't take the tracks off of just any GPS.

Somebody really needs to get them in touch with the Velocitek folks and make them function with it. I would think it would add appeal to both products.

Sounds very interesting, I'll have to look into it. Thanks.

You could be right on that, but I thought he said it did work with other units with a USB port, just not Velocitek.

I don't see the two companies cooperating, because they are after overlapping markets. I haven't checked out Velocitek speedplay recently, but it didn't give you the metrics like Kattack. I used GPSpar, the free one, because I liked it better and it gave me the ability to export the raw lat/long data.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/53372119

This is from my Foretrex 301.

I like how it brings in the map.

Does Garmin give you the ability to do an animation of your sailing?

Animate? click the green marker at "punta rassa".

scroll down to see the distance and speed read out at the bottom.

"drag" the screen to keep it centered on the red cursor.

Looks like that Garmin would be easy to mount on your boom? Is that how you had it or on your wrist? I know I usually lose my watches off my wrist when racing, unless I tape them on! They always get hung up on -something- during a tack/gybe and end up in the water.

By animation I mean can it show your boat moving through the course? This looks like it shows a static picture of your course. Maybe I missed a button or something.

I did a lot of looking at my individual speedpuck tracks and saw flaws in tacking, etc. but when you bring other boats into the picture, you really see where you can improve relative to the boats that sailed better than you.

I keep mine in a water-proof bag on the tramp.

TEH: It's animated, just push a few buttons...

I don't know how it works, but you don't have to mount the GPS for Kattack. Guys toss them in their hulls!

I think this is the one I have:

etrex

Like maybe hit the play button duh...

Yeah, same thing as Kattack, except you see everybody else and get the statistics on each leg.

Well I've already got an Etrex Legend, looks just like that one you have, I wonder if it will work with the Kattack. I usually tape it to the boom or tie it to one of the hiking straps at the back of the tramp, out of harms way. I've seen as fast at 17.6 knts. going downwind solo, with the kite.

I know I've gone faster on a blast reach with my (195 lb.) son on the wire, we didn't have the GPS on board that day but it was scary fast, it felt like a windsurfer skipping over the waves.

I will follow-up with our commodore to see if it has to be a kattack unit or not.

All GPS units (Garmin, Velocitek) will generate a "breadcrumb" log file of their tracks. They don't have to be mounted anywhere, they just do it as long as they're turned on and stay on.

There are a number of software solutions to pull the information off the units and put it in a format to go into tracking replay software. (Some of the retrieval and playback software is combined.)

The one that I've always played with is GPS Action Replay. It's a free download. Just Google it.

Kattack uses Garmin eTrex units for no other reason than they're cheap and durable. At the end of the day, they're gathered up by the Kattack employee who then dumps the tracks to their software. The tracks are trimmed to eliminate the in-between race parts and time synchronized. The wind direction and location of the marks are inserted manually (inferred by the tracks), as are the boat labels. The whole process takes about an hour, depending on the number of units.

Yes, GPS Action Replay (GPSar) works well and its free. It works will all units if the user has the technical ability to pull off the data and load it. Not hard for some, but a real challenge for others. Also, it does not give you race statistics across all competitors as far as I know.

Velecitek has made getting the data off the unit easy, but it only runs in their software or the free GPSAR. It will show you an animation of all competitors in the race, but not sure if it provides much in the way of race statistics. I haven't downloaded the most recent software, so I don't know.

I think Kattack's niche is your have a techie (their employee or a capable member of your club) pull the data off inexpensive units and load it. It gives you animations of all competitors. Plus it give your race metrics and the ability to distribute the animations via the web. Their metrics are pretty user friendly as well.

With the metrics and the visual animations, you can really figure out what you did versus your competitors.

Since I bought a new iphone my old 3G is gathering dust on the shelf, any ideas on how to convert this into a sailing computer?
I'm thing of using it after every race to see where we got the most gains (good shifts, accelerations etc).
(There is an F18 meeting in a few weeks where there will be a vote on allowing GPS devices while racing).

I have an app called "Tracks" for my android phone. Works great. Lays down your track right over a google map. Give you top speed average speed and all that other crap. Not sure if it is avalible for Iphone but I would think they would have something like it. Also very nice knowing I have the ability to call for help if needed.

Pete, back to your original question. I will preface this by saying we were nowhere near the front of the fleet, so I'm sure some of this is counterproductive. In addition this was our first time sailing together, and our first time sailing an F18...

I spent a bit of time as crew (aka "waste of space on a boat") that weekend looking backward at our track while sailing. Very easy to notice when we were lifted and headed. Also good to see if any other boats were being affected. Most importantly, it was so I wouldn't second-guess the driver (who was very competent in her own right).

Not having to worry about the driving, it was easier for me to figure out where we were on the course, what the other boats were doing, and what our sail trim was. Driving takes up a lot of brain to figure out strategy.

My "boat" work was primarily maximizing the speed for any given position, so I had some brain power to figure out stuff for the driver.

I noticed a header preceeded each pressure patch, and things did go slightly right each day (Friday more noticable than the others). I also noticed that the other boats could sail a bit higher than us, so we chose not to pinch up to them but rather just sail fast and hope we choose the right lift/header combination.

There always seemed a bit more pressure near A, and having usually overstood when we hit the right, it was a bit of a close reach to get back to the layline (which helped us drive over a few boats trying to slam the door on us).

I also noticed that the right side (left as you're going downhill) paid a little better with the spinnaker up, and gave you stb rights coming into the gate.

We got a decent start once or twice near the pin, which put us at the mercy of all the boats behind us before we could tack over on port and get right. But, getting a good start with clean air was huge.

When we got a second-row start, we just worked on boatspeed and followed the leader. No use for us in taking wild risks (we weren't in contention for any pickle-dishes). Making fewer mistakes (sail handling, transitions) than the next guy was our strategy.

But weekends like that are what made me want to sail in the first place!

Tony,
I have seen this one, but not used it:
- http://www.letscreate.dk/letscreate/?q=node/1
Look slike you can save the track and send them by email after you are done.

If you want to use it like a tacktick, then you might consider buying a waterproof case. I have seen these:
- OverBoard Waterproof Case for iPhone
- http://www.pelican.com/cases_detail_specs.php?Case=i1015

I'd be interested in your feedback if you get to try either.

GPS action replay is a great free tool.

Use this for waterproof and increased GPS coverage:
http://www1.magellangps.com/toughcase/

And this for software:
http://www.navionics.com/MobileMarineFeatures.asp?MobileType=iPhoneSingle

This just came out and has not yet hit the stores:
Spot Connect transforms your smartphone into a satellite messenger
http://findmespot.com/en/index.php?cid=116

Perfect! This will be going with me on my trips to Alaska.