True Wind

While sailing with Glenn Darden in the NYYC 42 event in Newport, I quickly had to get up to speed on the amazing sophistication of the electronics packages available on modern, grand-prix racing yachts.

For a lake sailor who rarely uses a compass, this was quite an eye opening experience. It was truly amazing the level of data input that was available. In fact, it is very easy (and tempting) to get sucked into the instrumentation as if one were playing with a yacht racing video game.

We had a tablet computer called the "Deck Man" that linked into the on-board computer that pulled all of the data from the instrumentation system on the boat. I saw several of our competitors sailing to either end of the starting line and "pinging" the ends with their GPS systems to create a virtual starting line on the tablet computer screen. The software then had the capability of showing you in real-time how far off the starting line you were at any given time and computing how much "burn time" you had before you crossed the line given your speed and angle.

There is also the ability to plug in the distance and angle of the windward mark and have the computer calculate your lay-lines (while factoring in current, set, drift, and a myriad of other things that I really don't understand).

The reality here is that you really need a designated "navigator" to fully run and utilize these incredible tools. As tactician, I felt that if I began to try and carry the tablet computer around with me during the race, it would be very easy to get sucked into the instrumentation rather than keeping my eyes focused on the race course. At this point, I don't think any instruments can find you stronger wind pressure and future wind angles better than your own two eyes.

As the regatta progressed, the one input that I really began to enjoy using was the "true wind direction". Usually, when using a compass on small boats, you are constantly monitoring your port and starboard sailing angles relative to what you consider the norm. These angles don't take into account the wave angles, differences in wind pressure, apparent wind, bad air and other variables.

What was neat about the "true wind" was that it was constantly providing me feedback on how the wind was shifting, irrespective of all of the other variables that can change your relative sailing angles.

Glenn had to be locked in on hitting his target speeds at all time and I zeroed in on the true wind direction both upwind and downwind. I can't tell you exactly how the computer figures it all out, but somehow it takes into account the impact your forward movement (apparent wind) has on the wind indicator at the top of the mast and calculates the true direction. Sometimes there is a slight lag but I found it to be very accurate almost all of the time. In lighter air, once in a while it seemed off slightly compared to what we were experiencing at "deck level", probably due to the location of the wind instrumentation at the top of the mast.

Using the true wind, it was very easy to determine the favored jibe downwind as well as to also determine the favored tack to be on when approaching the leeward gate marks. All I had to do was keep track of what I felt the normal or average true wind angle should be and see whether we were in a right or left phase relative to the norm.

Several times I wished out loud that I had a true wind indicator on my Laser. It sure keeps things simple in a rapidly increasing over complicated world! My goal for the next NYYC 42 Nationals in July will be to learn more about the Deck Man and its potential. I must confess that it would be kind of nice to have a little "extra help" in calling a weather mark lay-line from a mile a way.