Category Archives: Sailing by the numbers

40′ Series 2017 — The Sardinia Cup

The six race 2017 40′ Series Championship Q1&Q2  requires skippers to choose among three boats:

Click within the image for a full-size graphic
  1. The Ker 40
  2. The Class 40
  3. The SOTO 40

Each boat must be raced twice in the six races scheduled for Q1 & Q2 of 2017.  Sardinia was our first opportunity to test our ability to choose.

The Sardinia course was a great choice to kick-off the series.  The legs of the course cover all points of the compass — testing the polars of all three boats.
Here is how the race developed, plus some comments on skipper strategies in the series:
Continue reading 40′ Series 2017 — The Sardinia Cup

Doing the ZigZag with DCC

The Hawaiian ZigZag race is a personal favorite for me.  It’s a long CourseImagesprint through warm waters that bring back great memories.  This year, I was excited to test the Delay Command Checker software (DCC) during the race.

The DCC software surprised me both by how easy it was to use and by how many useful or time-saving features it offered.  DCC fit right in with my routing software.  That said, it would work well [perhaps providing even more benefits] for SOTP skippers

Continue reading Doing the ZigZag with DCC

Turkey Time !

Where to begin?
What an extraordinary race! A race that just has everything that SOL has on offer for the (seriously?) ‘serious’ on-line yacht racer, including in this case:

  • the wind puzzles of the Black Sea,
  • the hunt for balance between angle and pressure in the Etesian winds of the Aegean,
  • a big ask on boat-handling skills through the narrows of the Bosporus and Dardanelles,
  • and through the maze of the Greek islands,
  • and lots of stamina and dedication and sleep management.

And of course, the race takes us along the coasts of pre-history where mankind’s first empires were founded, as well as its last and most long-lived, The Empire of The Ottomans. Continue reading Turkey Time !

Around the Bend on the Bay of Biscay

WindContoursAtStart
The course — with winds at starting time

At first glance, this race looked to be a simple reach up the coast.  At least that is how it would be if the initial winds held.

Yes, there was an island to deal with near the finish.  But odds were we would leave the island to starboard — problem solved.  This race seemed to be routine.

But as the ‘Mad Russian‘ character from Jack Benny’s radio show would have said, “Silly Boy!” The race was far from routine.

Continue reading Around the Bend on the Bay of Biscay

Hop to La Rochelle

By now, many SOLers will have heard one or other competitor speak of ‘hopping’ or even ‘hopping the polar’. What are they talking about!? IRL we gybe and tack, but hop, hmmm? Deep Thought (a.k.a. Earth acc. to Slartibartfast) might have come up with it (didn’t) but the answer is ‘sail change’. A ‘hop’ in SOL is an IRL sail change accompanied by a change of course. Continue reading Hop to La Rochelle

Cyclones and VMC, a thought experiment

cyclone_naiveHere is one more example to illustrate VMC, and how targets change. We start with a cyclone. A perfectly well behaved cyclone.

The storm just sits in place and maintains it’s strength. It’s not even that unrealistic, the tropical storm near Madagascar in SWR Leg 2 behaved like this, as do coastal effects. Now imagine that you have to sail a loop around the cyclone as fast as possible.

Continue reading Cyclones and VMC, a thought experiment