Sailing retro low tech - legal risk?

[Chiara’s slave]

if your carefully calculated heading is where the wind is coming from it'll be worse than 2 knots

I can’t remember that last time our VMG to windward was anything like that low. We’d normally be looking at 5-6 vMG, 8-9 through the water. If we were much different or the forecast was dodgy we’d engage plan b, c or d

 

[lustyd]

I can’t remember that last time our VMG to windward was anything like that low. We’d normally be looking at 5-6 vMG, 8-9 through the water. If we were much different or the forecast was dodgy we’d engage plan b, c or d

If your heading is 180 the wind direction your vmg and ttw would be the same

 

[Concerto]

Realistically the alternative is manually working out the tide over the journey and probably aiming in the same direction anyway. If the wind is even slightly uncooperative those carefully worked out plans are usually out of the window anyway when you can't sail to the carefully worked out heading. Outside of channel crossings which happen to be about 12 hours for a nice S shape track I think sailing to the plotter is just the acceptance that the old way wasn't as good as suggested, not a reliance on technology. I do still check the tides and do the calcs, but usually just go for the plotter track.

Generally the S course for crossing the Channel or southern North Sea can be useful to follow. However I remember a race at the end of the 1960's (typical traditional navigation only) from Harwich to Ostend. The majority of the fleet were following the S route, but we stayed closer to the straight line course. When the wind dropped due to the onshore breeze being cancelled by the offshore breeze, the majority of the fleet were left down tide of Ostend. Out of a fleet of about 70 yachts, we found we were 4th boat to finish and came 10th overall. We were not a race boat with a long keel Northerny 34 and beat many new fin and rudder boats that were longer. Such a major wind shift was not expected, so just illustrates that the S course generally will be faster until a wind change can wreck all navigational planning.

 

[mattonthesea]

Did you at least do it for the bristol channel?

I regularly have used the chart plotter waypoint function for decision points. This is where I need to be by this time or I need to go to an alternate. There are few alternates and the tide runs faster and higher the further towards Bristol you go so the decision points are the vital if you don't want to spend several hours in the same place and/or take the ground/mud.

Navigation is fairly easy from the cockpit so the plotter is really a check device. I could do it with paper the charts but I know approximately where the checkpoints are and so I'm being lazy. ?

 

[Chiara’s slave]

We were talking about going to windward I thought. No prob if it’s downwind, we’ll take the gybes according to tidal flow. Choose between more wind or less, depending on how strong the wind is.

 

[lustyd]

A good example of why it's not always as simple in the real world. Heading has a huge bearing on apparent wind too which often means it's easier in the real world to see a line towards destination on a screen and make real time decisions based on apparent conditions than to follow a compass course

 

[Chiara’s slave]

A good example of why it's not always as simple in the real world. Heading has a huge bearing on apparent wind too which often means it's easier in the real world to see a line towards destination on a screen and make real time decisions based on apparent conditions than to follow a compass course

As a committed racer, and multihull sailor. thats exactly the kind of thing we take into account. Integrated instruments are a great help, the race boat has none, making life a bit trickier. Like the tacking downwind, the tide on one gybe increases the apparent wind, the other decreases it. With a tide change like the channel crossing, you play that to advantage. You’re only pointing straight there if it’s a reach on our boat. And yes, a plotter is a massive help. We often use it as a large display for wind and vmg, both upwind and down.