Technology Part no.3

And now we are getting to the good stuff!

If you have done your home work you now know that for every wind speed and angle there is a matching boat speed target.

We know we can get plenty of reliable, far into the future, weather predictions on the boat which include wind speed and angle estimates.

So based on these two known components is it that big a stretch to ask the computer to develop an optimum route for us based on a from here to there course? It is not.

The picture you are looking at above is such a route. This is a moment in time and that moment was NOAA's estimate for conditions prevailing across the course at 1300 PDT on the 4th of July - Narrow Escape's start time. The Optimum Route, all those little red dots represent the best course in 6 hours increments, was output yesterday and the little yellow dot, about 1/2 way across is where Narrow Escape was supposed to be based on all the weather up to that point if she had started then.

Now to pull it all together the computer can direct the autopilot to steer the optimum route and Chuggy and Dougie could be sipping Mai Tais the whole way across.

But in reality the software is just another tool - another point of view. The weather forecasts can be vastly wrong, the instruments could be out of alignment or the targets could prove to not be completely accurate. But it is all roses when it confirms the course the sailors have decided!

Still in 2013 I propose pushing the boat away from the dock in the direction of Diamond Head with no one on it as the penultimate weight savings measure!