Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Using the Human Speedometer to Increase Upwind Performance

Mike Ingham talks about the importance of using a Human Speedo in this video. 

A few Thistle-relevant items - the video is talking about J24s when specifics are mentioned, so some adaptation is involved. On a Thistle instead of the trimmer making the changes, it's usually the skipper with the main and then the middle with the jib.

On my boat the middle is the Human Speedo, but a very good forward can do it as well. You'll learn quickly who is best at gauging the relative performance to boats around you AND following it up with suggested changes most likely to work.

Another difference is that the changes you make are quicker to appear in results than in a heavy boat like a J24, so sometimes you can make a determination more quickly than 20 seconds, but often it takes 15 seconds or so for there to be enough data to make a call.

The goal is constantly making small changes to keep getting faster and faster and using your Human Speedo to evaluate the results of those changes.


Credit and Thanks to SailingWorld for allowing us to use this content.

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