Past the Azoren Islands

It is now definite! The route from the Western strategists has proven to be the better over the Coastal strategy for conquering the Northern Atlantic !
The quickest coastal boat is still some 200 Nm North of Madeira, while the best western boats have passed the Azoren with about 400 Nm. 


The wind has weakened now however, and is causing a difficult approach to Cape Verde islands. With the weaker winds, comes also more variable winds, so what one morning looks a good strategy, might turn around in the afternoon, which reduced the progress. The main point is that all sailors are in the same winds, so it looks still an even battle for the Podium. 


My Rank this morning: 104 ;and the fleet has grown to 1045 participating boats. 
If you would be interested in the trend of my progress and that of a lot of other boats in the English Forum of LiveSkipper, then you may have a look at my race status report LiveSkipper boats -- trending for race status

Polar diagram 
Did I propose yesterday  to try the Advance Mode in the simulator, today I like to inform you on the benefits of using the polar diagram available. 

To engage the Polar diagram, you click on the "Polar" icon in the right-side top of the screen; see the hand. 








A new window will open with a lot of information on the boat, its sails and its performance. 

On the top you see the type of boat this polar is for. 
In the half circle (0-180degrees is shown as this boat and sails are symmetrical) you see different coloured curves. This is one curve for each of the available sails, each with its own colour. [the Auto sail does not have a curve, but it would be a curve that indicated about 90-95% of the performance of the best sail per heading.]  
The yellow straight line is an indication for your TWA (True Wind Angle; the angle between your boat-heading and the wind-direction) here it is 108degree. 
With this you can easy find the optimal heading to sail most effective. 


The polar tells me then that the purple sail "the Genaker" is the fastest sail with a boatspeed of 29.1 kts at the windspeed of 17.2 kts. 


This information on sail selection , heading , TWA and boatspeed is also available and permanently visible in the bottom right side of the screen, see the screenprint on the right.
Sails can be selected by the arrows around where now Genaker is shown, locked now as I sail with the WP scheduler on. Auto Heading will engage the autopilot that locks the TWA, so it will change your heading when the wind-direction will change. 
The 2 small arrows around My Boat, will activate any marks that you have set in the simulator and allows boat setting from the location of that mark. 


What would happen when the wind increases in strength? Well, you can simulate this by clicking on windspeed and up it to about 19.7 kts 

see a next polar with higher windspeed. 
Now it informs me that the "Solent Jib" sail (green curve)is the most effective for this wind-direction, -speed and my heading. Giving me a boatspeed of 30.3kts!

But would I change heading and the TWA increases to 115degree, again it will be the Genaker that is the best sail. 


So this is a Fantastic tools to assist you in sailing optimal conditions, that for sure you need if you want to end up on the Podium in this fleet of experienced Sailors.