Sailing

Boat speed- True wind angle- Apparent wind- VMG- Heel / leeway- Trim- Leg- Clock- Place-

Fleet racing

Air drives the sails, water resists the hull and keel, and your own speed changes the apparent wind. Steer with ←→, trim with ↑↓. There is a best trim for every apparent wind angle and it moves as you accelerate.


Known limits of this model — read before you judge a number
  • Boat speed runs fast. About +12% against the published polar in very light air (4 kn true), and +15% to +25% at high wind on wide angles. The error has one sign: the engine is never slow.
  • Equilibrium heel is far too large. A J/24 sits at 45° in 16 kn and a Melges 24 at 65° in 24 kn, against the 15° to 25° a real racing keelboat sails at. If you watch a boat lie over like that, it is a documented limit of the model and not a drawing bug — the engine really computes it, and nothing is clamped.
  • The published polar's high-wind roll-over is not reproduced. Real boats stop gaining above about 20 kn and this one keeps gaining.
  • One cause for all three. ORC equation 3.2's added resistance in a seaway and equation 3.3's four windage terms (hull, mast, rigging wire, crew) are not modelled, because every one needs geometry a public certificate does not carry. Without them the boat is too fast, and the one fitted parameter available — the righting stiffness — absorbs the error by making every boat too tender. The speeds come out right and the attitude does not.

Also: flat water, steady wind, no current, no shear, no gusts, no shifts. The angles are the part to trust — every beat angle is a prediction and they land within about 2°. Full detail, and the per-item list of what is reconstructed, is in CREDITS.txt and under Help.