I put together some video from the foot slipping out day, in case anyone has any tips. Mostly runs at the beginning, then gybes and then at the very end there is a section of me trying to point upwind.
For "pointing" upwind, I'd say pinch less/foot more for better VMG on a slalom board.
Looking at my polar plots, ~17kts. board speed and ~35deg. seems to be a sweet spot.
Maybe I was under finned today, but I struggled to get upwind today, on my 7.8m I was on Black Project Weed Speed 34cm. I was spinning out if I pushed too hard on the fin
Is there a way to calculate my VMG from my gpx file to compare slogging to planning? Seems like slogging was the winner today.
agree with John ,weed fins don't point all that great vs pointers ,so try different sizes ,with my 115 Patrik I use a 38 with a 7.0 &7.5 4 cam race sail then next step down is the 34x 2 ,32,27,25 ,
, Delta 24,22 .and 19 ,if you are 96 kgs like me .
every board is different ,and carbon weed fins seem nicer , i have 2 and they are my favourites ,they just seem to be a little bit
nicer when getting overpowered .pretty good vid ,and nice sailing ,maybe just try a 36 ,
I have to do a few pointing runs to get back to the carpark at my favourite spot. With a 20 weed speed I reckon I can point at the same spot whether slogging or planing and railing up. Often I just end up slogging because I have to beer off a bit to get on the plane.
Can kind of see my upwind angles slogging versus planning, but as mentioned above not really a fair comparison as I was underfinned for that 71cm board and 7.8m
VMG = Velocity Made Good. The component of your velocity directly into the wind. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity_made_good
You can also read VMG off the polar plot which both GPSSpeedreader and GPSAR Pro can display. Attached is same Slowboat data showing polar plot. Interestingly the polar plot shows Chris has quite a bias in the angle he can truck upwind at for port or starboard. i.e. Starboard (right hand forward) is best and he is sailing at 46deg (angle between true wind and course) but opposite tack is much more offwind at 53deg (not sure if this is true or function of biased polar plot due to sailing location or other factors. He is doing the best VMG in the highest chop area. I suspect bias (or a sudden wind shift) as I managed to find a 100m section where I was doing 13knots VMG...but this was in Albany which is dominated by very long fast runs in one direction and relatively short runs in other direction..will be interesting to see what boardsurfr or other experienced sailors think of polar plots and how reliable they are.
OK cool, good tip on the Java, I got it to load
1) This is from the day I was under finned at palo alto and struggled to get upwind (looks like I did better VMG slogging?)
2) This if from my quick day at Haskins (planing VMG better?)
3) This is me on freeride windfoil
So is 60 degrees as good as a sailboard can point? I think we used to get 30-35 degrees on the boat..
If assume planing is speed on water above 10knots or so looks like I can point at 31 deg to wind direction (i.e. 59 deg upwind from pure crosswind)..attached is my 'best' day in perfect conditions. Best VMG angle seems to be closer to 45 deg. On this plot my best VMG says 13.2knots at the same 31 deg but you can see the whole plot appears to be 'rotated' by roughly 7 deg which I assume is location bias (or some sort of wind shift) which would reduce my actual VMG significantly and spin my heading closer to 40 deg. When chugging and trying to head upwind at 4knots looks like my angle to wind is around 18 deg or so. (not apparent is this chart)
Sailquik, I think you mean your speed on water is 20-23 knots when heading upwind...all realtime feedback systems for windsurfing currently give your speed, not VMG. You only have a couple of tracks shared on KA72 and only one at Lake George but based on the one, your best VMG is a super impressive VMG of 15knots at 45 deg to wind with average speed on water of 22.89 knots (exactly as you state)....there is location bias on the plot which would reduce the actual #'s but still way above others.