Slides from a club talk in February 2017 on modern race navigation

1. Modern Race Navigation
Version 0.5
23rd February 2017

2. Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.
Voltaire
One of the great things about sailing as a sport is the complexity especially for
the navigator, and the requirement to make decisions in the absence of concrete
information. The decision making process is generally improved when there is
NOT complete agreement and instead further discussion to look at the pros and
cons of a particular decision.. risk/reward is regularly taken into account.
Will Oxley (private communication, July 2014)

3. A Definition
• Navigation - to find your way from one point to another
• Race – to compete with others with a view of winning
• Modern – to use contemporary tools, techniques and sources
All the standard stuff about safety applies so it assumes that you have radio,
flares and equipment related to relevant safety category

4. History
• Race Navigation. Stuart Quarry (1982)
• Navigation, Strategy and Tactics. Stuart Quarry (1993)
• Modern Race Navigation, Expedition Software in Action. Will
Oxley (ebook only 2014)
For all RORC races (Caribbean 600, Fastnet, Middle Sea Race etc) RRS41 is replaced by the following;
"A boat shall not receive help from any outside source, except help in the form of information which is freely
available to all boats, which shall include navigational, weather, tide or current information from any source which is
available to all boats whether or not by payment of a fee or subscription, but shall not include an information
gathered or the subject of interpretation by, or an advice received from, any source not on board the boat and which
is specific to the boat and her situation.
By way of example and interpretation, downloading charts, weather and/or tidal GRIB files from subscription
services, or having such information passed to the boat in its pure form, is permitted but receiving messages or
information which is the result of interpretation as it applies to the boat is not permitted."

5. But Nothing Has Changed …
Vesta Wind Volvo Nov 29th 2014

6. Types of Instruments
• Unaided, maybe with a non-digital compass (e.g. Laser)
• Limited Aids (electronic aids such as a TackTick micro-
compass, for Merlin Rockets, boat speed for J24s)
• Basic instruments (Wind/Speed/Depth - cruising)
• Race instruments (Basic plus TWA/TWS – B&G, NKE, Ockam,
Nexus)
• Grand prix (gyroscopes etc – Cosworth)

7. Race Instruments
Type Data Notes
Standard BPS, AWA & AWS
Race* Above plus TWS, TWA Needs a race processor and
calibration. Exploit polars
Modern Above plus COG, SOG, BRG,
VMG, TRG, ETA
Needs GPS and navigation
computer.
*Often augmented with a handheld GPS for round the cans
http://swan76.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/j88-and-hamble-winter-series.html

8. Instrumentation
NMEA
MUX
Laptop – running
Expedition
Tablet - charting
Reg@tta
Processor
Multi-function displays
Speed Depth
Compass
Wind
Control
GPSMPA 720 Chart plotter
Phone - numbers
NMEA Interface
IIMWV,112,R,00.8,N,A*19
$IIMWV,109,T,00.7,N,A*1A $IIMTA,31.5,C*02
$IIRMB,A,0.23,R,,HMB-3 ,,,,,001.20,184,,V,A*1F
$IIXDR,P,1.0156,B,0*71
$WIMDA,29.991,I,1.016,B,31.5,C,,,,,,,,,,,,,,*3B
$IIRMC,225158,A,3730.075,N,12228.854,W,,,0210
14,15,E,A*3C $IIVHW,,,355,M,00.0,N,,*67
$IIVLW,08200,N,000.0,N*59
$IIVWR,112,R,00.8,N,,,,*6B
$IIGLL,3730.075,N,12228.854,W,225158,A,A*4C
$IIHDG,356,,,15,E*16 $IIMTW,+16.0,C*3F
ICOM M423
NMEA-USB
Wi-Fi

9. VPP & Polars
• It is all about optimising the boat tune for the conditions
Upwind Downwind
Wind (True) Angle Speed Angle Speed
3 60
4 50 3.2 4
6 42.8 4.45 137.5 4.57
8 41.6 5.29 149.7 4.94
10 40.8 5.92 151.1 5.79
12 38.7 6.09 165.1 6.06
16 36.8 6.26 178.9 6.9
20 37.6 6.32 178.3 7.68
24
In the Vendee Globe Alex Thomson was running around 83.5% without foils and 125% with the foils for a
difference of 30-35%

10. Sail Charts

11. “For the little dot that is generated in a hundredth of a second, you still
may have to make a sail change and the dot takes no account of wind or
waves, it defines a perfectly stable course. And so it is always a pleasure
to beat the dot”
Nador Fa

12. Sources
• To support this we need a series of sources
– Charts
– Weather
– Tide
TideTech
PredictWind
Theyr
Data feeds:
Wi-Fi e.g. private or public
Long range Wi-Fi e.g. Digital Yacht WL500 – 4-6NM
Long range mobile e.g. Yacht Router Micro – 30NM
Satellite e.g. Iridium GO - global
C-Map
VisitMyHarbour

13. Paper Charts
• Traditional we would have used Admiralty, Inmay or other
paper charts

14. Digital Charts
• Digital (ENC) - C-Map* & Navionics (mobile)
• Raster image (RNC) – VisitMyHarbour**
* Formerly Jeppesen but sold to Digital Marine Solutions in June 2016
**Now integrated to Expedition
VisitMyHarbour unified charts for UK,
Ireland and Europe
C-Map UK, Ireland and Channel

15. Weather Data – GRIB* Files
Source: http://weather.mailasail.com/Franks-Weather/Grib-Forecast-Examples
*General Regularly-distributed Information in Binary form

16. Synopsis Charts
GRIB files allow synopsis charts to be digitally encoded
Source http://www.vendeeglobe.org/en/news/18321/no-wind-for-maitre-coq-and-nice-conditions-for-the-rest-of-the-fleet

17. Weather Models
• NECP’s GFS is run at 28km globally out to 16 days
• ECMWF increased their model to 9km resolution in March
2016
Granularity Resolution Data Points
1o 100km 1
0.5o 50km 4
0.1o 10km 100 (10 x 10)
0.01-2o 1km 10,000 (100 x 100)
Theyr.com - With the 0.5 degree GFS resolution there are four data points in this grid area while our
0.1 degree data provides 100 data points and our 0.04 model provides 625 data points for the same
area.

18. Weather Sources
• Public data NOAA (GFS)*
• National data (UK Met Service)
• PredictWind & Theyr
• Squid (Aggregator)
*The American view is if you’ve paid for it once you cannot be made to pay for it again
** http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19923565
Great Storm of 1987: Michael Fish's 'white lie‘**

19. Tides
• Tide diamonds – admiralty charts and tables
• Simple models – Graham Sutherland’s Solent data
• TideTech – complicated models – combining ocean and tidal
currents. They did the detailed analysis for the 2012 Olympics
• Others such as Proudman, NOAA ocean currents
Note: sea state is also important

20. The Modern Navigation Station

21. Software
• Adrena, Expedition, MaxSea and SeaTrack
• Adrena and Expedition integrate directly with TideTech and a
number of other sources
• Volvo - all boats provided with Adrena and Expedition, Squid
weather package and a standard set of charts*
• Vendee Globe - all boats are using Adrena with weather
information provided as a package from Great Circle – Squid
(limited to synopsis and images)
*Vesta Wind didn’t have a backup machine with all charts

22. Routing
Small sample of routing for Alex Thomson in the Atlantic –
demo simple routing for route the island

23. Ensemble Routing

24. Navigating
Example of naving on the course – play back of Weymouth Race 2014

25. Machine Learning

26. Other Areas
• Integrating satellite charts – overlaying satellite images on to
charts for analysis
• AIS – this has become important in the last few years both
from a safety and competitive perspectives
• Tuning – use of strips charts for calibration of instruments and
tuning of polars
• Starting – pinging end and time to line (starting polars)

27. Annual Cost
Sources PA
C-Maps 4D £92.00
VisitMyHarbour £32.00
PredictWind £178.00 249$
Theyr £199.99
TideTech £227.00 249 Eur
Annual cost £728.99
These are the annual subscription or update costs

28. Connectivity Standard
• NMEA 0183: 4.8k bps (38.4k HS)
• NMEA 2000: 250K bps
• Signal K: flexibility architecture

29. GRIB Data Format
[Record 0]
Center=7
Process=81
GridID=255
Parameter=U GRD
Layer=105/10
Date=2011/12/04 00:00
Valid Time=0
LatPts=11
LonPts=21
Lat=45°00'N,50°00'N
dLat=0.50
Lon=350°00'E,000°00'E
dLon=0.50
Flags=11
Data Values:
10.2, 10.3, 10.5, 10.7, 10.9, 11.2, 11.5, 11.8, 11.9, 12.1, 12.1, 11.9, 11.8, 11.6, 11.3, 10.9, 11.2, 9.6, 4.0, 2.5, 3.2
11.4, 11.5, 11.6, 11.7, 11.8, 11.8, 11.6, 11.6, 11.6, 11.6, 11.5, 11.3, 11.1, 10.9, 10.6, 10.3, 10.7, 10.5, 6.4, 3.5, 3.6
12.0, 11.9, 11.9, 11.9, 12.1, 12.1, 11.8, 11.6, 11.4, 11.3, 11.0, 10.7, 10.4, 10.2, 9.9, 9.8, 10.2, 10.0, 6.5, 3.8, 3.8
11.7, 11.7, 11.8, 11.8, 11.9, 11.8, 11.6, 11.5, 11.4, 11.1, 10.7, 10.4, 10.2, 9.9, 10.0, 10.2, 8.9, 5.7, 4.0, 3.9, 4.2
11.3, 11.2, 11.3, 11.3, 11.3, 11.0, 10.7, 10.5, 10.4, 10.3, 10.0, 9.8, 9.8, 9.9, 10.4, 9.6, 5.9, 4.0, 4.1, 4.4, 4.3
10.8, 10.9, 10.9, 10.8, 10.6, 10.4, 10.3, 10.1, 9.8, 9.5, 9.3, 9.3, 9.0, 8.3, 8.2, 6.9, 4.7, 4.2, 4.4, 4.4, 4.2
10.7, 10.8, 10.9, 10.8, 10.7, 10.6, 10.4, 10.2, 10.0, 9.7, 9.2, 6.8, 4.1, 2.9, 3.1, 3.7, 3.9, 4.1, 4.4, 4.4, 4.0
10.8, 11.0, 11.1, 11.2, 11.2, 11.1, 10.8, 10.6, 10.4, 10.2, 9.7, 7.4, 4.9, 4.0, 4.7, 5.9, 5.6, 5.0, 4.8, 4.6, 4.1
10.3, 10.4, 10.6, 10.9, 11.1, 11.1, 10.9, 10.6, 10.3, 10.0, 9.9, 9.8, 9.9, 10.1, 10.8, 12.1, 11.9, 8.3, 6.2, 5.6, 5.1
9.1, 9.4, 9.9, 10.4, 10.8, 10.9, 10.7, 10.4, 9.9, 9.6, 9.5, 9.8, 10.5, 11.5, 12.2, 12.8, 12.3, 9.7, 10.5, 11.4, 10.2
9.1, 9.4, 9.9, 10.4, 10.8, 10.7, 10.2, 9.6, 9.2, 8.7, 8.5, 9.0, 10.0, 11.1, 12.0, 12.7, 13.1, 13.1, 12.9, 12.6, 11.8
send gfs:45N,50N,10W,0E|0.5,0.5|0,12,...,72|