Capt. Rob wrote:
Sure they could, but mine are from 1988, Jeff. Could the polars be
conservative or just off, combined with other modern advantages? When
they tested Hull #1 how many people were on board? Did they have the
rig tunes right. Now it's well known that the 35s5 has a hard-to-tune
rig. Did they get it right...all of it?


So why don't you find us the polars from any 35 foot boat that claims
a VMG to windward of 6 knots in any wind condition?

While you're at it, find us one that does it without going higher than
45 degrees. Oh, and catamarans don't count! My PDQ actually does
have a VMG of 6.2 at 47 degrees in 20 knots true wind. I guess that
means I would toast you upwind!


All the more reason why your VMG to Windward could not have been
that
high. Are you saying that beating to windward is not the best way to
go to windward

It depends where you're headed, Jeff. VMG to windward optimal is WHAT
on my boat, Jeff....make a guess.

At 14 knots, perhaps 38 degrees.



And yet you fail to grasp that when you sail lower than the "optimal
point" your VMG to Windward goes down. What part of not sailing at
the "optimal point" do you not understand?

VMG to a mark is exactly that, Jeff. Our VMG to our windward mark was 6
knots.

Wrong answer. VMG to a mark is quite different from VMG to Windward.
Both have very specific meanings, well understood and used
properly by real sailors. This could explain why you don't seem to
know the difference.




Yes, but the subtlety of this you will not understand.

Nonsense. Garmin themselves reports that handheld GPS units give up no
accuracy to larger units so long as they have good contact.

Accuracy is not the issue. I said the subtlety would be lost on you.


The GPS by
itself does not know where the wind is, and therefore cannot report
the VMG with respect to the wind direction.

I have wind instruments, Jeff.

So now you're claiming that you connected your instruments to your
friend's handheld? Why would you do that?



Thus, when your friend's
GPS displayed VMG, it was not VMG to Windward.

I have wind instruments, Jeff.

I don't know all of the features of the latest handheld Garmins, but I
don't believe they will pick up the wind data from your instruments.
Perhaps you can enlighten us as to how this works.

Nope. I made no such assumption. I only might have said that the
best VMG you could obtain was at about 40 degree, if you were sailing
lower than that your VMG to Windward would fall off.

Jeff, listen carefully. CAREFULLY. Our VMG to the WINWARD MARK was 6
knots. Do you understand that this is correct terminology even on a
reach?


But you said, many times, that you were talking about "VMG to
Windward," not the VMG to a mark. I guess the light has finally
dawned in your tiny mind as you've realized your blunder. And so the
Grand Backpedal begins.


At 45 degrees, you'd have to be doing 8.6 knots (actually 9 knots,
including leeway) to have a VMG to Windward of 6 knots.

Jeff, we topped 8 knots a few times. The 1st clip I posted was 7.2 to
7.5. We went faster with some trimming.
I don't think we hit 9 knots. I've been aboard this boat with a crew in
Florida and topped 10 knots and I know what THAT felt like. But I think
the video shows we're moving pretty fast. We spent a lot of time
between 7 and 8 knots.


So you were footed well off. How much do you figure - 50 degrees?
55
degrees?

That's a good question. I could not tell you with any acuraccy for this
discussion.

Spoken like a true novice. You can assure us absolutely that the mark
was directly to windward, and the speeds, but you have no idea what
point of sail you were on!

Its very doubtful that you were at 45 degrees, but if you were, the 8
knots speed through the water yields a VMG of 5.65 knots. At 50
degrees this becomes 5.1, at 55 degrees its 4.6, and at 60 its 4
knots. This doesn't include leeway, which the GPS would pick up, so
you have to add 3 to 4 degrees and degrade the performance accordingly.

That's the problem you have, you kept insisting that you weren't "hard
on the wind" or beating, and that I couldn't predict your speed
without knowing the exact point of sail. But I don't have to, because
by your own admission, the best you could have been doing is maybe 5.2
knots and it goes downhill from there.




So lets look at it the other way - are you claiming you can go
upwind
as fast as a Frers 45, or a Swan 51?

Nope.

So what do you mean when you insist that your boat can outperform its
polars by 15%?



BTW, do you know what a 12-meter polar looks like? It says that the
optimal VMG to windward is about 5.5 knots, at about 42 degrees in 14
knots wind.

We were not in 14 knots of wind. Do you think that those 12 meter
polars are also carved in stone?

For upwind performance, the speed and angle changes very little above
14 knots for many monohulls. For the Twelves, it goes up maybe 1 or 2
tenths in 20 knots of wind. And I got this from Steve Killing's book
where he explains how the polar predictions are extremely accurate,
assuming the hull shapes are within the range that has been well
modeled. He does go on at some length about some spectacular failures
in the '70s, but that's another story. However, these failures led to
the extensive modeling studies that resulted in the VPP software.

He also jokes that whenever owners say their boats' performance
doesn't match the predictions, it always turns out the instrumentation
is not calibrated properly.

You do know who Steve Killing is, I assume.


Actually, yes. Though it may not have been part of the original
design priority. The adjustable rig was actually a bit of a
breakthrough in wishbone technology.

Nonsuch had always promoted the ease of sailing thier boats and the
forgiving nature of the rig underway, even in their ads.

True, but they also emphasized that it was easy to make major sail
shape adjustments while underway. In fact, much easier than most any
other boat. Most Nonsuch owners that I knew routinely tweaked their
outhauls (called "chokers" by Ellis) as the wind changed, or they
changed point of sail.



I routinely did major sail shape
adjustments while underway, sometimes several times an hour. Have
you done any this year? How often do you change the outhaul?

I re-tuned the lowers today and will hoist
someone small to do the uppers on Friday.

Underway??? I'm impressed!

if you're within a quarter mile there's no way it
can be used to determine the VMG to Windward.

About a 3/4 a mile away, Jeff.

Still probably too close, in one minute the angle would change around
6 degrees, so it really isn't directly upwind.

However, your observations simply don't work. If you were footing off
to say, 55 degrees, even a speed of 8.5 knots gives you a VMG of 4.8.
Your insistence that you were not beating simply created a hole for
you that you can't crawl out of. There is simply no way that you had
a VMG to Windward of 6 knots. It probably wasn't 5 knots. And rather
than claim it, you should have realized immediately that it was
impossible. All you've done here is demonstrate that you don't
understand the basic terminology of sailing.

Busted!