Capt. Rob wrote:

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?

I've read time and again about vessels beating their polars, Jeff and I
bet you have as well. Polars are like hull speed....they're there to be
surpassed!

Yes, they can be surpassed by small amounts, and hi-tech sails can
raise the bar a notch. However, the 15% improvement you're claiming
would imply a 100 point PHRF improvement. Are you claiming that boats
are routinely outperforming their PHRF by 100 points? When I asked if
that meant a Westsail could go as fast as your benny or if your benny
could go as fast as a Frers 45, and you said no.

So it would appear that your major burst of speed only works on boats
that are not racing, when no one is watching. What a pity. As
always, you've demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of the
way boats work.


While you're at it, find us one that does it without going higher
than
45 degrees.

You still are commenting without knowing my POS, which is really the
probem here!

You kept saying you weren't pointing that high. However, you actually
admitted several times that you have no idea what your point of sail
actually was. So tell us Bob, were you even there? Its looking like
you loaned your boat to someone else and asked them to take some
videos. Then you tried to make up a lame story about it.


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!

Your cat is not a monohull and is about twice the size overall of my
boat! I'd need two slips for it here! The comparison is about as
relevant as comparing your boat to a F boat.

I mentioned it only because you and others are always so quick to
point out the poor upwind performance of my cat. However, with a wind
over 12-14 knots, my VMG to Windward exceeds that of even performance
monohulls with the same length and sail area. Actually, my leeway
will be higher so that advantage might be lost, but cats with boards
(including the "express" version of mine) don't have that problem, and
easily walk away from monohulls upwind in a breeze.


Wrong answer. VMG to a mark is quite different from VMG to Windward.


The mark WAS to WINDWARD.


Sometime you say that, other times you don't. You don't know what the
words mean or what your boat was doing. You probably weren't even there.


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

Never claimed that, but he's an experienced navigator and had all the
info in front of him.

You said several times he was reading off his GPS. A GPS alone simply
can't report an accurate VMG to Windward, especially set to a nearby
mark. Frankly I'm skeptical as to whether a basic system like Ray
ST60 can do it, I certainly take my instruments with a huge grain of salt.

Actually, that's one of the basic issues of the discussion; you should
have realized immediately that a VMG to Windward of 6 knots was bogus.
Its even possible that you could have momentarily hit that when
close to the wind (but even then it would be bogus), but doing it when
footing off (as you claim, sometimes) is a physical impossibility.
Every sailor knows that, so its not surprising that you don't.


Are you now claiming that if you have a compass, wind instruments, GPS,
mechanical knotmeter, you can't make a good estimate on VMG?

Sure, within about 15%. That's a pretty good estimate. (Actually,
I'm not sure you could even do that good unless you had a quality
setup and ideal conditions.) This is actually one of the most
difficult things to measure. Think about what happens if you get a 5
degree header: Your instantaneous VMG to windward jumps half a knot,
but if you don't react the boat starts to slow down. In a shifty
wind, its quite easy to have a high VMG to the *average* wind, simply
by playing the wind shifts. This, however, is not the same thing as
VMG to Windward.


But you said, many times, that you were talking about "VMG to
Windward," not the VMG to a mark.

Nope. But that's pretty creative! I have maintained that the MARK was
to WINDWARD and WINDWARD is any course above a beam reach.

You also claimed it was "directly to windward." So are you now
claiming that "directly to windward" means anything on the windward
side of your boat? Of course, you don't understand the meaning of
these words, do you?

I wasn't beating, the video shows that clearly.

which video? Frankly, all of them are so poor that very little can be
deduced about the performance. Why can't you actually tell use how
close to the wind you were sailing? Weren't you there?


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.

I admitted I was doing a VMG of 5.2 knots with my speed over ground at
8 knots or higher?

Yes, you did. Again, you're showing your ignorance. I outlined the
VMG to Windward that was implied by your claim of 8 knots. Since you
were unable to tell point of sail (Gawd, are you that stupid???) I did
the simple eighth grade math, to generate the VMG to Windward. Its
apparent that you don't understand that VMG to Windward is actually
defined mathematically from your course with respect to the true wind
and your speed through the water. You gave the speed, I computed the
VMG to Windward for different courses.

Here it is again. Remember, this is what you told us, not some
abstraction that could be debated.

The 8 knots speed through the water, at 45 degrees to the wind, 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.

So this is what you told us. You insisted that you were not "hard on
the wind" and that your sails were not sheeted in. The closest you
could have been pointing, and still moving efficiently, is 50 degrees.
Thus, by your own admission, you best VMG to Windward was actually
about 5 knots, probably even less with leeway. Then you seemed to be
saying maybe it was 55 degrees, so the VMG to Windward was really well
under 5 knots.

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

It depends on the polars, who made them and how the aspects of a given
design have been learned since. A 35s5 can do better than the polars
made when she was built

Maybe a bit, but not 15% upwind.



You do know who Steve Killing is, I assume.

Didn't he make one of the ugliest boats ever in the Express 30?

The Express is a beauty compared to your boat. I usually don't talk
much about the aesthetics of modern boats, but since you brought it
up, I always thought yours was uglier than a mud fence.

Most Nonsuch owners that I knew routinely tweaked their
outhauls (called "chokers" by Ellis) as the wind changed, or they
changed point of sail.

The Nonsuch is not a twin spreader fractional sloop designed for
cruising and around the bouys racing.

yada yada yada. Whenever you lose an argument, you start using terms
that you don't understand so you sound important. What a putz!


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

Well, you didn't say this before. You said 1/4 mile would be too close.

Yes I did. What about it? It doesn't change the math. And you
should have known it. I did say that to be valid, the mark would have
to be far away, directly upwind. Clearly, at 3/4 of a mile, a mark
doesn't stay directly upwind for very long. Its also true the the
wind would have to be steady, especially in direction, but also in
strength.

Moreover, you've said the mark was directly upwind, that it was 3/4 of
a mile away, that you were closing on it, and that you weren't
beating. Please explain how all of this could be true. Its looking
more and more like your weren't even out there that day.


Your insistence that you were not beating simply created a hole
for
you that you can't crawl out of.

I think I've done rather well.

If your goal was to demonstrate total ignorance about sailing, you've
succeeded admirably!



Busted!

Yep, but don't beat yourself up over it. Now ask yourself, at what POS
can a quick monohull make 6 knots VMG in 17 knots of wind?

Directly To Windward? None, for your boat. But you seem to be
confused about the term "VMG to Windward." Ask your friend about it
and tell him to draw a picture and use small words. Maybe it will
sink in.