"Jeff" wrote in message
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This is a truly pathetic display by you, Bob. You made a
blunder and
then you've spent the last two days backpedaling and
changing your
story around. You've gone so far as to claim that you're
the victim,
even blaming it on your friend.

But you seem to have settled on the story that when you
said "to
Windward with a VMG of 6 knots" you really meant that the
VMG was
measured to some random point, not directly upwind, and
not ahead.
And you've claimed that this is a perfectly reasonable and
common way
of describing your boat's performance.

However, this is total nonsense and continues to
demonstrate that you
really don't understand the terms. Here's why: You could
have simply
stated with your video that you doing doing 8+ knots on
a close
reach - some may have bought it, others might be
skeptical, but its
within the realm of physical possibility. But you chose
to be clever,
trying to use "sailor talk" like VMG. It would have
actually been
interesting if it were real. Unfortunately, you picked a
speed that
is not physically possible, especially when supported by a
video of
you footing off, and I called you on it. You then
proceeded to give
us lots of double talk and conflicting stories, and
finally settled on
the lame story that it was VMG to a random mark. But this
is nonsense!

The VMG to a mark is of no use whatsoever except as a
temporary local
reference. Even then its use is almost entirely when
beating to
windward and speed is being balanced against pointing. It
has no
value when reaching. I suppose there might be some value
when working
a current, or some other complex situation, but your
friend probably
used it only because the GPS was set up for racing so
that's the value
it displayed.

Even though VMG to a random mark may have some temporary
value in
racing, it has absolutely no value when describing a
boat's
performance, and if that was your actual intent, as you
claim, it
demonstrates a total lack of understanding of the
concepts. Without
stating the exact location, it says nothing about boat
speed, which
could have been as low as 6 knots. And even if you did
give the
location, no one would actually bother computing the
speed, except in
the trivial (and interesting) case of the mark being
directly upwind.

So what is it Bob, were you lying by implying VMG to
Windward, or just
an Idiot who doesn't understand the meaning and use of
VMG?


Both!

SV