As we all know instrument panels have become bigger and more complex in recent years with in some boats resembling those of a jet. Basically the introduction of the Global Positioning System (GPS) about 25 years ago on yachts has changed forever the way we navigate.
GPS gives you your position with an accuracy of meters and can tell you your speed over ground (SOG) which was almost impossible to do prior to it. It can also compute Velocity Made Good (VMG) or how much you are actually advancing towards a mark when tacking. This feature can, for instance, tell you whether it is more advantageous to be on a port tack versus a starboard one and build a strategy on it. Knowing how to maximize the information coming out of your instruments is key to rationalizing your course. When I was learning how to sail we could not even dream that one day we would have such valuable instruments at our finger tips. In those days we sailed with compass, log, chronometer and sextant and if you wanted to fix a position you had to get a sight of the sun and then do half an hour of calculations and even then you were good if you were within a mile of your position.
With instruments like today’s at your fingertips it’s only logical to bring sailing to another level and sail with the instruments. Never mind about old fashioned “feel” and all that. What could be better than all this digital information that allows you to make split second decisions based on digital accuracy? Why not?
One should not be led to believe, however, that instruments can help you in the actual sailing. Instruments are designed to tell you what has already happened and they do just that. They lack the formidable array of senses that an average human possesses. Senses that have been developed over millions of years and refined to the highest level to ensure our very survival, a complex system also known as the Central Nervous System. When compared to our senses the instruments are just clumsy hardware that give us information relative to speed and position. They don’t even do it fast. Manufacturers are forced to dampen the instruments in order to prevent them from spitting out millions of bits of information that would confuse us. Our brains work in analog while our instruments are digital In order for our brains to readily accept the information, manufacturers have transformed the digital information into the shape of a boat and an arrow representing the wind, making the display analog. So, because of the damping, when we see the direction of, say, apparent wind on an instrument it’s not the apparent wind of now but rather an average of the last half a minute or so depending on the manufacturer. A typical wind instrument may lag (be late) by as much as 20 seconds on real time. (an enormous amount of time when racing) An average helmsperson can identify a wind-shift instantaneously, tack and be on the new course by the time your instrument has even acknowledged a wind shift. Your shiny digital instrument actually only tells you what happened 20 seconds ago. Tell tales tell you instantaneously what is happening and are far more reliable than instruments. And cheaper. Instruments are vital to navigation and course strategy but are very mediocre allies when it comes to sailing. To sail properly you need to refine all the good senses that Mother Nature gave you, rely on your powerful and sophisticated Central Nervous System. The senses of balance, sight, and touch being the most important ones for sailing but not limited to those.
Sight:
With sight you can observe things both inside and outside the boat. The shape of your sails, for instance, and according to different conditions make minor adjustments to the outhaul or Cunningham or the track of a staysail until you judge that the sail has a perfect shape and performance is maximized. (For more detailed information on sail trimming go to our website UK-Halsey Encyclopedia.) With sight you can observe the tell-tales. It’s sight that enables us in light wind to “see” the wind outside the boat by identifying the ripples on the water and steering towards the wind and away from the holes. With sight you can observe what wind the boats around you have and plan the best course. If boats ahead to port are not moving and those to starboard are the decision on where to go is easy. No instrument has yet been devised that can do the above.
Balance:
When a boat is under sail it heels more or less according to how much pressure is on the sails. More pressure on the sails more heeling. It follows that if one is close-hauled under constant wind the boat’s heel will be constant, say X degrees. But if a helmsperson is distracted and not looking at the tell tales and inadvertently starts to come up into the wind there will be a point where the sails are not catching the wind properly and there will be less pressure on them. This will happen after the tell tales have already given the signal but before the sails start luffing. When this happens the angle of heel will change from X degrees to Y degrees where Y is smaller than X. When I was a child, in the days before electronic instruments, we played a game with my dad. We enjoyed being blindfolded while helming into the wind. It might seem like a silly game. But after a while it heightens your sense of angle of heel because while blindfolded you are left with only the senses of balance and touch and you end up refining them. After only 10 minutes of helming blindfolded you will unleash reactions from within your Central Nervous System that will heighten your perception of heel (balance) and your perception of pressure on the helm (touch). After a while you will “feel” the perfect angle of attack without the need for tell tales, let alone clumsy instruments. I recommend you try this but only to windward. This does not work on a broad reach or downwind. It goeswithout saying thatwhile you are doing this somebody else must be on watch for collisions. Balance is probably the most underestimated sense that beginners perceive. Yet it’s extremely important. The boat is desperately trying to constantly give you information, through heel variation, which you cannot be aware of unless you train yourself. Listen to the boat through heel. On many occasions people were amused at seeing me stand on a small dinghy against the accepted wisdom that it’s safer to sit. All I was doing was hightening my sense of balance which, in the end, makes you a better sailor.
To recap the above:
Instruments are precious for giving you the position, the speed over ground and a few other things and they are invaluable for this. But they are looking backward and can only tell you what has already happened. They cannot advise you on what to do next or how to make the boat go faster or feel what the best angle of attack is. Anybody sailing to the instruments is achieving only mediocre results when they could, instead, get fine results by refining the neglected but far superior system at their disposal; the Central Nervous System.
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