This came through as an email from another sailing site and might be of interest to GPS users.

GPS speed sailing site... www.gps-icesailing.com/default.aspx

Hi Folks

I am an iceboater mostly. Lately gone to the hand held wing. (Free yourself from clattering equipment and get under a personal flying device.)

Beware of being consumed by a greed for speed. Here in the North East I have watched Folks sailing for speed stop watching where they are going. Folks get caught watching the GPS irrespective of the rest of the fleet sailing around them. I was a part of the ice boat sailing scene a few years back when hand held GPS devices first started to appear with boats on the ice. I think there is a direct correlation to gear being needlessly smashed and in some cases folks getting hurt, even killed, because they are/were pushing boats past a responsible limit, trying to carve a notch up over the other guys.

I think land sailors have better sailing rules than ice boaters and so your instincts around a fleet which is not racing are better.

This past winter I came as close to being wiped slick as it gets in a head to head with another ice boat who broke across my bow. The truth is I suspect he never saw me. Both boats were cruising at speeds around 50mph. A combined closing speed of 100mph makes for a lot of ground gained really fast.

Respectfully
Dicky Saltonstall

Never had that problem on a windsurfer, you bounce around way too much to be able to see the screen as you go.

However I have had an experience which I think is relevant...

Ages ago I had a big 37cm fin that whistled when it was up to speed. It had distinct 'modes', which after a bit of practice could be used to tell what speed you were doing. At 28 knots it would whistle A, 30 knots was a distinctive B, 31.5 knots was C#, 33 knots was E, etc. Had a lot of fun adjusting sailing angle, sheeting angle, board trim etc and being able to know how fast the run was by the pitch of the whistle.

I'm not sure how you'd set this up on a landyacht, the important thing here was that it went in discrete notes, not a smoothly sliding scale.

Hang gliders use something similar, and in fact you can set up your GT-31 to beep the speed in morse code at you if you want...

Audio feedback is the way to go, imo

nebbian said...

However I have had an experience which I think is relevant...

Audio feedback is the way to go, imo

I like all that stuff nebbs.

Mate had a Yachting World Diamond that would humm when it got up to speed. Awesome!!!

in VINDICATOR your eyes move from the rotation indicator , to the gps, to the lake , to the Rt to the GPS to the lake.........
thats why I dont sail it in a crowd,there will always be a blokart to busy grinning to look around or TP1 with his tunnel vision[}:)]