Sassnitz · Saturday 22 August 2026

• Upwind is our weapon: the fastest boat upwind in races 2 and 4, second in race 6. Against each band's median we made +3.7, +3.5 and +2.4 km/h of VMG, and we are 1st or 2nd in five of six wind bands. We point 2.4-5.5 deg higher than the fleet (TWA 36-43 against 41-48) and 4.6-7.8 deg below the SPEED v2 TWA target, which the fleet sits close to. Do: keep the mode, and treat our racing set-up (Upwind tab) as the reference rather than the targets sheet.
• Upwind cant: more is faster for us, and we carry less than the fleet at 30-35 km/h. At 30-35 km/h we hold -6.9 deg against the fleet's -8.2 and -8.6. In our own data the better periods had more cant in three bands: best quarter against worst -8.6 v -6.1 at 32.5-35, -9.7 v -7.8 at 37.5-40, -9.9 v -4.9 at 40-42.5. Do: try another 1.5 deg of cant at the bottom of the range.
• Downwind, the losses came on the first run after mark 1 in races 4 and 6, sailing low on the foils. R4 leg 2: 7th of 7, 60.3 km/h of VMG against the fleet's 69.2, in more wind than them. R6 leg 2: 5th of 7, 65.4 against 73.5. Our downwind ride height is lower than the fleet's in every band, and when it drops under 1,050 mm we are 5.8 km/h below the band median (the fleet's lowest quarter costs it 2.1). Watch: 14:46:57-14:47:09 (12:46:57-12:47:09 UTC) R4 and 15:15:05-15:15:17 (13:15:05-13:15:17 UTC) R6.
• Starts: quick to the line and quick to full speed - but R4's pivot started late. Over the day our time on distance (1.4 s) was the best in the fleet, and we reached 90 % of our reaching speed a median 9.9 s after the gun: 2nd of 11, behind AUS (7.1 s), against a fleet median of 13.8 s. In R4 we began the pivot 1.5 s after FRA (-0.8 against -2.3 s, from 49.7 against 53.2 km/h); even with the hardest acceleration in that race (4.0 km/h per s) we reached full speed 1 s behind it - about 25 m. In R6 we bore away 17 s out at 25 km/h and were 67 m back at the gun. Do: start the pivot 2-3 s earlier and from more speed.
• Reach to mark 1: we carry the least cant in the fleet. In five of the six races the best reach came from a boat at -9.4 to -9.9 deg of leeward cant; we held -6.6 to -7.1 (-4.9 in R6). It still gave the fastest reach of R2 (VMC 87.3 km/h), but in R4 our boat speed was 3rd best and our VMC last: we sailed about 31 deg off the line to mark 1 against ESP's 14.
• Tacks in 37.5-40 km/h cost us; below that they are mid-fleet or better. On VMG through the tack (ground actually made over 25 s) we rank 4th of 13 at 35-37.5 km/h but 12th of 13 at 37.5-40: 34.8 against 36.8 km/h, in 4 km/h slower (56.4 v 60.5) and out 4.4 km/h slower (47.9 v 52.3), from 6 tacks. Our gybes were the best in the fleet at 35-37.5 km/h.

• 14:24:31 (12:24:31 UTC), R2, upwind 35-37.5 km/h - one of our best upwind periods; SUI at 14:24:35 (12:24:35 UTC) is the best other boat in that band at the same moment.
• 14:48:40-14:48:52 (12:48:40-12:48:52 UTC), R4, upwind 37.5-40 km/h - our three best periods in the band back to back, FRA alongside at 14:48:54 (12:48:54 UTC).
• 14:22:17-14:22:29 (12:22:17-12:22:29 UTC), R2, downwind 37.5-40 km/h - our best downwind of the day.
• 14:46:57-14:47:09 (12:46:57-12:47:09 UTC), R4 leg 2 and 15:15:05-15:15:17 (13:15:05-13:15:17 UTC), R6 leg 2 - the downwind losses: low on the foils, and in R6 a busy sheet.
• 14:45:56-14:46:07 (12:45:56-12:46:07 UTC), R4 start - FRA's pivot from 2.3 s before the gun, ours from 0.8 s; FRA at 90 % of its reach speed 6.7 s after the gun, us at 7.7 s. Then the reach to mark 1, where we sailed well off the line to the mark.
• 15:13:42-15:14:00 (13:13:42-13:14:00 UTC), R6 start - bearing away 17 s out at 25 km/h.
• Tacks: our worst racing tack, 14:25:11 (12:25:11 UTC) R2, touched down (lowest hull 99 mm); compare AUS at 14:34:59 (12:34:59 UTC) and 14:40:14 (12:40:14 UTC), the fleet's best tacks of the day.

Fastest upwind boat in the race fleet. Race by race, against each band's median: R2 +3.7 km/h (1st of 7), R4 +3.5 (1st), R6 +2.4 (2nd, FRA 1st). By band we are 2nd, 4th, 1st, 2nd, 2nd and 1st from 30 to 45 km/h.

How: we point. TWA 2.4-5.5 deg lower than the fleet median in every band and 4.6-7.8 deg below the SPEED v2 target, against the fleet's 0-3 deg below. We give some speed for it at 30-35 km/h (56.4 v 59.8 and 57.9 v 59.7 km/h) and at 40-42.5 (59.8 v 62.8), and none at 35-40. Everyone sits well under the sheet's BSP targets, so read those as optimistic for the whole fleet rather than as our gap. Only 0-20 % of our samples are within 2 deg of the TWA target, against 15-36 % of the fleet's.

Racing vs practice: the racing set-up is the one to copy. In the same wind bands, going from practice to racing:

In racing we brought the clew to windward, took rotation off and added twist - at 30-35 km/h far more than the fleet changed - and at 32.5-35 km/h it was worth 4.3 km/h of VMG while the fleet's stayed flat. (5-25 periods per phase per band; 35-37.5 shows the same direction with a smaller VMG change.)

Cant. At 30-35 km/h we carry less than the fleet (-6.9 v -8.2 and -8.6) and, at 32.5-35, less than SPEED v2 (-8.0). Our own better periods had more cant in three bands (see Headlines). From 35 km/h up we match the fleet and the sheet (-8.8 to -9.3).

Wing clew. We sit 25-85 mm to windward of the SPEED v2 clew target in every band, following its slope as the wind builds (target -100, 0, 0, +100, +100, +200 mm; ours -131, -84, -48, +19, +74, +138).

Jib lead (0 % = fully inboard). Ours is 42-50 % against the fleet's 52-57 %, and the most inboard in the fleet at 30-35 km/h. That is within 10 % of the SPEED v2 jib track target in every band (35-51 %), so it is the fleet that sails outboard of our sheet, not us off it.

Leeway is 0.4-0.65 deg higher than the fleet in four of six bands (e.g. 1.80 v 1.17 at 35-37.5). The VMG channel is heading-based (it matches BSP x cos TWA to 0.2 km/h), so it does not charge us for that slip: worth about 0.3 km/h of VMG, the price of the high mode.

Twist is below the SPEED v2 target in every band (18.6-24.6 deg against 27-32) - but so is the fleet's (19.5-27.3).

Within wind bands we are either the best or the worst boat. Racing only: 1st of 12 at 32.5-35 km/h (73.4 km/h of VMG against 67.9) and at 37.5-40 (80.9 against 72.2, 4 periods), but 12th of 12 at 35-37.5 (66.3 against 70.8) and 7th of 11 at 30-32.5. The 35-37.5 band is where the first runs of R4 and R6 fall.

Leg by leg:

(km/h; boats with 2+ periods on the leg.) On leg 4 we were usually in 1-2 km/h less wind than the fleet and held our own; the R4 first run was slow in more wind than the fleet had.

Flying height is what goes with it. Our leeward ride height is lower than the fleet median in every band (1,138-1,220 mm against 1,169-1,271). Our lowest quarter of periods (under 1,050 mm) is 5.8 km/h of VMG below the band median, against +1.6 to +2.7 above it; the fleet's lowest quarter costs it 2.1. The kept periods of those two first runs sat at 860-960 mm at their worst (Deep dives).

Our downwind set-up is the most extreme in the fleet:

• Cant -6.7 to -7.4 deg against a fleet median of -3.8 to -4.3. SPEED v2 asks for -5.0 to -8.0, so we are on the sheet and the fleet is well off it.
• CA1 camber 20.6-21.4 deg - 1.5-4 deg under the SPEED v2 target (23-25) and under the fleet (22.9-23.7).
• Jib cunningham 578-703 kgf against 1,085-1,177 for the fleet; the sheet asks for 600-1,200, rising with the wind, so above 32.5 km/h we are under it.
• Wing rotation 13.2-14.7 deg against 15.9-16.2, and twist below the fleet in every band (6.2-12.1 deg against 11.1-15.4).

Angle. We sail 0.5-4 deg deeper than the fleet (140.7-149.3 against 140.2-145.4), and everyone sails 8-13 deg deeper than the SPEED v2 TWA targets.

Sheet movement still goes with speed on our boat (our busiest quarter of clew movement is 4.4 km/h below the band median, the calmest 2.4 above), but not across the fleet once the post-gybe periods are filtered out - so it is a symptom on our boat (R6 leg 2: clew sd 159 mm against 69), not a rule.

Only one wind band qualifies across the day (35-37.5 km/h, 6 of our 2 s chunks, 10 boats), so the race-by-race view in Deep dives is the better read: boats on the same reach in the same breeze.

In that band we were 6th of 10 on VMC to mark 1, with SWE best (5 chunks). The set-up differences are large: total twist 11.2 deg against the fleet's 25.6 (SPEED v2 27), twist input 31 % against 77 %, cant -6.6 against -9.6 (SPEED v2 -9.0) and rudder average 2.2 against 2.7 deg (SPEED v2 3.5).

• R2: fastest reach of 7 (VMC 87.3 km/h) with that low-twist, low-cant set-up.
• R4: slowest VMC of 7 (77.1) with the 3rd-best boat speed (90.6). We sailed about 31 deg off the direct line to mark 1 against ESP's 14 - an angle question more than a speed one: 14:46:12-14:46:28 (12:46:12-12:46:28 UTC).
• R6: the early bear-away left us reaching in 24 km/h of wind against 28-31 for the leaders.

Free manoeuvres only (turns at marks are on the Mark roundings tab). The practice filter left out 2 of our 27 tacks and 3 of our 31 gybes, among them the 400 m gybe at 13:40:10 (11:40:10 UTC); 6 of our gybes were at marks and 2 after the finish.

Tacks. On VMG through the tack we rank 1st of 5 at 30-32.5 km/h (2 tacks), 6th of 12 at 32.5-35, 4th of 13 at 35-37.5 (11 tacks, 37.0 km/h against 35.9; ESP best at 39.3 from 11) and 12th of 13 at 37.5-40 (6 tacks: 34.8 against 36.8; BRA best at 39.1 from 5). On metres lost we rank 9th-12th through the middle bands, but much of that is the ghost holding our own faster pre-tack VMG (Deep dives). Above 37.5 km/h the problem is real: entry 56.4 km/h against 60.5, exit 47.9 against 52.3.

Gybes. 1st of 13 at 35-37.5 km/h (7 gybes: 64.4 km/h through against 60.1; 42 m lost against 73), 4th of 13 at 32.5-35 (60.2 against 56.3), 6th at 37.5-40 (3 gybes) and 5th of 7 at 30-32.5 (4 gybes: 51.5 against 54.6, BRA best at 61.2).

Bear-aways (free ones, nearly all practice): 5th of 8 at 32.5-35 km/h (3 bear-aways) and 1st of 6 at 37.5-40 (2). The bear-aways that cost us are at the windward gate - see Mark roundings.

Touchdowns. Tacks: 13:45:37 (11:45:37 UTC) practice, lowest hull -158 mm (also left out of the medians by the practice filter); 14:25:11 (12:25:11 UTC) R2, 99 mm, our worst racing tack (15.0 km/h through); 15:25:39 (13:25:39 UTC) practice, 78 mm. Gybe: 13:43:18 (11:43:18 UTC) practice, -82 mm. Bear-away: 15:26:20 (13:26:20 UTC) practice, at 28 km/h.

Time on distance at the gun predicts mark 1 better than anything else (r = -0.86 across all 36 starts); next is when a boat reaches 90 % of its reaching speed (r = -0.50). The pivot here runs from the last moment at about 50 deg TWA to that 90 % point, so it is the turn and the acceleration together.

Over the day: our time on distance was the best in the fleet (median 1.4 s against 2.4). We reached 90 % of reach speed a median 9.9 s after the gun (2 pivots), 2nd of 11 behind AUS (7.1 s, 3 pivots; fleet median 13.8 s), with a mean acceleration through the pivot of 3.1 km/h per s against the fleet's 2.3 (AUS 4.4). The best starters were FRA and AUS (+84 m at mark 1, median of 3); ours was +24 m.

How long a pivot takes: across the 28 complete pivots of the day the median was 15 s from 50 deg to 90 % of reach speed; the quickest were 6-9 s (SWE R3 6.0, AUS R1 and R3 8.5, NZL R4 8.5, FRA R4 9.0). R2 and R6 were slow for everyone, so compare within a race.

• R2 - good. Pivot from 3.5 s out, 67 m back at 46 km/h; at 90 % of our reach speed (87 km/h) 12.1 s after the gun - the first of the boats that pivoted (ITA 13.6, DEN 15.6, FRA 19.0, ESP 20.0). 2nd at mark 1, +67 m. SUI, the best start, had borne away before the final 15 s.
• R4 - pivot started late. FRA began at 2.3 s out, 57 m back at 53.2 km/h, and was at 90 % of its reach speed 6.7 s after the gun (9.0 s pivot, 3.3 km/h per s). We began at 0.8 s out, 28 m back at 49.7 km/h, and got there at 7.7 s (8.5 s pivot, 4.0 km/h per s - the hardest acceleration in the race). So we accelerated better but started 1.5 s later and finished 1 s behind, about 25 m. The rest of the gap to FRA at mark 1 (+84 against our +24) came on a reach sailed well off the line to the mark.
• R6 - late. No pivot in the final 15 s: we bore away 17 s out at 25 km/h and were 67 m back at the gun at 34 km/h; 5th at mark 1, 69 m down. DEN, ESP and FRA pivoted from 3-6 s out and were up to speed 15-17 s after the gun.

Roundings use 5 km/h wind bands (wind matters less here, and 2.5 km/h left too few per band); n is on every figure.

• Windward gate: we leave slower than the fleet. At 30-35 km/h (3 roundings) our exit was 70.6 km/h against 79.4 - 7th of 9; ESP best at 82.4 (4 roundings). At 35-40 (3) we arrived at 54.1 against the fleet's 64.9 and left at 79.6 against 80.6 - 7th of 11; AUS carried 87.4 out (3 roundings).
• Leeward gate: we lose more through the turn. At 35-40 km/h (5 roundings) we entered at 71.0 km/h against 74.1 and bottomed out at 48.7 against 53.6, leaving at 52.2 against 54.0 - 7th of 12. AUS (4 roundings) held 59.4 through the turn and out of it.
• Mark 1: 2nd of 4 at 30-35 km/h on exit speed (91.0 against 89.4, 2 roundings); SUI best at 94.0 (2).

Every kept downwind period of the day: ride height against VMG relative to its wind band. Our first-run periods in R4 and R6 are the red diamonds; hover for times.

• Ours: VMG against the band median by quarter of ride height: under 1,050 mm -5.8 km/h; 1,050-1,160 +2.7; 1,160-1,250 +1.8; over 1,250 +1.6. Correlation +0.46.
• The fleet: lowest quarter (under 1,116 mm) -2.1, highest +1.6. Correlation +0.29. So flying low costs everyone, and it costs us more.
• Our median downwind ride height is below the fleet's in every band, with the most cant and the least CA1 camber in the fleet: a set-up with less margin when the boat drops.

On those two first runs the boat was still recovering from the mark-1 bear-away and the first gybe: the periods within 10 s of a turn (filtered out) sat at 710-890 mm, and the first kept ones at 860-960 mm. Three things to check on video: 1. How long it takes to get back to height after the mark-1 bear-away and the first gybe, against FRA (gybed at 14:46:45 / 12:46:45 UTC in R4, the fleet's third-best gybe of the day). 2. Whether the low, cant-heavy set-up is the right one for the first run, which on 22 Aug was sailed in 36-37 km/h. 3. R6's busy sheet (clew sd 159 mm against the fleet's 69).

Each boat's median cant and VMC to mark 1 (relative to its race's median) over the steady part of the reach, for all six races (3-11 chunks per boat).

• In five of six races the best reach came from a boat at -9.4 to -9.9 deg of cant. Most of the fleet sails the reach within half a degree of -10.
• The boats that do not - NZL in all three races (-7.1, -6.6, -4.9), GBR (-6.5, -4.5, -5.3) - are usually slower. Across all boats and races, more cant goes with more VMC (r = -0.33); twist on its own shows little (r = -0.12).
• Our R2 is the exception: fastest reach of the race at -7.1 deg and 14 deg of twist.
• In R2 and R4 we also carried about half the fleet's twist (11-14 deg against 19-32) and twist input of 31-39 % against 58-94 %. In R6 our twist was normal (28 deg).

Open thread: windy-reach cant. A practice trial of full cant on the reach, against our R2 set-up, would settle which works for us.

The app's metres lost compares each manoeuvre with a ghost boat sailing on at that boat's own VMG from just before the turn. A boat that comes into the tack faster has a faster ghost, so it shows more loss for exactly the same turn - fair as what the tack cost you, but not for ranking boats. So tacks and gybes are now ranked on VMG through the manoeuvre: ground actually made over the same 25 s window, in km/h.

Below 37.5 km/h our tacks make about as much ground as the fleet or more; the real problem is the top of the range.

• Wind bands: 2.5 km/h, on each boat's own wind reading corrected by its calibration offset for the day. Offsets (km/h, + = the sensor reads high), from moments boats sailed within 150 m of each other: AUS -1.9, BRA +0.7, CAN +1.3, DEN -0.2, ESP +1.2, FRA -0.3, GBR -0.9, GER -0.5, ITA -0.2, NZL -0.3, SUI -0.6, SWE +0.6, USA +1.2.
• Bands are never merged. A band is shown only with at least 5 of our periods and 3 other boats with 5 each; for manoeuvres and roundings, 2 of ours and 3 other boats with 2 each.
• Racing is split by leg (leg 1 = reaching, the final leg left out). Practice is split by wind angle: upwind at or below 75°, downwind at or above 120°.
• Samples: 6 s straight-line periods from the app (upwind, downwind), each the mean of its ~12 half-second readings; 2 s chunks of the steady part of leg 1 (reaching: 10 s after the start to 5 s before mark 1).
• Period filters: a period is left out if it starts within 10 s of one of the boat's tacks, gybes, bear-aways or mark roundings (the boat is still accelerating), or if it is under 80 % of the boat's own VMG target (bad air, not trying). The floor also takes out genuinely slow sailing, so the table below shows what it removed race by race.
• Every comparison is a median over that boat's samples, never a single sample. Fleet = the median of the other boats' medians, so each boat counts once. Best boat = the other boat with the best median: VMG (km/h) upwind and downwind, VMC to mark 1 on the reach, VMG through the manoeuvre on tacks and gybes, metres below target on bear-aways, exit speed on roundings, metres at mark 1 on starts. VMG % is against each team's own polar, so it is shown for us but never used to rank boats.
• Targets: SPEED v2 cheatsheet, HSB2 18m with the Big jib and HSRW rudders: the sheet's row at the band's lower wind speed (the 30 km/h row for 30-32.5), as written, never interpolated. Clew targets are converted to mm with the sign turned round (- = to windward, as in the data); jib track is converted from sheet angle to jib lead % (0 % = fully inboard). Not compared: jib sheet load (the sheet's units are not kgf yet).
• Phases included: practice, racing. Races left out: none. Crew on board: 6. Notes: none.
• Manoeuvres are free manoeuvres only: anything within 10 s of the start, a mark or the finish belongs to the Mark roundings tab, and anything after the finish is left out. Practice tacks and gybes with an app quality score under 25 are left out (the boat was not trying); racing ones are all kept.
• VMG through the manoeuvre = ground made upwind (tacks) or downwind (gybes) over the app's 25 s window, in km/h - the measure that compares boats directly. Metres lost is the app's ghost-boat figure; each ghost holds that boat's OWN pre-manoeuvre VMG, so a boat that was quicker going in shows more loss for the same turn. For bear-aways it is distance sailed below the boat's target speed over 15 s. Touchdown = lowest hull under 100 mm.

What the filters removed