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COASTAL ROUTE FOLLOW-UP

What is the next mark? What are the possible courses for my fleet? Where is the departure zone? So many questions it is better to answer before the next regatta rather than the “D” day on board… So let’s visit the yacht club’s website to download the race instructions, Adrena is going to help us to get organized in calm.



PREPARING THE COURSE


Once the race instructions in hand, it is time to create the waypoints file and the courses file to be activated in Adrena during the race. The waypoints file contains all the marks indicated in the race instructions; they will be used to build the courses afterwards :


Creation waypoint


The courses file contains all the routes that the race committee could decide to launch according to the weather conditions. 

Parcours SPI OUEST

 

Thanks to the Standard and Pro versions, it is possible to create as many routes and waypoints files as you want in order to be able to load only the useful ones during the navigation. Saved on an USB stick, they can easily be transferred from a computer to another. 

 

When creating a course plan, Adrena is integrating the notion of mark « to round » and of marks to « let » as indicated in the race instructions: some waypoints according to their position in the route are mandatory points of crossings. They should be labelled as marks “to round” at port or starboard.

In the example below, the marks “chimere” and “roche revision” are labelled to be let at starboard :

Course modification

 

The software takes into account the indications and draws the shortest route respecting the race instructions.

Course

 

DEPARTURE


Lines casted off, let’s go to the departure area to grab the last information from the committee boat. First of all, the route chosen by the committee has to be activated in Adrena. To do so, first, we indicate in the toolbar the type of course:

Tool box

 

Then we validate the course to activate:

Activate course


As they will be moored the same day, the last step consists in pointing the departure line and the windward buoy (if there is one) marks. Indeed, the windward buoy shall not be inserted into the course waypoints :

Plotting Marks


The course is wholly displayed on Adrena’s chart, at the signal, it is only necessary to click on the button “warning signal” to start the departure procedure:

Polar

 

REGATTA FOLLOW-UP


Good start! The race is started, thanks to the course phase management, no additional action is necessary to follow the course, the screen is switching automatically on the actual phase of the race and the active waypoint’s lay lines are displayed. A table of legs is giving precise data about the next leg, refreshing automatically the data according to the winds, the current… shifts.

 

Current leg with the name of the next mark and the side to let.

 

Calculated continuously by Adrena, the current enables to display both course on ground and true heading to follow.

 

If some Sailects (sails ranges chart) are activated, the table will display the best sail configuration to wear for each leg. The time indicated to reach the mark is divided in two tacks (port – starboard) if the wind angle doesn’t allow a direct route.

The mark crossing is automatically detected by the software which is adapting the right display and the right data for each leg of the race, waypoint after waypoint. So it is really easy to anticipate the manoeuvers, the trimmings, the sails changes and so on…

 

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