I will send a "brainaid Ocean Racing" T-shirt to the designer(s) of the winning boat. I did this last year when I gained 1st place, this year I will give the price independent of my own ranking

I simply believe the IMSYC is a great idea and I want to give my little to support the work of the people "back stage".

Boat selections at 2010/02/16 20:30 utc:

88 "imsyc_Optimist_82"
83 "imsyc_FlyingDog"
70 "imsyc_Proud Mary"
64 "imsyc_NumberOne"
62 "imsyc_Lightning"
50 "imsyc_Uprising"
44 "imsyc_Innsbruck"
42 "imsyc_Love"
39 "imsyc_SY Marlin"
38 "imsyc_JoNi Storm"
31 "imsyc_Sunny_go"
29 "imsyc_LoveBoat"
28 "imsyc_Normandy_I"
27 "imsyc_Windigo"
23 "imsyc_SnAILBOAT"
23 "imsyc_Andren_2010"
13 "imsyc_close_haul"
8 "imsyc_Skuldelev_4"
1 "Swan 36"

Hmmm, who is that Swan?

About ISAF Rule 41:

Regarding Software on board this is interpreted in the terms of "If anybody can buy it somewhere, then it is fine." - I am working on this.

Regarding weather data this is interpreted in the terms of "If you can download the data on public networks, then it is fine." - The data I use to boost my software will be publically available once the software is out. This rule was the driving factor for creating sailmail back in the old days, btw. UGrib is a more modern form of the same data supplier.

I definitely know about the problems with a "not yet released" software and rule 41. As long as we don't get payed for working on this, it will take its time.

About the 1000 nm limit:

This was an arbitrary limit set by myself personally. It is a nice figure to remember and I consider all races below 1000 nm more coastal, above they are more offshore. There might be races on the edge, like Fastnet (Oops, forgot, bad word, should be Copyright Rock) or Sydney Hobart. I know, these are considered offshore, but from my routing knowledge they both are still rather driven by local weather systems. Which is no judgement on difficulty to route or to simply participate in such race, just a different setup you need to route these races.

Actually, looking back at Fastnet 1979, this was an offshore race in my terms for the slow boats, as one of my definitions of offshore is "longer than 4 days". On the other hand this was sailed in local weather, not free flowing ocean weather. Which made it more of a coastal race in my terms. This border is exactly what makes races like these so difficult to judge. You have no long term coastal predictions and you cannot use the long term offshore predictions for safety. '79 showed what can happen of this. Sydney Hobart had the same.

So, all in all, my 1000nm rule was just to keep out of trouble No more, no less.

--- Last Edited by Eddie C. Dost at 2009-12-31 01:33:17 ---

I have to say "Wow!", too. This is a very interesting discussion.

As I have some friendly requests to race again on Facebook, I decided to do so starting with the next race longer than 1000nm.

As promised, I will make my tools available for everybody. I made a start with my Sailonline Toolbox. Enjoy!

<end of quote>(Note to webmaster: Quotes should be destinguishable from reply text better...)

No yet, hehe. Sounds very interesting.

--- Last Edited by Eddie C. Dost at 2009-12-07 11:21:21 ---

Yes, Niclas, that is correct. I do have the exact weather for the next 6 hours. I would love to have this a little more complicated, but that is a difficult to explain feature for the average user.

On the other hand: I do well on short distance, but I really fly off on long races. So there must be something else behind this than knowing the next 6 hours exactly. I believe I know the next 180 hours better than SOL itself, I think having an offset in the current 6 hours to forecast weather would not hurt me at all.

I would support SOL in working with slightly different weather than the current forecast, invisible to all except for the place and time of your boat. The weather would stay on the server and never be sent to the clients, so no chance for anyone to hack into the data.

Still I think this would be difficult to explain to a lot of people, but I might be wrong here.

OK. I understand. I will change my password back, so no public brainaid for you folks...

The original discussion between me and Jakob that lead to my (probably over reaction) resign was about fairness. Fairness is important to me, I fully agree with Jakob in this point.

A little background: I am a programmer on Unix. I have been using Unix since I first touched a computer (still young enough to say so ). In Unix, when you have to solve tedious recurring tasks you write a small program or a script to do the task for you. I do this everyday, I script google maps to resolve postal codes of addresses for example.

I did the same for SOL, programming DCs from routes that I calculate. I calculate a lot of routes, for Leg 5 of the Volvo from China to Rio I calculated about 15000 routes. I manually judge all this data and conclude with a track to follow during the next few hours. This is quite a bit of work, and it is not easy. More data is good, you can see that if you look at my results. But it is not easy to judge between all these options. I sometimes spend an hour to decide whether to up or down a single degree...

Now, after finishing the real brain work above, I use a script to program my planed track into SOL using DCs (delayed commands). I did not think about this being unfair at all, it simply was the logical step for me.

But I see this may make a difference, as the "normal" user with the client has to calculate decimal hours to enter as delay. And has to click for each DC to set.

So I will pause racing until I have some solution to make this fair again. As there is no way to verify I am still using this script or not (I can insert random pauses into my access to SOL, so this looks like a human entering DCs), I have come up with a different idea:

I will start building a SOL toolbox for everybody to use on sol.brainaid.de. This toolbox will contain a DC editor where you can modify DC times or CC/TWA values and be able to copy-paste a list of DCs into. I will also make other (smaller) utilities available in this toolbox. I will use stop using my scripts and only use this toolbox and the SOL client to do my boat control.

I hope this sounds fair to you all, I believe this will give some more insight on what I am able to do and some cool features to use for all of you.

Please give me some time to come online with this, I am away this weekend doing the last real life sail on our X-37 and away next weekend getting the boat out of the water. If there would not be the necessary job for money I would stay on board for the week in between, maybe do a quick trip to Scotland But that's an impossibility and of topic here...

Feel free to comment, even if you have objections against this. I want this discussion open to keep this a fair sport.

Cheers,
Eddie

The boat brainaid is available freely to whoever want's to play. The password is "sol".

Here is a transscript of the interview with me, brainaid, in the french chat room. I have reordered questions and answers a little, so the chat gets more readable. I hope the formatting also helps to make it readable. To read this in your favourite text reader, I have also attached this transcript as file.


brainaid: Bonjour a tous (That is about all I can say in french)

FR Amiral29: He!

FR_TOULBRAZ: Bonjour Brainaid.

FR Tolerance: bonjour brainaid soit le bien venu ici, fine to meet you here

FR Tolerance: and welcome !

brainaid: Merci!



FR_TOULBRAZ: Pourrais tu nous dire qui tu es c x y Ou tu habites c x y et si tu es informaticien c x y

FR Tolerance: Can you tell us who are you, where do you live and... are you computer specialist c x y

brainaid: Yes, I am 41 years old, male, live near Aachen in Germany. I started real life sailing only 9 years ago, so I am a late starter. I love offshore sailing, not seeing a port for several days makes me feel good.

brainaid: And yes, I am a computer specialist. I work for a small company building network equipment, where I am in charge of the software development. Next to that I write software in my spare time.

brainaid: To combine job and hobby I started to work on software for sailing, which I use here on SOL and to do weather briefings for the german Mini 6.50 sailors among others.



Calamity: 41 ans, vis en Allemagne pres de Aix la chapelle, debutais la voile RL y a seulement 9 ans, j'aime faire la voile sur haute mer et ne pas voir un port quelques jours me fait du tres grand bien

Calamity: Suis specialiste informatique, travaille dans une petite entreprise batir reseau informatique, je m'occupe du developpement de software

Calamity: Puis je developpe du software pour mon propre compte



PIR_captainchris: Guten Abend Brainaid und herztliches wilkommen!, I want to ask you if you use a computer program to decide the course and if you steer you boat with a lot of programation?

brainaid: Hello captainchris. Yes, I use a computer program to decide the course I want to go. This is a program I am working on now. Eventually I want to live from selling this.

Calamity: Alors, Brain developpe son software aussi pour le commercialiser un jour, pas trop lointain, les courants aussi peuvent etre geres avec son programme, il espere un jour vivre de cela

brainaid: Stearing my boat is derived from the planned route. In open waters I set a few DCs (delayed commands) mostly in 1 degree steps. When there is a tack or gybe or we round a mark I stear by hand

PIR_captainchris: Braiaind a dit: Il est informaticien, et développe ses propres programmes pour la course. Il n'est pas un "robot" mais fait beaucoup de DC (programations en délai) et assure aussi une peaufination manuelle...C'



PIR_captainchris: OK... glad to hear this... My program to get first during a part of the third leg was...my brain and "feeling" for the wind! )

PIR_captainchris: Glad to knoe that you are not a "ROBOT"!!! But you must be confused when the weather change? How long time a day do you spend "sailing"?

brainaid: chris, as I do a lot of planing and not use the output of my software directly, but try to figure out how the weather develops in the future, most weather updates go very smooth.



FR_TOULBRAZ: Can you tell us more about your software, periodicity of update your target, weather forecast used,...?



brainaid: I use the GFS weather of the NOAA to do my routing, this is updated 4 times a day, as in SOL. Next to that I use their extended statistical data to estimate stability of the weather conditions.

Calamity: Il utilise les informations Meteo de NOAA, 4 fois par jour, tout comme en SOL....et se sert egalement d'autres donnees statistiques de NOAA

FR Tolerance: Il l'utilise pour les courses SOL, outre les prévisions météo, il tient compte des données statistiques pour voir la fiabilité des prévisions



jpkorny: On the start of te New Zeland race, you drived your boat toward the West, I did'nt understood your strategy because the logic was to go toward the East and you losted a lot of time

brainaid: jpkorny, I did not spend much time on the NZ race, as I was away most of the time. So I only briefly looked at the weather and programmed many DCs without doing my normal hand optimization. The result speaks for itself

Calamity: A JPK, sur le NZL race brain etais absent la plupart du temps, il l'a fait sur des DC, delay commands, commandes pre-programmees



PIR_captainchris: Brainiad: May I ask how does your program work? You must have a loads of parametres to compute? wind, speed, angle, TWD, TWS etc... do you compute vall manualy? (stupid question maybe?!)



brainaid: Basically the program works the same way as weather navigation with pen and paper. From the position of the boat all possible courses are plotted with the speed given in the boats polars. After plotting these courses you have a lot of possible new positions after some time interval. From these positions you repeat the process.

brainaid: After several steps some future position is at the finish line, or closest to the finish line. Now you follow the plot backwards that lead to this position. That is your fastest route.

brainaid: With pen and paper you would do this in 12h or 24h intervals with 3 to 5 different courses going nearly towards the finish. Wind would be estimated at every position, TWA and boat speed calculated manually.

brainaid: With the computer you get TWD and TWS at every position from the GRIB data and you can calculate millions of intermediate positions, so the calculated route is more exact. There is nothing calculated manually.

brainaid: Of course the exactness is only with respect to the weather forecast. As that changes, you need to calculate again and things might look very different. At this point human judgement is needed, whether to trust the calculated track or to follow it only slightly.



Calamity: A la base, le programme fonctionne de la meme facon que une navigation avec meteo et papier et crayon. A partir de la position du bateau, toutes les trajets possibles seront planifie avec la vitesse suivant le polar du bateau.

Calamity: Apres avoir fait ce plan, apres quelque temps, il y a des nouvelles possibilites, alors on repete le proces. Apres plusieurs etapes comme ceci, une position future est bien entendu la ligne d'arrivee, ou un point assez proche de l'arrivee. Alors la, on fait le plan en partant de cette position la, en arriere. Cela sera ton trajet le plus rapide.

Calamity: Avec crayon et papier, on ferais cela toutes les 12 ou 24 heures avec 3 ou 4 etapes allant presque a l'arrivee. Le vent sera estime a chaque position, TWA et vitesse du bateau seront calcules manuellement.

Calamity: Avec l'ordinateur tu auras TWD et TWS a chaque position a partir des donnees du GRIB, et l'on peut calculer des millions de positions intermediares, alors le trajet calcule sera plus exacte. Alors rien est calcule manuellement la.

Calamity: Bien entendu, l'exactitude dependras de l'exactitude des previsions meteo. Si cela change, tu serais obliges de recalculer et le trajet peut etre tout a fait different alors. En ce moment la, le jugement humain est necessaire, alors soit on fait confiance au trajet calcule, soit on le suit a peu pres.



PIR_captainchris: Brainaid: do you get frustrated when you are not # 1 in a race? Like all of us? How long time a day do you spend on the races?

brainaid: I spend about 10 minutes every hour during a race. There are hours of sleep with 0 minutes and there are hours of planing with 30 minutes.

Calamity: alors, brain passe environ 10 minutes par heure sur une course, parfois il dors 0 minutes, et parfois une demi heure sur une heure



PIR_captainchris: Are you married? If yes...what does you're wife think about you sitting in front of the screen and steering a boat?

brainaid: OK, the private stuff. I am married, but now going to life separated. This is not because of SOL but maybe because of sailing in general. When I sail on a real boat I spend 95% of time for the boat...

Calamity: En ce qui concerne sa vie prive, il est encore marie, mais va etre separe, pas a cause du SOL, mais a cause de la passion voile en generale, assez incompatible avec vie de famille car grandes absences de sa part comme il passe alors 95% de son temps pour le bateau



jpkorny: ma femme m'a menacé de faire ses valises après 38 ans de mariage,l a dernière étape,j'ai calmé le jeu

Calamity: Brain, Korny's wife threatened to leave him because of SOL, he calmed her, for now

brainaid: korny, just be careful...



PIR_captainchris: Last question to Brainaid: do you expect to finish # 1 in the next race? ))

brainaid: chris: No. I will be away over the weekend and next week



FR Amiral29: ben oui il ya les fleches aussi pour avancer de 10minutes mais je m'abime les yeux!

Calamity: brain, amiral is embarrassed with the meteo and the cursor size, he would prefer those taller for the first 6 to ten hours of racing

brainaid: Amiral, visibility of the wind has been some discussion with SOL, I know that from the english chat...

Calamity: Amiral, la visibilite du vent a ete discute bcp dans le chat anglais aussi

FR Amiral29: Ah!

FR Tolerance: Youpi amiral, tu n'es pas le seul !



FR_TOULBRAZ: Brain, do you have a special function in SOL organization c x y

brainaid: Toulbraz, no. I am just a very addicted user. I give a lot suggestions to the people behind SOL. If this should change so I am a part of SOL, I would stop racing with this much effort, as that would be unfair.

Calamity: Toul, brain n'est pas membre de l'organisation SOL, mais leur donne souvent des idees, suggestions, s'il serais un membre de sol organisation, il ne ferais pas les courses, le considerant pas honnete en ce moment la



FR_TOULBRAZ: Do you also sail on other virtual race servers c x y

brainaid: I did sail on OceanVirtuel for 3 years, but the atmosphere amongst sailors was not very positive towards Germans. Communication was very good between sailors in the top ranks, but a lot of other people ...

brainaid: ... where unhappy. After finding SOL I stopped sailing there.

brainaid: I tried VORG once. It is not worth talking about.

Calamity: Brain etais sur Ocean Virtuel pendant 3 ans, et a quitte pour SOL, athmosphere vers les marins allemand etant pas tres accueillant

Calamity: Brain a essaye VORG, mais ne trouve vraiment pas interessant du tout, pas la peine meme d'en parler



FR_vostro: Hello, how to interpret the data counter Vmg located under the pola. Thank

Calamity: VMG= velocity made good, vitesse reelle par rapport au VENT et non pas VMC, vitesse par rapport au but/arrivee/ point precis

MMB: Utile seulement dans le lit du vent



FR Tolerance: Effectivement, l'accueil sur SOL est exceptionnel et les mélanges sont réels, les échnages possibles et intéressant, pas d'à priori... bon, c'était mon avis en aparté !



FR_axelxx: I don't if there are rules of asking questions to U, but do U make real sailing races c x y I mean on real boats or only virtual ones c x y

Calamity: Brain, axel wants know if you sail real life races also

brainaid: I do help crews on real boats with weather briefings. I do this for the german Mini 6.50 sailors for example. Myself, I would love to sail on a Mini, but money and my age are a little against that right now.

brainaid: I do sail some smaller races on our X-37 or smaller boats from time to time. Sometimes as skipper, sometimes as crew. I can do foredeck, mast or navigation.

brainaid: About the Mini 6.50: There is almost zero sponsoring in Germany. This is very different to France. You are the lucky guys

Calamity: Brain aide equipages sur vrais bateaux avec previsions meteo, entre autre pour Mini 6.5, il aimerais faire la voile en mini lui meme, mais les sous ET son age parlent contre ca en ce moment

Calamity: Brain a fait quelques petites regates sur X-37 ou des bateaux plus petits de temps en temps

Calamity: Concernant Mini 6.5, vous avez de la chance en France, a propos du sponsoring, il n'y a presque pas en allemagne (



FR_axelxx: U should help Oracle or Alinghi

brainaid: axel, I would jump immediately if they call



FR_axelxx: Does virtual races helps U c x y

FR Amiral29: good question!

brainaid: Yes, virtual races are a good test ground for long distance weather prediction. Of course real sailing is different, but you still learn a lot about when to trust a forecast and when to stick to common sense.

Calamity: Courses virtuelles sont un bon entrainement pour etudier et prevoir meteo longue distance et duree, meme si la vrai voile est bien different, on peut tout de meme apprendre beaucoup



FR_axelxx: I'm sure it will come. Do U know if some great navigators ( some we see on TV) use or make virual races c x y

brainaid: I know that some of the NZL people here have done real navigation on racing boats in their younger years. I do not know if current navigators use simulators.

Calamity: Plusieurs des marins de nouvelle zelande ici en sol ont fait beaucoup de competition dans la vraie vie, brain ne sais pas s'ils utilisent du software ici en sol, ni si des navigateurs actuelles font de la voile virtuelle



FR_TOULBRAZ: Brain, we appreciate SOL and the way you "optimize" your sailing with it. Do you think SOL can be improve , and on which point c x y

Calamity: Toul asks you if sol can be improved, and on what points ( he appreciates a lot how you optimize your races here)

brainaid: There is a few points where SOL can improve. One of these is to become more attractive for offical races, so there is more people racing here.

brainaid: Another point discussed also in the english chat is about weather. The point is using the forecast as a forecast, but having slightly different weather on the server and seen on board. There are a lot of technical

brainaid: issues to this but the discussion is very interesting. This could make SOL even more real.

brainaid: Then there is a discussion about having more classes and podiums. Maybe one podium for software users, another for people without software and such.

Calamity: Points ou sol peut s'ameliorer: devenir plus interressant en tant que partenaire des vrais grandes courses et donc attirer plus de monde ici. Aussi la meteo peut encore etre ameliore, y a beaucoup de discussion sur le chat anglais de cela, Il peut y avoir une difference entre la prediction meteo, et la realite sur le serveur. Puis aussi la creation eventuelle de differentes classes, avec ou sans utilisation de software/programmes d'assistance a la voile virtuelle sont actuellement discutes au sein de SOL administrateurs et utilisateurs.

FR Amiral29: Bien bien l'idee de 2 classements!

FR Amiral29: En somme Brain est un bon et vrai marin... moi je découvre pardonnez moi!



Xolub: a simple question brainaid, what kind of software do uou use for your weather prediction c x y

FR Tolerance: NOAA predictions



FR_axelxx: Why did you choose brainaid, is it for brain c x y

brainaid: Yes, brainaid is the name of a computer of a friend of mine and now the name of the company I have with this friend. The computer was named brainaid as it was there to help us think. (Brainaid est le nom d'un ordinateur d'un ami de brain et maintenant aussi le nom de l'entreprise que brain a creee avec cet ami, l'ordinateur est destine a leur aider reflechir)

FR_axelxx: so the computer is the brain

brainaid: No, the computer is the tool to help the brain (Non, l'ordinateur est l'outil de aider le cerveau!)

FR_axelxx: ok I understand, lol



brainaid: To all of you: I see there are a few here speaking english, so if there are questions or suggestions please feel free to find me in the english room and ask. (Si vous avez des questions, n'hesitez pas de me les demander, je suis souvent dans le chatroom anglais)



FR_axelxx: Don't want to be rude, How old are you (don't have to answer if you don't want)

brainaid: axel, no problem. I am 41 years old.



FR_axelxx: 35 for me. You said that you live in Germany, right? and you come from nederlands c x y

brainaid: No, I live in Germany now and I am German. I lived in Belgium for some time.

brainaid: But too close to the german boarder, so I never was forced to learn French...

FR_axelxx: No problem, I learned german for seven year at school and don't speak anymore

FR_axelxx: Berlin c x y

FR Tolerance: près d'Aix La chappele

brainaid: Near Aachen, which is close to Netherland/Belgium/German border.



FR Amiral29: Merci beaucoup à Brain...Il répond plus vite que son ombre! Il araison ceuuses qui possèdent bien l'Anglais ont le chat Anglais que diantre!



FR Tolerance: with a great horse jumping price

brainaid: Yes, Tolerance. I did that in my youth. Should we change topic? (En effet, brain a fait du cheval dans sa jeunesse)



Xolub: il est bien cool ce Brainaid...

Xolub: c'est l'air de la cote d'opale MMB, ils ne peuvent pas comprendre

FR Amiral29: me so!

RainbowChaser: thank you!! merci pour une bonne soiree des questions!!



brainaid: I hope I could answer most of your questions, if there is some discussion where you think I can contribute, please feel free to ask. I will be in the english room when I am online...

FR Tolerance: ok brain, thanks a lot for the time you spent with us

FR_axelxx: thanks brainaid, bye

MMB: Thanks, Brainaid

FR Amiral29: OK Thank's very much for this evening! Bye

brainaid: Tolerance, yes. I will go offline for a while now, relax and have some pizza

Xolub: thx Brainaid

brainaid: Thanks to all of you, this was fun. Never done this before...

FR Amiral29: and good luck for you! Mes hommages à Madame...

RainbowChaser: thanks brainaid!

FR Tolerance: and congratulations for your level and all races you won and you'll win !

brainaid: Merci, Amiral

FR Tolerance: oui Mjedi, on accueille brainaid !

brainaid: So good night everybody. See you at the start tomorrow!

brainaid: Fair winds and good luck

MJedi: welcome Brainaid

FR Amiral29: Ben alors c'était bien ce p'tit chat! Manquait un peu de boissons et de filles Mais enfin...

FR Tolerance: see you later brainaid, and good winds for tomorrow

FR Amiral29: A Axel un souci? -- BrainBreizh est là!

FR Tolerance: thank you brainaid

FR Tolerance: finalement c'est un bon gars ce brainaid !

Same here, no reply to my e-mail.