What an awesome city Istanbul is!

Thanks to all Turks for all the sights, videos, and commentary of your beautiful city and the country as a whole. I sincerely hope to visit Turkey someday.

Kind Regards,

Antonio

I totally agree with Victory's suggestions too. If possible it could be taken one step further by having the ability to toggle on or off the rhumbline and lettering for the waypoints, by toggling the rhumbline and lettering off when needed it would make planing and navigating around waypoints a lot easier when in full zoom. I have no idea how hard that is to code though... just put it on wishlist.

Cheers!

From the Farr 30 Class Rules:

25.1 NUMBER OF SAILS ABOARD - unless otherwise prescribed by Sailing Instructions the number of sails carried aboard may be less than, but shall not exceed:
- 1 mainsail
- 3 jibs, one of which shall be the FARR 30 Class heavy weather jib (conforming to current ISAF Offshore Special Regulations)
- 4 spinnakers:
(1) Masthead symmetric - which shall be constructed from nylon cloth weighing no less than 40 grams/meter2 (polyester cloth is not permitted)
(1) Masthead symmetric - that shall be constructed from cloth weighing no less than 30 grams/meter2
(1) Masthead asymmetric - that shall be constructed from cloth weighing no less than 30 grams/meter2
(1) Fractional symmetric or asymmetric - that shall be constructed from cloth weighing no less than 40 grams/meter2
A storm trysail and/or a storm jib conforming to current ISAF Offshore Special Regulations may be carried in addition to class inventory. These do not require sail buttons.

So your polar is absolutely, positively...correct.
Hurray for 3 humps! (I'm talking about the polar...don't get any ideas!!)

I witnessed the most beautiful sunrise I've seen in a while, thought I might share it with you. Pic taken just before today's Ouzo Rally 2 start on my cell phone (only 1.3 MP) couldn't find my good camera!.

Have a great day all!

Cheers!

Nice work Schakel.

Thanks

I'm all for creating divisions as far as ranking is concerned. However I enjoy competing against everybody at the same time; routers, non-routers, AI's, ET's, etc. I believe splitting the fleet into different starts is counterproductive in a "the best brings out the best" kind of sense. There's a ton of very talented IRL sailors on SOL, most of them are at the top of the leaderboard consistently REGARDLESS of the tools they choose to use and I like trying to match wits with them. It's a game and the point of the game is to get to the finish line before your adversary, but most of the time I see it as a learning tool, I enjoy it when I screw up and I enjoy it a little bit more when I do well. The point is I always enjoy it.

Regards,

Antonio

If I remember correctly, SOL didn't have any problems on the SOR Leg 5 Quingdao-Rio crossing the International Date Line. However it did have a problem when we reached the "End of the World" at 70 deg. S not sure if it was because of the map projection or if it was because the grib files only covered to 70 deg. S. I'm pretty sure Brainaid can shine some light on the situation....

...Ooops didn't notice Brainaid had already made his comments!!

--- Last Edited by Exmeromotu at 2010-07-30 15:22:42 ---

Could a race from say Maui to somewhere in northern Scandinavia via the Bering Strait and Arctic Ocean be possible?

Doc,

On your next race, don't be afraid to ask questions be it either on the Chat or on the forum. I'll be more than happy to help you get up to speed, I'm usually active (or lurking) on the English and Spanish chat rooms.

Cheers!

What's up Doc! (sorry couldn't help myself!)

I'll do my best to answer your questions:

1) I have not played in any VR race in a looong time in fact the ONLY time they answered an email of mine was when I asked to be removed from their database (even if you don't join a race your "ghost" yacht keeps sailing races this helps them with artificially boosting their number of entries for boasting and PR purposes) . So I can't comment on the "new and improved" game engine but... If they haven't fixed the gybing or tacking indefinetely between two wind cells and boats speeding along at 4kts. in 0kts. of wind (among other things), then I still think VR is a waste of time. In SOL once you tack or gybe you take a performance hit (as IRL) which is cumulative if you do it too quickly just like IRL, if you sail into a 0kt. wind hole you stop just like IRL. SOL's server crashes rarely, but on when it crashes it crashes for EVERYBODY, in VR the "English" server always had problems, while the "French" server rarely did...hmmm!!


2) With weather updates 4 times a day SOL is not "Euro centered" EVERYBODY has at least one weather update at an inconvenient time of day which levels the playing field worldwide, but also has the effect that you have to keep an eye on your boat at least 4 times a day instead of two with VR. If you were sailing IRL on a single-handed race you wouldn't establish a 12 hours on - 12 hours off watch system, would you? The accuracy of the weather forecasts in SOL is much better than the ones from VR, as usual in light and fluky winds the forecasts have to be taken with "a grain of salt" cause the weather vary drastically from update to the next just like IRL. In conclusion I think you can get away with checking your boat 3 times a day (skip the one update at weird hours of the night and take your chances). Some top skippers do it and it works fairly well for them. But checking your boat twice a day just doesn't cut it, unless its one of the long ocean races.

3) SOL does not charge anything for a race, you can play for free as long as you like with EXACTLY the same tools as those who are members. A 35 EUR/year membership to the Sailonline Yacht Club (SYC) gets your boat on the SOL cumulative rankings. You still get ranked in each indivdual race if you are not a member. However, if you like the platform and enjoy the competition I urge you to become a member for the reasons exposed in my previous post.

Cheers,

Toño