K3 would you mind changing that to a link or smaller image? It makes previous posts unreadable on certain lines
Thanks...

IMHO an absolute must on any sailors bookshelf is 'High Performance Sailing' by Frank Bethwaite. He has also now published his 2nd book "Higher Performance Sailing" with some chapters by his son Julian.

Some info on Frank and co:
Frank and his family have include three Olympic competitors, four World Championships, as well as several Grand Masters (over age 60) World Championships by Frank himself. Frank has been a coach on the Australian Olympic Team since 1972 and also pursued pastimes with model gliders (twice open world endurance record holder) and full size sailplanes.
and
Frank Bethwaite and his son Julian are probably best known for their role in developing the Australian 18' skiffs and the 49er.
However, Mr. Bethwaite's background as a meteorologist, engineer, and pilot gives him a unique perspective in analysing the sailor's wind and how to maximize performance. His studies of hull drag, sail drag, and sail drive give the serious racing sailor valuable new information on how to maximize performance in a variety of conditions.

This book focuses on high-performance sailcraft, but the lessons are applicable to almost any racing boat.

Mr. Bethwaite provides many charts, graphs, and illustrations to support his observations on maximizing performance. Although this is a technical book, it is written for the layman.

Whats in the books:
High Performance Sailing
==========================
Part One Wind
-------------------------------
The Racing Helmsman's Wind 1
The Gradient Wind 5
The Two Surface Winds 10
Light Airs 20
The Breeze Over A Cool Surface 32
Friction And The Wind/Wave Boundaries 41
Heat And Thermal Patterns 52
Winds Near Clouds 64
Winds Near Shores 73
Wind Appraisal And The Stability Index 92
Race Preparation [Ie Predicting Wind For The Race] 102
Sailing The Wind Patterns 119

Part Two Water
-------------------------------
Waves 147
Depth And The Warm Surface Layer 154
Currents And Tidal Stream 158

Part Three The Boat
-------------------------------
The Quest For Speed 164
Sails 188
Rigs 220
Foils 232
Hulls 247

Part 4 Handling
-------------------------------
Scope 277
Handling To Windward 279
Kinetics 320
Sailing Crosswind 333
Sailing Downwind 362

Index 409



Higher Performance Sailing
==========================
Part 1 Perspective,
-------------------------------
The Origins Of High Performance 7
The State Of The Extreme Arts 41

Part Two Wind
-------------------------------
Review Of Wind Dynamics 62
The Spectrum Of The Wind 98
The Quick Gust Peaks 101
Surges And Fades 108

Part Three The Boat
-------------------------------
The Drive To Sail Faster 121
Hulls - The Material Revolution 129
Hulls - The Design Response 134
Hulls That Don't Baulk 146
More Power - Trapezes And Wings 163
Handicaps. Performance Equalisation And Turns Per Mile 169
Sail Forces In Steady Airflows 176

Part 4 Performance Advances 1991 - 2008
-------------------------------
Evolution Of The B-18 Mark 201
Design Refinement For Long Course Speed 218 (by Julian)
Design Refinement For Short Course Manoeuverability 239
The 49er 243
Transition Years 257
The 29er 261
The Critical Ratios 269

Part 5 The Automatic Rig
-------------------------------
The Evolution Of Manual Adjustment 281
The Automatic Rig 291

Part 6 The Sailing Simulator
-------------------------------
The Evolution Of The Sailing Simulator 301
A New Way Of Thinking 306
The Simulator Printout 329

Part 7 Handling
-------------------------------
Fast Handling Technique 333
Handling An Apparent Wind Skiff 374
Sailing The Foil Moth (By Rohan Veal) 399

Part 8 Racing At A Higher Level
-------------------------------
Racing With Speed: 'Connecting The Dots' 407

Index 428

==========================
1st book has been on my shelf for 8 years and I must have read it 10 times virtually cover to cover, getting many new things out of it each time (it is also a great reference to take to the boat park with you!)
2nd is on its way in the mail (and I can't wait!)

--- Last Edited by Aaron Gage at 2012-01-26 08:42:52 ---

I thought it would be good to start a list of books people have found helpful - for any kind of yacht racing.

Yeah very true about the 12 hr updates - i recall a few times the forecast were almost opposites in direction only an hour in!

I think the question is - how often are they late? NOAA is not immune to publishing late forecasts either (although not very often)

Perhaps, if the race area is large enough that there is no extra precision to be gained from using Baltic then they should not be used? (SOL resamples the forecast over large areas to keep wx data to a reasonable limit)

======================
Indeed it is in a 'Round the Buoys' race lasting 1.5 - 2.5 hrs, in a 5000nm race it would be insignificant. You mention spreading the fleet - just look at the 'fan' resulting from ALL race starts on SOL - it is quite spread already ??

I think it is important to keep in mind what Sailonline's main line is - Simulating Ocean races... These shorter ones have been added in later, and are great to race - indeed also add a certain element of boat handling on occasion (the right polar in the right conditions) and offer an experience requiring quite different skill-set to these long VOR legs.

But there is already enough to contend with for non-sailors, and sailors alike, without adding ROW rules etc...

SOL just inst intended to cater for 'Pre-start manoeuvring' etc - Download and/or purchase VSK if you want that sort of racing

It also helps to keep threads on topic - you will get more repsonses, which may just result in some idea or the other making its way into SOL

Have things improved for you Jawz?

I would doubt it is Chrome slowing things down, indeed I prefer Chrome especially for SOLing precisely because it is faster (and automatically updates Flash for you)

I also used a 3G modem for many months and usually had no problems speed-wise, but certainly there were times when it would switch away from a 3G network to HSDPA or HSUPA. The former still provides fast downloads, but the later can be a bit slower.
HSDPA = High Speed Download Packet Access
HSUPA = High Speed Upload Packet Access

I could see in my modem software which type of network it was currently connected to. Another situation that can slow things down is if it is 'jumping' between network types quite frequently.

Also it is possible you have a dodgy SIM card. Your provider should replace it free of charge - or possibly the modem is faulty, which they should also replace for free if indeed this is that is the case.

Was (is?) it only SOL you notice speed drops with, or other websites to (like the VOR live stream and the like, not Google)

Also, if you could be more specific about what you mean by 'response from the server' it would be helpful. Did the client or wx take longer to download? Commands you sent take longer to turn up in the client? DC list refreshes? etc
Perhaps uneven time intervals between boat updates - some taking the usual 15 seconds while others may take longer?

Yes it did seem to 'fall over' for a few hours... Not sure what was wrong. Was just about to email Brainaid when it started working again of its own accord...

As a URL is always a single unbroken string (no spaces) long URL can mess with the alignment of the post(s) - as Im sure you have all seen.
One suggestion by Jack is to use a URL shortening service like tinyurl or something, but yet another alternative is to use the BBCode 'url' tag. This is perhaps an even more 'elegant' solution as you can have any text you want point to the url.
This is how it looks:
[url=http://www.sailonline.org]Text goes here[/url]

You end up with something that looks like this:
SOL
And it can even span multiple lines.

There are many other BBCode tags to allow you to format text in your posts, like italics or bold or underlined, even coloured. When you are composing the post you should see below the input box 'You can use BBCode in your posts' - where the word BBCode is a link to the Wikipedia entry, listing the various tags.

For the curious, BBCode stands for 'Bulletin Board Code' and usually maps directly to HTML tags.

I'm not quite sure how differences in coordinate systems can be responsible for running aground, especially as SOL does not use coordinates for any inputs, but you may be interested to know that in an upcoming client release there will be the option to display coordinates as either decimal degrees or degrees decimal minutes. The DDM format will also include direction, so instead of -1.50 it will display '1°30.0S' (or W if a longitude)