SailBot Sailing Instrument is a simple and not too expensive application that will turn your smartphone or a tablet into a helpful sailing instrument. This application is especially useful for those who don’t always sail regattas on performance sailing boats equipped with sophisticated and expensive instruments. If you sail either on a chartered or on your own boat which initial purpose is not racing, you could gain some seconds using SailBot.
This application measures distance to line, it has an adjustable countdown timer (stopwatch), it measures your speed and tells your heading with a regard to VMG (velocity made good). Distance to line parameter is crucial during the pre-start procedure which estimation is a virtue of well experienced tacticians, gained through years of competing. Many boats are equipped with countdown timers (stopwatch) but sailors usually forget to engage it during the fuss of the pre-start procedure. Furthermore, those built-in stopwatches are usually very complicated to handle so here is another advantage of using the all-in-one application. Almost the same situation is with the speed as well. Built-in speedometers usually count speed through the water while the application counts speed over ground, given by GPS as it is the case with distance to line, heading and VMG.
In order to use the advantages of this application your task is to ping each side of starting line and manually set the wind angle. The application then calculates all other parameters and features.
The manufacturer of SailBot warns that continuous use of this application could exhaust the battery of the device very quickly. To extend the life of battery it is highly recommended to use a Bluetooth GPS receiver.
More information about this application and its performances can be found on SailBot website as well the information about the price which amounts to $ 4.99 for a limited time. And more information about sailboat charter can be found here.
I wish you a calm sea, a fine wind and a strong mast!