Embedded Files
Reading
Reading
Setting up
Setting up
Detect a larger than before lift
Using the Ansar 2 tactical compass in oscillating wind shifts
Using the Ansar 2 tactical compass in oscillating wind shifts
Videos
Read the compass http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35TRKp7wxQo
Setting up the compass http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr2TcJCCjMo
Detect a larger than before wind shift. Video for Ansar 4 compass, works the same way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq--v_xOOqk
Inside the compass has white vertical pointers mounted at the edge of the compass card. When the boat changes course these pointers move sideways.
The compass has three movable colored markers on its outside, yellow and red in the picture above.
When setting up the compass the two round markers (yellow in picture to the left) are set to mark Best Lift on each tack. The red marker is set between the round markers.
To read the compass you just observe the position of the pointer with respect to the markers.
Detailed description below.
Setting the markers according to the wind shifts before use
Setting the markers according to the wind shifts before use
Sail close hauled on starboard tack with trim and attention to steering as when racing.
Move the starboard green "best lift" marker, until it seems to touch the pointer, as shown in picture.
After a while you will probably get better lift and the pointer goes behind the green marker, see picture.
Move the green starboard marker again until it seems to touch the pointer, as the picture shows.
The world's fastest skate sail, 120 km/h (75 MPH) is another of my top performance designs.
By repeating the last operation when needed the green marker will after a while indicate best lift.
When doing these adjustments and there is no lift on starboard tack (the pointer is away from the green marker) you tack to port and adjust the port green marker for best lift on port tack in the same way.
Later with no lift on port tack you tack to starboard again and continue adjusting, and so on.
After a while the two green markers have been set to mark best lift on their respective tack.
Finally set the red marker right between the the green markers and the compass is now ready to use.
This setting up takes in the order of half an hour because you must sail through several oscillations of the wind direction to get a fair set up as the oscillations are never uniform.
The compass is adjusted without the need to note figures and do calculations! And the method can be used while racing!
A comparison with electronic compasses
A comparison with electronic compasses
The typical instruction for adjusting an electronic compass suggest you sail close hauled on both tacks and write down the best lifts and the worst headers. Thereafter you have to calculate the average course on both tacks and enter these figures into the compass.
The instruction doesn't say how you get the new figures you need to enter when the mean wind direction changes while racing. The method that requires you to sail in the worst headers can certainly not be used if you want to win. The Ansar 2 compass, on the other hand, only requires sailing in best lift for adjustment. This you can do while racing without losing.
After the start you read the compass like this (on starboard tack)
After the start you read the compass like this (on starboard tack)
When the pointer is up against the best lift marker you sail with best lift. (That is the way you did set it.)
When the pointer is just at the red marker the boat has been headed so far that you are sailing with zero lift, almost on the wrong tack.
When the pointer is well into the red marker (actually the same distance as between the red and green marker) you are sailing in the worst header, and you would normally tack.
When you know the pointer positions for Best lift, Zero lift and Worst header you can easily judge the lift or header size for other positions.
Reading the compass on port tack is equivalent, the only difference is that you use the port green "best lift" marker.
At a glance you see where the direction of the wind is between best lift and worst header. No figures to note, read or compare!
The compass signals if the average wind direction is shifting!
The compass signals if the average wind direction is shifting!
Now let us say you have sailed once around the course and is starting on the second windward leg. When you look at the compass it looks like this: The pointer has gone beyond the best lift marker. You won't miss this if you just look at the compass now and then. It means that the lift is larger than before on this tack. The reason can be that the the mean wind direction is changing. Or it is just a larger best lift than before.
If you sail with an electronic compass you must keep notes of best lift and compare these with the current reading to se if the lift is better than before.
Readjusting the compass after the average wind direction has changed
Readjusting the compass after the average wind direction has changed
If you decide that the larger lift than before on one tack means that the average direction of the wind has changed you adjust the markers by moving the windward best lift green marker to the new position for best lift. Thereafter you move the other two markers the same distance in the same direction.
When the wind shifts are very large there could be a risk of using the wrong pointer. The compass has a system to ensure this doesn't happen. E.g. every other pointer is marked with a dot. And there is an indicator on the compass which is set to show or not to show a dot depending on if you are using a pointer with or without a dot.
Setting up a tactical compass takes about half an hour!
Some manufacturers say you set their tactical compass by heading the boat into the wind and push a button on the compass or take a reading. Other manufacturers instruct the user to briefly sail close hauled, and push a button on the compass or take a reading.
That's a nice and quick method - but useless since the wind direction will be
anywhere when button is pushed or the reading taken.
To get the compass correctly set up you must take your time and observe several oscillations of the wind direction.
Here in northern Europe where I sail this usually takes at least half an hour.
Things from my desk. Sailing boats I have raced and sailed. My humble abode.
100 MPH?, 160 km/h? My design High Speed Wing Skate Sail. Sailor in wing The only one in the world, as far as I know.
75 MPH, 120 km/h. My design Course Racing Wing Skate Sail
I think I was first to show that skate sailing in wings is much faster that its predecessor with the sailor standing to leeward of a fabric sail. Top speed is some 75 MPH, 120 km/h. That is 30% faster than its predecessor.
Photo:The wing hangs on the shoulders and I wear ice skates.
It sails 4 times faster than the wind.
Boats that I have sailed and raced A C-class sailing canoe (local Swedish design). An Elvström Trapetz two man dinghy. A Star Boat. Two Tornado Catamarans, once an Olympic class. Two Laser dinghies.When I sold my first Tactical Compass, Ansar 1, to sailors I was engaged as a tactician on a 6 m R-yacht and a very successful Scampi Half Ton Class, Lady Luck.
Photo. Camping trip in a Laser Dinghy This was on large Lake Saimaa in Finland for half a month with a friend in his dinghy.
This is a small area wing sail and should therefore be able to reach higher speeds before you are over powered.
With this wing over powering should come around 100 mph, 160 km/h.
Wing still in modification and testing phase - and right high speed conditions are very rare - about once a year.
My Four Record Speed sailing projects
Some 100 have been built world wide. I have designed, built and raced some twenty of these wings.
Small boat sailing to Iceland on the cold northern Atlantic OceanSailed with a friend, Lennart Berglund, in his 28 ft boat. A very rewarding three months trip: From Stockholm, east coast Sweden, Kiel Canal in Germany, west of England, Scotland, Faeroe Islands, Iceland, (from there by airplane to Greenland, Kulusuk), Shetland Islands, Norway, Goeta Canal from west to east through Sweden, Stockholm.
At night 39 F, 4 C, approaching Iceland.
On the west coast of England we got a Gale Warning. As the nearest port we had a chart for was Liverpool we headed there. (As charts were expensive then, USD20, we only had a few). We got in before the storm hit....
The view from my humble abode in central Stockholm, Sweden. Beyond the water, a bay, lies the Karlberg Palace.
The bay is connected to the oceans. There is a public jetty just outside my abode so you can arrive by boat for a visit.
The castle dates back to the end of 1640.
My Tactical Compasses for Sail Racing.Wind shifts At-A-GlanceAnimation: The position of the central pointer gives you the wind shift information At-A-Glance! Wind is here from the right.
"It helped me to gain at least three or four places in each major regatta", writes Ed Baird, about the Ansar 1 compass.
Other famous buyers are Iain Murray, Australia, Peter Norlin, Sweden.
Karlberg Palace.
Freelance photography and writing. E.g. my E-Book: 100 steps to Ultra Light Luggage and Less Heat StressPhoto: No-Bag-Travel. All in the pockets for weeks! After decades of traveling light on the world's hot roads in sixty countries, several circumnavigations, minimizing, testing and eliminating gear - finding ways to manage without, I have writen the above E-Book.
(My note: Latest version of this table is here on IW page, 9 Jan 2018)
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Email, Postal address & Telephone number.
Copyright © 2009-2018 Anders Ansar. All rights reserved. You are welcome to use pictures and words, uncommercially, as long as you include a link to my pages.
Modified Jan. 2018.
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