This year is your season, your boat has the latest technology, new sails, and you have selected your crew. It’s time to set the boat up and train to win!
On the water you follow the sailmakers polars, you know exactly what speeds and angles you need to hit for the conditions. You are almost there, but not quite. This is where smarttune from Cyclops comes in.
Get your forestay tension right, match the sag to make your sails set the way your sail designer intended, and the rest will follow. Sailing faster, pointing higher, this is the secret behind smarttune, and Peter Gustafsson from BLUR.se was one of the first to trial it.
“For some time, I’ve been looking for a way to measure forestay tension. smarttune is a much easier way to do it, and I wanted to be the first to install it,” comments Gustafsson.
J/111 BLUR installed smarttune in August 2019,
“Initial impressions were great. Installation was super simple, and with real-time forestay tension on the mast display, communications were much easier. Now we always know our set-up relevant to the conditions.”
BLUR is set-up, so the load sensor reading is visible on the mast B&G H5000 instruments. Gustafsson talks about the added value this feature brings, referring to both the data it collates for analysis as well as giving a clear on the water live reading.
The difference smarttune makes according to Gustafsson:
Hit the fast settings every time: With smarttune, we now have repeatable settings based on the wind conditions and sail plan.
Adjusting to the conditions: As the conditions change, boat settings change. For example, conditions in the Rolex Middle Sea Race and the Coastal Race Malta proved shifty and challenging. The smarttune base settings enabled us to change gear quicker and gather more data to analyse. We always have a cheat sheet in the cockpit.
Up to speed quicker: Sailing as part of a crew, can equate to many opinions. We try to be inclusive and involve everyone in important decisions. But then the basic stuff needs to be automatic. With smarttune, we hit our fast settings quickly and accurately always ahead of our main competition.
Safety: When racing, we push the boat and crew to the limits. smarttune means we can quickly see the load going through our forestay safe in the knowledge that we are never overloading it.
Communication: Communication is key. smarttune sends live data to our mast instrument display for the trimmers, tactician, and helm to read. Communication across our whole campaign has improved through the data we now receive.
Blur Sailing Team won ORC5 in the Rolex Middle Sea Race 2019 and their class in the Coastal Race. Their success was partly down to being more proactive with their backstay tension. Gustafsson comments that “With smarttune, we have a common number on the mast to work with. Both trimmers and the helmsman in the loop, we are more proactive when the conditions change. This leads to meters, that leads to boat lengths that lead to places on the scoreboard.”
Watch smarttune by Cyclops Marine in action.
