What is it ?
In 2016 and 2017, as part of the lead up events, a virtual Melbourne to Osaka yacht race was run. With the Main Start in the Sundance Marine Melbourne Osaka Cup scheduled for 14:00 on March 25th, the Virtual Race will start 15:00 AEDT on the same day.
Compete from your arm chair using your computer or compatible device. A fun experience and of course a competition, the virtual race will see you competing with the polars of a Sunfast 3600, there are three of them in the real race. With a slightly different start location (the Port Philip Heads), it will test your navigation and weather forecasting and tactical skills. It is a simulated race, proudly hosted and run by SailOnline. Our clothing sponsor for the Osaka Cup have generously donated great prizes to the first three place winners in the Virtual Race.
In the 2016 M2O Prelude race we had 320 entrants from about 39 different nations. Of those, 40 boats were AUS flagged and about 15 were NZL. In the 2017 M2O Prelude race we had 264 entrants. Usually the fleet has more European and USA entrants reflecting their membership numbers and origins of Sailonline.
Sailonline.org is a non-profit, community owned company registered in Sweden. The management team are all volunteers located in various parts of the world, Stockholm, Helsinki, London, Milan and Melbourne.
How does it work ?
The quickest and best way to learn is to watch this video and have a practice before the real race starts. Warning: Any instructions you put in while playing around will be wiped out just before race start, don’t forget to enter your starting instructions in the one hour prior.
You basically log in from time to time during the approx. 5 week long race to schedule heading changes or wind angle changes. The system loads up the NOAA wind grib files every 6hrs and releases them in 10 minute increments producing an ever changing wind situation that is as close as possible to the weather in reality. The simulation will then compute boat speed based on boat polars (speed prediction for each wind angle and wind speed), the system will then position you as a result of conditions. The combination of real-time forecast winds and high quality boat physics makes an ideal platform for learning and practicing the art of weather navigation.
How do I get started?
First, go to sailonline.org and click on Getting Started from the menu. This will lead you through registering a boat/username, point you to the list of active races, and suggest you read the manual.
On the right-hand side of the main page you will also find a list of active races where you will find a few useful links: The INFO link tells us about the race course incl. marks to be rounded etc. The Particulars link tells us about the boat including polars, a bit of history, and a picture of the boat (a Sunfast 3600 for this race). Most importantly it tells us when the scheduled weather updates will occur. In our case they will be occurring at 0430 / 1030 / 1630 / 2230 UTC. Note that because people compete in SOL from all over the globe dates/times are always given in UTC. Many SOLers actually set an alarm every six hours so they can check their plans and make any adjustments that may be required.
Next you’ll go to the Melbourne to Osaka 2018 race page, but first time you will be asked to choose your boat (not a lot of choice for this race) and ‘Register in the race’.
You should then see something like what is shown in the picture above. The plus and minus buttons zoom in and out and you can drag the map to reposition it. The middle button (the pink boat) centers the map on your boat. The steering wheel button lets you graphically set your desired course over ground / true wind angle to sail. If you click on the steering wheel tab on the right hand side of the screen then it will show you where you are currently sailing on your polar. Those were the quick and dirty instructions that should get you going, but it really is worth reading the Online Manual.
Fairly quickly you will get used to being able to set direction changes (DC’s) ahead of time. This can be done using the Delay for checkbox and entering a delay such as 1.5 or 1h30m both of which indicate a delay of an hour and a half. And once you’ve set one (or more) of these up you can go to the clock tab to see what DC’s you have scheduled, after clicking the Refresh button. Whenever you have a DC set you will notice in the status bar at the top of the screen that it tells you exactly how long it is until your next DC will take effect.
One trap for new players is trying to set a bunch of DC’s before the start. Just remember that all boats get dragged back to the starting line one hour before the scheduled start of the race.
In need of some help or advice?
The SOL client includes a chat tab. If you have any questions that is probably the best place to go. The solfans.org site is a great resource for those who want some more insight and want to sail a bit harder. The SOL Forum is also useful but probably a bit too general.
Give me more tools!
Whether you just want something that gives you a hint such as Kroppyer’s WW Inspector or something at the extreme end that allows you to connect your favourite routing software (eg. Expedition or MaxSea) to your virtual boat, the solfans.org site has links to all of the most important tools.
The first tool everyone should try is AGage’s WXInspector as this gives you 90% of the functionality of a high end weather routing tool.