Fine tune your sail trim skills
NauticEd, an online sailing school, has a lot of cool and useful information and graphics to improve your sailing performance. One of them is an application called NED that is helpful in understanding sail trim and points of sail. It takes a little time to figure out the controls, but it's both useful and fun once you do. Give it a try.
How to use ned
NED's Elements
Helm
The helm is controlled by the split button at the bottom center of NED.
Click the starboard split and the sailboat will turn to starboard. You'll notice the boat will straighten up once you have released the helm button. This is because on a real wind meter on a real boat the boat always stays pointing up and the meter tells you where the wind is in relation to your boat. Once the boat straightens up, you'll notice the wind angle and the heading will have changed according to how much you turned.
Hold the helm button down and the boat will turn 5 degrees every ½ second or so.
Sails
Sails are controlled by the winches which are located on port and starboard at the bottom of NED. The starboard winch controls the head sail. The port winch controls the mainsail.
NED gives you a number above each winch to represent the number of turns on the winch. The jib sheet is winched between 12 turns (all the way out) and 45 turns (all the way in). The main sail is winched between 5 turns (all the way out) and 35 turns (all the way in).
Wind Vector
The red triangular arrow located outside the wind dial represents where the wind is coming from. Click on the triangular arrow and you'll be able to adjust the speed of the wind. Initially, the wind starts at 60 degrees off your starboard bow.
Heading
The heading changes when you click or hold down the helm button. Initially you are heading north.
Efficiency Meter.
The horizontal meter at the bottom of NED indicates to you how efficient your sails are trimmed.
If the meter is all the way to the left you have some trimming to do. If it's all the way to the right, your sails are perfectly trimmed and your boat speed should be maximized.
Heel Angle
The closer your boat is trimmed to 30 degrees off the wind and the greater the wind speed, the greater will be the heel angle. This represents the real world and there is nothing you can do about it except reef your sails. NED may incorporate this feature in latter versions.
Depth
The changing depth meter merely simulates that you are moving. There is no control here. However in the real world you should always watch the depth.
NED is brought to you FREE by NauticEd – the World's Most Advanced Online Sailing Education.
Helm
The helm is controlled by the split button at the bottom center of NED.
Click the starboard split and the sailboat will turn to starboard. You'll notice the boat will straighten up once you have released the helm button. This is because on a real wind meter on a real boat the boat always stays pointing up and the meter tells you where the wind is in relation to your boat. Once the boat straightens up, you'll notice the wind angle and the heading will have changed according to how much you turned.
Hold the helm button down and the boat will turn 5 degrees every ½ second or so.
Sails
Sails are controlled by the winches which are located on port and starboard at the bottom of NED. The starboard winch controls the head sail. The port winch controls the mainsail.
NED gives you a number above each winch to represent the number of turns on the winch. The jib sheet is winched between 12 turns (all the way out) and 45 turns (all the way in). The main sail is winched between 5 turns (all the way out) and 35 turns (all the way in).
Wind Vector
The red triangular arrow located outside the wind dial represents where the wind is coming from. Click on the triangular arrow and you'll be able to adjust the speed of the wind. Initially, the wind starts at 60 degrees off your starboard bow.
Heading
The heading changes when you click or hold down the helm button. Initially you are heading north.
Efficiency Meter.
The horizontal meter at the bottom of NED indicates to you how efficient your sails are trimmed.
If the meter is all the way to the left you have some trimming to do. If it's all the way to the right, your sails are perfectly trimmed and your boat speed should be maximized.
Heel Angle
The closer your boat is trimmed to 30 degrees off the wind and the greater the wind speed, the greater will be the heel angle. This represents the real world and there is nothing you can do about it except reef your sails. NED may incorporate this feature in latter versions.
Depth
The changing depth meter merely simulates that you are moving. There is no control here. However in the real world you should always watch the depth.
NED is brought to you FREE by NauticEd – the World's Most Advanced Online Sailing Education.
Access to NED is provided FREE to the world courtesy of NauticEd.org