Collecting NMEA Data With Fewer Wires
When we originally developed Rockit we used various methods to get data into the Laptop that was running the software. Back then circa 2016 (cue a certain amount of nostalgia) we used to connect things up by bending wires together. You could say our wiring looked slightly agricultural but it was probably closer to the techniques I was using to build a model train set with my son… in fact quite of a lot of the tools we used were dual use…
Time has moved on, the 10 year old is at university and we can now buy a range of products that make it really easy to extract data from a boats network with a bare minimum of wiring.
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Racing To The Lonely Tower And Back
Its a pretty simple idea. Leave Cowes at about 9.30am. Sail East down the Solent with the tide, pass between the forts off Portsmouth then head South East to the Tower. Round the Tower to Port, Sail back west to the Winner Navigation mark on the approaches to Portsmouth then back to Cowes. Remembering to leave Snowdon to starboard on the way out and port on the way back. If the breeze is good then the tide should turn soon after you round the Tower. Its roughly 35 miles there and back. A good early season warm up that if the weather is nice gets a good turnout.
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I want to go fast every time !
In the last post we talked about the need to know when you are really going fast; not just thinking you are going fast.
If we know when we are fast should we not be able to work out exactly what we are doing to make the boat go fast ?
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So how do you know what fast actually looks like ?
We all know the feeling we hit the top of a wave the boat surfs accelerates then goes quiet, everyone watches the numbers on the mast instruments and at that point you set the highest speed score for the day. You put a score on the board for everyone else who helms the boat that day to beat….. and when they don’t you have bragging rights for a little while.
The question though is are you actually going as fast as you should be and if you are do actually know ?
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What Is VMG ?
VMG appears on a lot of marine instrument systems but is in our opinion not well understood.
The standard definition is;
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