How to record a sailing track on Apple Watch, which app to use, and how to get the data into ChartedSails for race and performance analysis.

The Apple Watch is a great sailing GPS tracker hiding in plain sight. Recent models have multi-band GPS, are water-resistant well past anything a dinghy sailor needs, and they're already on the wrist of half the boat. The catch: Apple's built-in Workout app doesn't have a "Sailing" activity, and the GPX tracks it produces are awkward to export.

We've tried every Apple Watch sailing app on the market. Today, the best workflow for ChartedSails is **[Open GPX Tracker](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/open-gpx-tracker/id984503772)**.

## Why Open GPX Tracker

Open GPX Tracker is a watchOS app that does one thing well: it records your GPS track and exports it as a clean GPX file you can drop into ChartedSails (or anywhere else that takes GPX). It's free, has no ads, and the same app we recommend to iPhone-only sailors. Compared to alternatives:

- The built-in **Workout app** records a track, but Apple makes the GPX hard to extract — you need a third-party tool to pull it out of the Health export.
- **WorkOutDoors** is excellent for general outdoor sports but is built around live navigation, not race-quality export.
- **Open GPX Tracker** is purpose-built for "record now, export later" — which is exactly what ChartedSails needs. And the Apple Watch version is genuinely well-made, not an afterthought.

Apple's GPS hardware on the watch is excellent, especially on the Ultra and the Series 8 and later (multi-band L1+L5). The bottleneck for sailing isn't the watch — it's the app.

## How to record a sail

1. Charge your Apple Watch fully the night before. Continuous GPS for a full racing day will drain a Series-7-class watch by the end; an Ultra or Series 10 has comfortable headroom.
2. Install [Open GPX Tracker](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/open-gpx-tracker/id984503772) from the App Store. The watch app installs automatically when you install the iPhone app.
3. In the iPhone app's settings, set the **Activity Type** to **Fitness** — that bumps the GPS sample rate up, which matters for clean tack and gybe detection in ChartedSails.
4. Install the [ChartedSails mobile app](/app) on the same iPhone if you haven't already — that's what registers as an "Open In..." target for GPX files in step 8.
5. On your watch, open Open GPX Tracker and tap **Start** before you leave the dock.
6. Sail.
7. When you're back, tap **Stop** on the watch. The recorded GPX syncs to the Open GPX Tracker app on your iPhone automatically.
8. Open the iPhone Open GPX Tracker app, find the session, tap the share button, and choose **Open In... → ChartedSails**. The ChartedSails app receives the file and imports it straight into your account.

If you're sailing with crew or other boats, everyone can do the same and ChartedSails will line up the tracks side-by-side. This is the simplest way to get a multi-boat training debrief without buying a single piece of extra hardware.

## Recording tips for racing

- **Water lock on, GPS at full power.** Don't put the watch in low-power mode during a race.
- **Start the recording before the warning gun**, not at the start signal. We want the prestart maneuvering captured — that's where most of the lessons live.
- **Stop the recording at the dock**, not at the finish. Final approach data is useful for sanity-checking the track.
- **One file per race day is fine.** ChartedSails will detect multiple races within a single track. You don't need to start and stop between races.

## What you can do in ChartedSails afterwards

Once your Apple Watch GPX is uploaded, ChartedSails treats it exactly like any other sailing track:

- Full **track replay** with speeds and headings at every second.
- **Automatic maneuver detection** — every tack and gybe, with entry / exit speeds and VMG loss.
- **Race detection** — start line, beats, runs, mark roundings, leg-by-leg numbers.
- **Wind detection** from the track shape, so you get true wind angles and VMG without an instrument feed.
- A shareable **Sailing Report** PDF for the day.

## Will ChartedSails have its own Apple Watch app?

Yes — we're working on it. The current Open GPX Tracker workflow is reliable, but it's two apps and a manual export step. A first-party ChartedSails Apple Watch app would record, sync over the iPhone app, and land on your dashboard automatically — the same experience our Garmin sync gives today.

If you want to be notified when it's available, [drop us a line](mailto:ahoy@chartedsails.com) and we'll add you to the early-access list.

---

## Sailing with other devices

ChartedSails works with most sailing GPS hardware. If you also race with one of these, set them up the same way:

- [Sailing with a Garmin watch](/blog/take-your-garmin-watch-sailing) — Fēnix, Forerunner, Instinct
- [Sailing with a Vakaros Atlas](/blog/sailing-with-a-vakaros-atlas) — Atlas 2 and Atlas Edge
- [Sailing with a Velocitek Prostart](/blog/sailing-with-a-velocitek-prostart) — Prostart and SpeedPuck

[See all sailing devices we support →](/sailing-with)


Sailing with an Apple Watch (2026): The Best App and Workflow

A guide to sailing with a Vakaros Atlas — choosing between Atlas 2 and Atlas Edge, recording quality tracks, and getting full race analysis in ChartedSails.

The Vakaros Atlas has become the default high-end sailing instrument for one-design racers — Waszp, Melges, J/70, ILCA, Moth, Foiling Optimist programs, and serious club sailors. Compact, ruggedized, with race-quality GPS and a screen that survives the cockpit. Pair it with ChartedSails and you get an end-to-end recording-to-analysis workflow that's hard to beat.

This guide covers which Vakaros device to pick, how to record clean data, and how to feed it straight into ChartedSails for race and performance analysis.

## Atlas 2 vs Atlas Edge — which one?

Vakaros makes two main devices for the deck:

- **Atlas 2** is the all-rounder. Big screen, GPS + compass + accelerometer, race timer, OCS detection (via RaceSense), 30+ hour battery. It's what you mount on the cockpit floor of a J/70 or on the deck of a foiler.
- **Atlas Edge** is the smaller mast-mountable version. Same GPS core, slimmer profile, designed to sit on a mast bracket where the helm can see it on a skiff or dinghy. Less screen real estate, but the data quality is the same.

If you're sailing a keelboat with crew, **Atlas 2**. If you're solo on a dinghy and want a clean mast-mount, **Atlas Edge**. Either way, ChartedSails treats the data identically.

## Recording a clean track

Out of the box the Atlas captures sailing tracks well. A few tips that matter for race-quality analysis in ChartedSails:

- **Start recording before the warning gun.** The prestart maneuvering — circling, time-and-distance to the line — is where most of the lessons live.
- **Use RaceSense** if you're racing on a course with a committee boat that broadcasts start signals. The Atlas will time-stamp the gun precisely; ChartedSails uses that timing to align leg-by-leg analysis.
- **Ping the marks**, or trust the auto-detection. The Atlas lets you ping a mark as you pass it. ChartedSails will use those pings to lock down course geometry. If you don't ping, our automatic course detection will infer the layout from your track shape — usually fine for windward-leeward courses.
- **Leave the device on through the dock-in.** The end-of-session approach data helps sanity-check the track and is occasionally useful for post-race analysis.

## Get your data into ChartedSails — automatically

The good news: you don't have to think about exporting files. Once you've connected your Vakaros account to ChartedSails, **every session syncs automatically**. New sails appear on your dashboard within minutes of you docking and the Atlas sending data to Vakaros's cloud.

[Read the full Vakaros Link announcement →](/blog/vakaros-link)

**To set it up on the web:**

1. Log in to [ChartedSails](https://www.chartedsails.com/profile/vakaros).
2. Click the menu, select **Vakaros**.
3. Enter your Vakaros credentials and click **Connect**.
4. Done. Past sessions are one click to import; future ones flow in automatically.

**Or on mobile:**

1. Open the [ChartedSails app](/app) on your phone.
2. Tap the **Profile** icon, then tap **Vakaros**.
3. Enter your Vakaros credentials and tap **Connect**.
4. Turn on **Auto-import** and every future session arrives on its own.

The integration is **free** — you don't need a paid ChartedSails subscription to use it.

If you're running a team or a coaching program, you can link your sailors' Vakaros accounts to their ChartedSails accounts once, and from then on their data arrives without anyone having to upload anything. No more "everyone please upload your files" group chat.

## What you get in ChartedSails

A Vakaros track in ChartedSails gives you:

- A full **track replay** with second-by-second SOG, COG, and compass heading.
- **Automatic maneuver detection** — every tack and gybe broken out with entry/exit speeds, VMG loss, turn time.
- **Race detection** — start, beats, runs, mark roundings, leg-by-leg numbers — automatic when the Atlas captured a race.
- **Multi-boat comparison** — if your training partners also use Vakaros and ChartedSails, all the tracks line up side-by-side in the same conditions.
- **Sailing Reports** — a shareable PDF that wraps the day into a structured debrief: weather, scoresheet, start analysis, leg-by-leg.

Vakaros records the kinematics. ChartedSails turns them into a debrief.

## Troubleshooting

**My session didn't sync automatically.** Two checks: (1) Is the Vakaros Link connection still active in your profile? (2) Did the Atlas finish uploading to Vakaros's cloud? The Atlas needs network — it'll sync over WiFi when it gets one.

**The track has gaps.** Usually a GPS reception issue (you were near a tall mast, in a marina, or the device was wet inside). Compare against the same session on a teammate's track to confirm whether it's location-specific.

**Looks like my boat is going sideways.** By default ChartedSails uses the heading from the compass inside your Atlas, and sometimes that compass isn't calibrated, or metal nearby (a metal mast, the boom, the keel) throws it off. To ignore the compass and let ChartedSails infer heading from course-over-ground, hover over the boat name in the **Instruments** panel, click the **gear icon**, choose **Data Options**, and tick **Ignore Heading**.

**ChartedSails put my start line in the wrong place.** All of this is editable in the session view — drag the line, move marks, re-detect. The leg-by-leg numbers recompute live.

---

## Sailing with other devices

ChartedSails works with most sailing GPS hardware. If you also race with one of these, set them up the same way:

- [Sailing with a Garmin watch](/blog/take-your-garmin-watch-sailing) — Fēnix, Forerunner, Instinct
- [Sailing with an Apple Watch](/blog/sailing-with-an-apple-watch) — with Open GPX Tracker
- [Sailing with a Velocitek Prostart](/blog/sailing-with-a-velocitek-prostart) — Prostart and SpeedPuck

[See all sailing devices we support →](/sailing-with)

---

*Vakaros, Atlas, Atlas Edge, and RaceSense are trademarks of Vakaros. ChartedSails is not affiliated with or endorsed by Vakaros.*


Sailing with a Vakaros Atlas (2026): Atlas 2, Edge, and Analysis

How to use a Velocitek Prostart or SpeedPuck for sailing — recording tracks, nailing race starts, and getting full analysis in ChartedSails.

The Velocitek lineup has been mounted all over dinghies for over a decade. Tough, simple, accurate. The Prostart in particular is still one of the cleanest race-start instruments you can buy: distance and burn time to the line, in big readable digits, with no setup.

What it doesn't do is post-race analysis. That's where ChartedSails comes in. Pair your Velocitek with ChartedSails and the same device that won you the start gives you the full debrief afterwards.

## Which Velocitek to use

- **Velocitek Prostart** — the line-distance and race-start specialist. Mark a start line by sailing past each end, and the Prostart shows distance-to-line and burn time in real time. Records the full GPS track in the background, which is what we care about for analysis.
- **Velocitek SpeedPuck** — compact SOG and max-speed display, popular on windsurfers and small dinghies. The Classic SpeedPuck records a GPS track; some early displays don't, so check yours before relying on it for analysis.

For ChartedSails-quality analysis, the **Prostart** is the safest bet — it records a 4Hz track every session and exports to a `.vtk` file that we read directly.

## Recording a race

The Velocitek line is famously low-fuss. Power on, sail, power off. A few habits that matter for getting good analysis afterwards:

- **Power on before the warning gun.** Velocitek devices take ~30 seconds to acquire a clean GPS fix. Turn it on early so the prestart is captured.
- **Mark the start line on the Prostart.** Sail past the pin end, press the button to mark it; sail past the boat end, mark it. The Prostart will compute distance and time to the line from then on — and ChartedSails will use the same line geometry when it imports the file.
- **Capture the gun time.** Press the **GUN** button at the warning signal to start the countdown. If you sync to the wrong signal, the +1 / -1 buttons adjust the minutes while the seconds keep rolling. The Prostart records the corrected start time in the `.vtk` file and ChartedSails uses it to lock the race start. ([Full timer manual on velocitek.com](https://www.velocitek.com/pages/manuals).)
- **Keep the device powered until you're at the dock.** The end-of-session approach data is useful for sanity-checking the track.
- **One file per session is fine.** ChartedSails detects multiple races inside a single track. You don't need to power-cycle between races.

## Get the .vtk file off the device

How you get the file off depends on how old your Velocitek is. Plug it into a computer with a micro-USB cable — if it pops up as a regular USB drive, you're on the newer firmware and you can just copy files. If it doesn't, you'll need Velocitek Control Center.

### Newer devices: copy the file directly

Recent Velocitek devices mount as a USB mass-storage drive when plugged in. Open it like any other disk and copy the `.vtk` file for the session you want. From there, drag it into the upload area on [ChartedSails](https://www.chartedsails.com/) and you're done.

This also works straight from your phone. With a USB-C ↔ micro-USB cable (or your iPhone's adapter), plug the Prostart into the phone, open the **Files** app, and the device shows up as an external drive. Open the file from there with the **ChartedSails mobile app** — no laptop in the kit bag.

### Older devices: Velocitek Control Center

If your device doesn't mount as a disk, use [Velocitek Control Center](https://www.velocitek.com/pages/software) (free from velocitek.com — Windows and macOS):

1. Connect the device with a micro-USB cable.
2. Open Velocitek Control Center and let it download the sessions.
3. Pick the session you want and click **Open in ChartedSails** — Control Center has a built-in button for it. The file is handed straight to ChartedSails in your browser.

If you prefer to keep the `.vtk` file, Control Center lets you save it locally first; you can drag it onto [the ChartedSails Prostart converter](/prostart) any time later — or onto your main upload area if you're signed in.

## What you get in ChartedSails

A Velocitek track in ChartedSails gives you:

- A full **track replay** with second-by-second SOG and heading.
- **Automatic maneuver detection** — every tack and gybe with entry / exit speeds and VMG loss.
- **Race detection** — start, beats, runs, mark roundings, leg-by-leg numbers, using the start line you marked on the Prostart.
- **Wind detection** from the track shape, so you get true wind angles and VMG without an instrument feed.
- A shareable **Sailing Report** PDF that turns the day into a structured debrief.

If you race in a class where multiple boats use Velocitek devices, anyone can upload their `.vtk` files into a shared session and ChartedSails will line up all the tracks in the same conditions.

## Troubleshooting

**Velocitek Control Center won't recognize my device.** Try a different USB cable (the supplied micro-USB cables wear out). On macOS, recent OS versions need explicit USB permission — re-plug the device after granting it.

**My .vtk file uploads but the track looks empty.** The session may have been very short or never acquired GPS. Check in Velocitek Control Center first to confirm the track has points.

**ChartedSails put my start line in the wrong place.** The Prostart line you marked is in the file, but it's editable in ChartedSails — drag either end, or re-mark, and the leg-by-leg numbers recompute live.

---

## Sailing with other devices

ChartedSails works with most sailing GPS hardware. If you also race with one of these, set them up the same way:

- [Sailing with a Garmin watch](/blog/take-your-garmin-watch-sailing) — Fēnix, Forerunner, Instinct
- [Sailing with an Apple Watch](/blog/sailing-with-an-apple-watch) — with Open GPX Tracker
- [Sailing with a Vakaros Atlas](/blog/sailing-with-a-vakaros-atlas) — Atlas 2 and Atlas Edge

[See all sailing devices we support →](/sailing-with)

---

*Velocitek, Prostart, and SpeedPuck are trademarks of Velocitek. ChartedSails is not affiliated with or endorsed by Velocitek.*


Sailing with a Velocitek Prostart (2026): Race Starts and Track Analysis

A complete guide to sailing with a Garmin watch — which models work best, how to set up a Sailing activity, recording settings for racing, and how to analyze your tracks in ChartedSails.

Your Garmin watch is one of the best sailing GPS trackers you can own. It's already on your wrist, it's waterproof, it has a precise GNSS receiver, and it syncs automatically once you're back ashore. With ChartedSails, you can turn every sail into a structured replay — speeds, angles, maneuvers, leg-by-leg race analysis — without buying a single piece of extra hardware.

This guide covers everything you need: which Garmin watches work best for sailing, how to set up a Sailing activity, the recording settings that matter for racing, and how to get your data into ChartedSails.

## Which Garmin watch is best for sailing?

The short answer: any modern Garmin GPS watch records perfectly good sailing tracks. The differences come down to battery life, build, and a few features that matter on the water.

- **Garmin Fēnix 7 / Fēnix 8 / Epix** — Top-of-the-line, multi-band GNSS, dozens of hours of GPS-on battery, hardened build. Overkill for a club race, perfect for a long offshore. Best Garmin watch for sailing if budget isn't a constraint.
- **Garmin Instinct 2 / Instinct 3 / Instinct Crossover** — Rugged, simple, long battery life, MIL-STD-810 build. Excellent value for racing dinghies and one-designs where the watch will take a beating.
- **Garmin Forerunner 255 / 265 / 955 / 965** — Light, comfortable, good GPS. Built for running but works fine for sailing if you add a Sailing activity (see below).
- **Garmin Venu / Vivoactive** — Lifestyle watches with GPS. They'll record a track, but battery life under continuous GPS is the limit — fine for a 2-hour race, tight for a full day.
- **Garmin Quatix series** — Garmin's "marine" line. Same internals as Fēnix with extra autopilot/MFD integration. Worth it if you're cruising on a boat with a Garmin chartplotter; otherwise the Fēnix is the same watch for less money.

What you don't need to worry about: chartplotting, sail-specific instruments, or compass features. The watch's job is to record where you went and how fast. ChartedSails does the analysis.

## Set up a Sailing activity

ChartedSails only imports Garmin activities whose name contains **sail**, **kite**, **foil**, or **wing** — case-insensitive. That keeps your runs and bike rides out of your sailing account, and it covers anything like "Morning Sail" or "Wing Foiling".

Some Garmin watches ship with Sailing as a built-in activity (Quatix, recent Fēnix). If yours doesn't, add it once and you're set:

1. Press **START** to open your activity list.
2. Scroll to the bottom and pick **Add**.
3. The watch will ask which existing profile to base the new one on. Pick **Other** (or **SUP** / **Kayak** if those are available — they have similar settings).
4. Name the activity **Sailing** (or **Kiting**, **Foiling**, **Winging**).
5. Pick a color and save.

From then on, when you head out, press **START**, scroll to **Sailing**, and press start again to begin recording.

## Recording settings that matter

Out of the box, most Garmin watches use **smart recording** — they save a GPS point every few seconds, more frequently when something interesting changes. For everyday cruising that's fine. For racing, you want more resolution.

The recording interval is a **system-wide** setting on Garmin — not per-activity. To switch it to 1Hz:

1. Hold **UP** (or press **START** and open the menu, depending on your model) to open the main menu.
2. Go to **Settings**.
3. Select **System**.
4. Select **Data Recording**.
5. Change **Recording Interval** to **Every Second**.

That applies to every activity from then on. One-second recording gives ChartedSails enough resolution to detect every tack, gybe, and mark rounding, and to produce accurate VMG and speed numbers. The battery cost is modest — a Fēnix records 30+ hours at 1Hz, an Instinct even longer.

If your watch supports **multi-band GNSS**, leave it on for racing. The position fix is noticeably better near tall masts or close to obstructions.

## Race starts

Want a countdown timer that resets on the gun? Most Garmin Sailing activities include one. On Fēnix and Quatix, the **Race Timer** field shows time-to-start; on Instinct you can add it as a data field. Use it like a regatta countdown — sync to the gun, sail to time and distance to line.

To mark the start in your file, press the **Lap** button at the gun. The watch saves a lap marker at that moment, and ChartedSails reads it as the race start when the FIT file syncs — so the prestart, start, and beat timing all line up automatically. Full walkthrough in our [mark race starts with the lap button](/docs/garmin/mark-race-starts) doc.

## Connect Garmin Connect to ChartedSails

Once your watch is set up, link your Garmin Connect account to ChartedSails:

1. Sign in to ChartedSails and open [your profile's Garmin tab](/profile/garmin).
2. Click "Connect Garmin" and follow the Garmin Connect login.
3. Authorize ChartedSails to read your sailing activities.

That's it — every future activity labeled "Sailing" will sync automatically to ChartedSails within a few minutes of your watch syncing to your phone.

> **Pro tip:** If you see an infinite spinner during Garmin authorization on Chrome, it's a known issue between Chrome and Garmin Connect. Visit [Garmin Connect](https://connect.garmin.com) first, log out, then retry the connection from ChartedSails.

## What you get in ChartedSails

When the activity arrives in ChartedSails, you get:

- A full **track replay** with speed-over-ground and heading at every moment.
- **Automatic maneuver detection** — every tack and gybe broken out with entry / exit speeds, VMG loss, and turn time.
- **Automatic race detection** when you sail a course — start, beats, runs, mark roundings, leg-by-leg numbers.
- **Wind detection** from your track shape, so you get true wind angles and VMG without an instrument cable.
- A shareable **Sailing Report** PDF that wraps the day into a structured debrief.

If you're sailing with other crew or other boats running Garmin watches, ChartedSails will line up the tracks side-by-side so you can compare lanes, speed, and angles in the same conditions.

## Troubleshooting

**My activity didn't sync to ChartedSails.** Check two things: (1) was the activity labeled exactly "Sailing"? (2) Did the watch sync to Garmin Connect first? ChartedSails pulls from Garmin Connect, so if it's stuck on your watch we can't see it yet.

**My track has gaps or shows odd spikes.** Usually a multi-band GNSS issue or smart-recording artifacts. Switch to 1Hz recording in the activity settings.

**ChartedSails detected the wrong start line / course.** You can edit any of this in the session — drag the start line, move marks, or re-detect. ChartedSails will recompute the leg-by-leg numbers.

---

## More Garmin guides

Step-by-step docs for each piece of the Garmin setup:

- [Connect Garmin in the ChartedSails app](/docs/garmin/connect-garmin-app) — link your Garmin Connect account in 60 seconds.
- [Create a Sailing activity on your watch](/docs/garmin/create-sailing-activity) — for watches that don't ship with one.
- [1Hz recording settings](/docs/garmin/recording-settings) — the system-wide change that gives ChartedSails the resolution it needs.
- [Mark race starts with the lap button](/docs/garmin/mark-race-starts) — what to press and when.
- [Download an activity from Garmin Connect](/docs/garmin/download-from-garmin-connect) — manual fallback when sync isn't an option.

## Sailing with other devices

ChartedSails supports a wide range of sailing GPS hardware. If you also race with one of these, set them up the same way:

- [Sailing with an Apple Watch](/blog/sailing-with-an-apple-watch) — with Open GPX Tracker
- [Sailing with a Vakaros Atlas](/blog/sailing-with-a-vakaros-atlas) — Atlas 2 and Atlas Edge
- [Sailing with a Velocitek Prostart](/blog/sailing-with-a-velocitek-prostart) — Prostart and SpeedPuck

[See all sailing devices we support →](/sailing-with)

---

Questions? [Email us](mailto:ahoy@chartedsails.com) — we read every message.


Sailing with a Garmin Watch (2026): Setup, Recording & Analysis

Sailing Reports give you a structured summary of your day in ChartedSails — on the web, in the mobile app, and as a PDF you can share with your crew in one tap.

This week, let me take a few minutes to walk you through the different Sailing Report formats available in ChartedSails, and how to make the most of them.

Sailing Reports were introduced this year and give you all the data points in one easy-to-digest format. The way I like to think about it: ChartedSails used to be excellent at **interactively exploring** your data — navigating back throughout the day and looking at your speed and angles at specific points in time. Now it's also excellent at giving you a **summary** of the day (okay, I might be biased!).

You'll find Sailing Reports on the web, in the mobile app, and as a downloadable PDF. Let's walk through them.

## Before you open a report — annotate your session

First of all, and this has not changed: to make the most of your data, you do need to spend a few minutes to annotate the interesting moments. I've covered this extensively in [past posts](/blog/tactics-performance-maneuvers-analyze-the-race-leg-by-leg) and in our [Sailing Data Course](/sailing-data-course/welcome), but in a nutshell — you want to highlight the races and set the marks.

<div style="background: #F0F7FF; border: 1px solid #D4E6FC; border-radius: 8px; padding: 14px 18px; margin: 1.5em 0; line-height: 1.6;">
💡 <strong>Tip:</strong> if you ping the marks and <a href="/blog/start-analysis">use your GPS as a start timer</a>, ChartedSails will help you by showing the race on the timeline automatically. This works with the ChartedSails mobile app, Vakaros, and Velocitek devices.
</div>

*And by the way — did you notice that ChartedSails automatically detects the wind direction based on your tacks and gybes? That's one less step! Part of our commitment to make sailing debriefs easier.*

## On the web

Once your session is annotated, you can access the report with the Sailing Report icon inside a session:

![Sailing Report icon in the session toolbar](/assets/blog/sailing-reports/01-entry-session.png)

And also from the dashboard:

![Sailing Report entry on the main dashboard](/assets/blog/sailing-reports/02-entry-dashboard.png)

The report starts with an overview of the weather, based on the latest forecast available for your location:

![Weather overview with wind, temperature, and conditions](/assets/blog/sailing-reports/03-weather.png)

It continues with an overview of the performance of each boat. This overview is computed on **only the races that each boat completed**. That matters: it means the comparison of upwind and downwind performance is meaningful and ignores all the moments when you were not *sailing hard*.

![Overall performance — per-boat summary](/assets/blog/sailing-reports/04-overall-performance-1.png)

![Overall performance — extended stats](/assets/blog/sailing-reports/05-overall-performance-2.png)

![Overall performance — tack analysis](/assets/blog/sailing-reports/06-overall-performance-3.png)

This report remains highly interactive, and you can use the selector at the top to adjust which boats, races, and tests are included:

![Boat and race selector at the top of the report](/assets/blog/sailing-reports/07-selector.png)

**Best Speed Intervals** gives you fastest time over a set of distances — great for bragging rights:

![Best Speed Intervals — 500m, 1km, 1 nm](/assets/blog/sailing-reports/08-best-speed.png)

And then each race is broken down with an animation of the entire race, a start analysis, and leg-by-leg analysis:

![Per-race breakdown with map animation](/assets/blog/sailing-reports/09-race-breakdown-1.png)

![Start analysis and leg-by-leg tables](/assets/blog/sailing-reports/10-race-breakdown-2.png)

In the start analysis you'll see **Time to Line**, **SOG @ Gun**, **SOG @ Line**, **Dist to Line**, **DMG30** (distance made good toward the next mark in the first 30 seconds) and **VMG30** (VMG in that same window). This is the table that tells you whether you actually won your start — or just got away cleanly and slowed down.

## On mobile

You'll find exactly the same information on mobile. The performance view lets you look at the entire day, or zoom onto a specific race or leg:

<div style="display: flex; gap: 24px; align-items: flex-start; margin: 1.5em 0;">
<div style="flex: 1; min-width: 0;">
<img src="/assets/blog/sailing-reports/11-mobile-perf-1.png" alt="Performance view — entire day" style="width: 100%; border-radius: 12px; box-shadow: 0 2px 12px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);">
</div>
<div style="flex: 1; min-width: 0;">
<img src="/assets/blog/sailing-reports/12-mobile-perf-2.png" alt="Performance view — zoomed to a single race" style="width: 100%; border-radius: 12px; box-shadow: 0 2px 12px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);">
</div>
</div>

And the Race section includes similar data, grouped by race, with map animations, data tables, and the ability to zoom on specific variables — VMG, TWA, Heel, Pitch, and more:

<div style="display: flex; gap: 24px; align-items: flex-start; margin: 1.5em 0;">
<div style="flex: 1; min-width: 0;">
<img src="/assets/blog/sailing-reports/13-mobile-race-1.png" alt="Race section with map animation" style="width: 100%; border-radius: 12px; box-shadow: 0 2px 12px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);">
</div>
<div style="flex: 1; min-width: 0;">
<img src="/assets/blog/sailing-reports/14-mobile-race-2.png" alt="Race section with variable zoom" style="width: 100%; border-radius: 12px; box-shadow: 0 2px 12px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);">
</div>
</div>

## The PDF export

On both web and mobile, you can also download a PDF report:

<div style="display: flex; gap: 24px; align-items: flex-start; margin: 1.5em 0;">
<div style="flex: 1; min-width: 0;">
<img src="/assets/blog/sailing-reports/15-pdf-export-web.png" alt="PDF export button on the web" style="width: 100%; border-radius: 12px; box-shadow: 0 2px 12px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);">
</div>
<div style="flex: 1; min-width: 0;">
<img src="/assets/blog/sailing-reports/16-pdf-export-mobile.png" alt="PDF export from mobile" style="width: 100%; border-radius: 12px; box-shadow: 0 2px 12px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);">
</div>
</div>

The PDF contains the same information, but instead of clicking to drill into a specific leg or variable, it lays out the most useful information leg by leg for the whole day. Mini-maps, graphs of SOG, VMG, and TWA over time, and distributions of those variables so you can see where you're spending most of your time and how it compares to the other boats.

It's easy to share via WhatsApp, email, or in a class group chat:

<div style="display: flex; gap: 24px; align-items: flex-start; margin: 1.5em 0;">
<div style="flex: 1; min-width: 0;">
<img src="/assets/blog/sailing-reports/17-sharing-1.png" alt="Sharing the PDF — 1" style="width: 100%; border-radius: 12px; box-shadow: 0 2px 12px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);">
</div>
<div style="flex: 1; min-width: 0;">
<img src="/assets/blog/sailing-reports/18-sharing-2.png" alt="Sharing the PDF — 2" style="width: 100%; border-radius: 12px; box-shadow: 0 2px 12px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);">
</div>
<div style="flex: 1; min-width: 0;">
<img src="/assets/blog/sailing-reports/19-sharing-3.png" alt="Sharing the PDF — 3" style="width: 100%; border-radius: 12px; box-shadow: 0 2px 12px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);">
</div>
</div>

## A thank-you, and a small bonus

These reports are a new way to explore your data. They're directly based on the amazing feedback we've received from you this winter, and I want to extend a special thanks to all the beta testers who sent critique and suggestions over the past few months — you can feel your fingerprints on every section.

Now that everyone has access, please let me know what else you'd like to see.

<div style="background: #F0F7FF; border: 1px solid #D4E6FC; border-radius: 8px; padding: 14px 18px; margin: 1.5em 0; line-height: 1.6;">
🔒 The full reports are part of <strong>ChartedSails Pro</strong>. Free users have access to a limited version and can <a href="https://www.chartedsails.com/?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=web&amp;utm_campaign=sailing-reports">start a free trial</a> to get full access.
</div>

<div style="background: #FFF6E8; border: 1px solid #FFDEB3; border-radius: 8px; padding: 14px 18px; margin: 1.5em 0; line-height: 1.6;">
🎁 <strong>A small bonus for reading this far:</strong> if you've already used your free trial on the web, you can get another one via the Apple App Store.
</div>

Thanks everyone — and we wish you great data-driven progress this season!

thomas


Your sailing day, summarized

Link your Vakaros account once and every session — past and future — flows into ChartedSails automatically. Free for everyone.

Your Vakaros Atlas captures every sail. Getting that data into ChartedSails used to mean exporting files, transferring them to your computer, and uploading them manually.

Not anymore. Link your Vakaros account once and every session — past and future — shows up in ChartedSails automatically.

## Link Once, Sail Forever

ChartedSails now connects directly to your Vakaros account. Sign in once and from that moment on:

- **Your new sessions appear automatically** in ChartedSails after every sail. No exporting, no uploading, no remembering.
- **Your past sessions are one click away.** Browse your Vakaros history and import any older session instantly.

That's it. The data capture problem is solved.

## The End of "Hey Guys, Upload Your Files"

If you sail with a team, you know the drill. After a training day, someone sends a message to the group: *"Hey guys, can everyone please upload their files?"* Half the team does it eventually. The other half forgets or doesn't know how.

Once every member connects their Vakaros account, data for the entire group flows into ChartedSails automatically. No reminders, no chasing files, no lost sessions.

And here's something we're particularly proud of: if someone in your group isn't tech-savvy, you can link their Vakaros account to their ChartedSails account for them — just once. After that, they don't even need to open ChartedSails. Their data arrives on its own.

## Already in Use Around the World

We've been quietly rolling this out, and hundreds of sessions have already been synchronized automatically:

- **Gavin Ball**, fresh off winning the Waszp Worlds, uses it to automatically upload his training data.
- **Theo Peyre** in France captures every ILCA session without thinking about it.
- **Mike Schroff** at [PerformanceRegatta.us](https://performanceregatta.us) has it running for his program.
- **Maru Urban** automatically uploads Optimist tracks on Lake Garda.

From Waszp to Optimist, from the US to Italy — it works across classes, across geographies, and across skill levels.

## Free for Everyone

We built this because we believe data should be easy to capture, not a chore. That's why connecting your Vakaros account is **completely free** — no subscription required. If you have a Vakaros device and a ChartedSails account, you can link them right now.

## Get Started in 60 Seconds

**On the web:**
1. Log in to [ChartedSails](https://www.chartedsails.com/profile/vakaros?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=vakaros-link)
2. Click the menu button, then select **Vakaros**
3. Enter your Vakaros email and password, and click **Connect**
4. Done. Your sessions will start flowing in automatically.

**On mobile:**
1. Open the ChartedSails app
2. Tap the **Profile** icon (top-right), then tap **Vakaros**
3. Enter your Vakaros credentials and tap **Connect**
4. That's it — turn on **Auto-import** and every future session arrives on its own.

Want to set it up for your whole team? [Let's chat](https://savvycal.com/chartedsails/chat) — we'll walk you through it.

## A Note on Security

Your Vakaros password is used to authenticate and is not stored by ChartedSails. We maintain a secure connection to your account without ever keeping your credentials.

---

New to the Atlas? Our [Sailing with a Vakaros Atlas](/blog/sailing-with-a-vakaros-atlas) guide covers device choice (Atlas 2 vs Edge), recording for race-quality analysis, and what you get in ChartedSails after every sail.

---

*Vakaros and Vakaros Atlas are trademarks of Vakaros. ChartedSails is not affiliated with or endorsed by Vakaros.*


Your Vakaros Data, Automatically in ChartedSails

A complete walkthrough of the ChartedSails mobile app — from session replay to performance analysis, maneuver breakdowns, and race results.

The ChartedSails mobile app puts your full race analysis right on your phone — on the dock, on the drive home, or sitting at the bar after racing. And it's free to install and free to import your files.

Here's a tour of everything inside, using a Melges 24 race day in San Francisco with three boats.

## Your sessions, at a glance

<div style="display: flex; gap: 24px; align-items: flex-start; margin: 1.5em 0;">
<div style="flex: 0 0 340px;">
<img src="/assets/blog/mobile-tour-202602/IMG_7956.PNG" alt="Activities list" style="width: 100%; border-radius: 12px; box-shadow: 0 2px 12px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);">
</div>
<div style="flex: 1; min-width: 0;">

When you open the app, the Activities tab shows all your sessions. Each card gives you a quick preview of the tracks, the location, duration, average and max speed, and a snapshot of the conditions.

Tap on a session and you're in.

</div>
</div>

<div style="display: flex; gap: 24px; align-items: flex-start; margin: 1.5em 0;">
<div style="flex: 1; min-width: 0;">

The map shows all the boats' tracks for the day, color-coded so you can tell them apart immediately. In the top-right corner, you'll notice a gallery icon — if you or anyone in the session uploaded photos or videos, they're right there, tied to the session.

</div>
<div style="flex: 0 0 340px;">
<img src="/assets/blog/mobile-tour-202602/IMG_7966.PNG" alt="Session map view" style="width: 100%; border-radius: 12px; box-shadow: 0 2px 12px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);">
</div>
</div>

<div style="display: flex; gap: 24px; align-items: flex-start; margin: 1.5em 0;">
<div style="flex: 0 0 340px;">
<img src="/assets/blog/mobile-tour-202602/IMG_7979.PNG" alt="Photos and videos from the session" style="width: 100%; border-radius: 12px; box-shadow: 0 2px 12px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);">
</div>
<div style="flex: 1; min-width: 0;">

Anyone in the session can add their own photos and videos. Everything is organized by session and by race, so it all stays connected to the sailing data from that day.

</div>
</div>

## Replay the race

<div style="display: flex; gap: 24px; align-items: flex-start; margin: 1.5em 0;">
<div style="flex: 1; min-width: 0;">

Tap on the map and it switches to replay mode. The boats move along their tracks and you can see each boat's current speed in real time. Just like on the web, you can switch between tail modes: the last 10 minutes of track, the entire day's track, or a color-coded speed view where the track changes color based on how fast the boat is going.

</div>
<div style="flex: 0 0 340px;">
<img src="/assets/blog/mobile-tour-202602/IMG_7959.PNG" alt="Replay mode with three boats" style="width: 100%; border-radius: 12px; box-shadow: 0 2px 12px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);">
</div>
</div>

## Overview: the day at a glance

<div style="display: flex; gap: 24px; align-items: flex-start; margin: 1.5em 0;">
<div style="flex: 0 0 340px;">
<img src="/assets/blog/mobile-tour-202602/IMG_7967.PNG" alt="Overview with best speed intervals" style="width: 100%; border-radius: 12px; box-shadow: 0 2px 12px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);">
</div>
<div style="flex: 1; min-width: 0;">

Scroll down from the map and the Overview tab gives you a quick summary of the session: how many boats and races were recorded, the weather conditions, and the best speed intervals — showing you when each boat hit their fastest 500m, 1,000m, and nautical mile, and how fast they were going.

</div>
</div>

<div style="display: flex; gap: 24px; align-items: flex-start; margin: 1.5em 0;">
<div style="flex: 1; min-width: 0;">

Tap on the weather summary and you get the full forecast for the day: wind speed and direction over time, temperature, and conditions. Handy for putting those speed numbers in context — was the fleet sailing in building breeze or dying pressure?

</div>
<div style="flex: 0 0 340px;">
<img src="/assets/blog/mobile-tour-202602/IMG_7980.PNG" alt="Weather detail" style="width: 100%; border-radius: 12px; box-shadow: 0 2px 12px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);">
</div>
</div>

## Performance: dig into the data

<div style="display: flex; gap: 24px; align-items: flex-start; margin: 1.5em 0;">
<div style="flex: 0 0 340px;">
<img src="/assets/blog/mobile-tour-202602/IMG_7962.PNG" alt="Performance view with boat selector and filters" style="width: 100%; border-radius: 12px; box-shadow: 0 2px 12px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);">
</div>
<div style="flex: 1; min-width: 0;">

This is where it gets powerful. The Performance section shows a velocity distribution graph that splits the data between port and starboard tack. By default, it shows VMG for all races during the day — only the racing time, with the idle time stripped out, so the data is clean and useful.

You can slice it any way you want. Select which boats to compare — all three, or just one or two. Switch the variable from VMG to speed over ground, true wind angle, heel, or pitch. Filter by segment: entire day, or a specific race. And within a race, focus on just the upwind legs, just the downwind, or even a single leg.

</div>
</div>

<div style="display: flex; gap: 24px; align-items: flex-start; margin: 1.5em 0;">
<div style="flex: 1; min-width: 0;">

Here we're looking at speed over ground for all three boats during Race 1 upwind. This kind of filtering is what makes the data actionable — instead of staring at a day's worth of numbers, you can ask specific questions like "Were we faster than Mike on starboard upwind in Race 2?" and get a clear answer.

</div>
<div style="flex: 0 0 340px;">
<img src="/assets/blog/mobile-tour-202602/IMG_7964.PNG" alt="Speed over ground, Race 1 upwind" style="width: 100%; border-radius: 12px; box-shadow: 0 2px 12px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);">
</div>
</div>

## Maneuvers: every tack and jibe

<div style="display: flex; gap: 24px; align-items: flex-start; margin: 1.5em 0;">
<div style="flex: 0 0 340px;">
<img src="/assets/blog/mobile-tour-202602/IMG_7969.PNG" alt="Maneuvers overview" style="width: 100%; border-radius: 12px; box-shadow: 0 2px 12px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);">
</div>
<div style="flex: 1; min-width: 0;">

The Maneuvers section starts with a summary: how many tacks and jibes each boat performed during the day, and their average VMG during those maneuvers. VMG here is the speed made good on the race course, so you can see right away who's losing the least distance in their turns.

</div>
</div>

<div style="display: flex; gap: 24px; align-items: flex-start; margin: 1.5em 0;">
<div style="flex: 1; min-width: 0;">

Tap on any individual maneuver and you get the full breakdown: the trajectory through the turn, entry and exit speed, entry and exit true wind angle, average VMG, and distance made good. Below that, time-series charts show your speed, TWA, rate of turn, heel, and pitch through the maneuver — everything you need to understand what happened and what to work on. Swipe left or right to quickly navigate through all the maneuvers matching your current filter.

</div>
<div style="flex: 0 0 340px;">
<img src="/assets/blog/mobile-tour-202602/IMG_7970.PNG" alt="Individual tack detail" style="width: 100%; border-radius: 12px; box-shadow: 0 2px 12px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);">
</div>
</div>

## Races: compare boats across the day

<div style="display: flex; gap: 24px; align-items: flex-start; margin: 1.5em 0;">
<div style="flex: 0 0 340px;">
<img src="/assets/blog/mobile-tour-202602/IMG_7972.PNG" alt="Races summary with VMG comparison" style="width: 100%; border-radius: 12px; box-shadow: 0 2px 12px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);">
</div>
<div style="flex: 1; min-width: 0;">

The Races section gives you a scoreboard for the day: total points, and the average VMG upwind, downwind, and during maneuvers for every boat. One table, and you can immediately see where each boat was strong and where they lost ground.

</div>
</div>

<div style="display: flex; gap: 24px; align-items: flex-start; margin: 1.5em 0;">
<div style="flex: 1; min-width: 0;">

Tap in and the data breaks down by race. You can see each race's duration, the finishing order, and the VMG numbers per boat per race.

</div>
<div style="flex: 0 0 340px;">
<img src="/assets/blog/mobile-tour-202602/IMG_7973.PNG" alt="Race-by-race results" style="width: 100%; border-radius: 12px; box-shadow: 0 2px 12px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);">
</div>
</div>

<div style="display: flex; gap: 24px; align-items: flex-start; margin: 1.5em 0;">
<div style="flex: 0 0 340px;">
<img src="/assets/blog/mobile-tour-202602/IMG_7974.PNG" alt="Race 2 animated view with results" style="width: 100%; border-radius: 12px; box-shadow: 0 2px 12px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);">
</div>
<div style="flex: 1; min-width: 0;">

Go into a specific race and you get an animated view of the boats on the course, plus detailed stats: distance sailed, average speed, and time. Switch between data tabs — VMG, SOG, TWA, heel, pitch — to see the performance distribution for that race.

</div>
</div>

<div style="display: flex; gap: 24px; align-items: flex-start; margin: 1.5em 0;">
<div style="flex: 1; min-width: 0;">

You can also switch to an over-time view that shows VMG or speed as a line chart across the race. Touch the graph to scrub through the race — the map stays synchronized, so you can see exactly which tack produced that beautiful VMG peak or where you lost a boatlength after a gybe.

</div>
<div style="flex: 0 0 340px;">
<img src="/assets/blog/mobile-tour-202602/IMG_7976.PNG" alt="VMG over time during Race 2" style="width: 100%; border-radius: 12px; box-shadow: 0 2px 12px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);">
</div>
</div>

<div style="display: flex; gap: 24px; align-items: flex-start; margin: 1.5em 0;">
<div style="flex: 0 0 340px;">
<img src="/assets/blog/mobile-tour-202602/IMG_7978.PNG" alt="Full screen race map" style="width: 100%; border-radius: 12px; box-shadow: 0 2px 12px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);">
</div>
<div style="flex: 1; min-width: 0;">

And if you want to go deeper, tap the map to open it full screen. You can zoom into a single leg or a single race and really study the tracks, with the speed graph running along the bottom.

</div>
</div>

## See it in action

Want to see what all of this looks like in the hands of a top sailor? Théo Peyre — French ILCA 7 racer, U21 European bronze medalist, and 2nd at the 2026 French Elite Championship — walked through his own data in a reel on our Instagram. Same features, same depth, but in a quick video format.

<blockquote class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DWEruGxiPG1/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14" style=" background:#FFF; border:0; border-radius:3px; box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width:540px; min-width:326px; padding:0; width:99.375%; width:-webkit-calc(100% - 2px); width:calc(100% - 2px);"><div style="padding:16px;"> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DWEruGxiPG1/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style=" background:#FFFFFF; line-height:0; padding:0 0; text-align:center; text-decoration:none; width:100%;" target="_blank"> <div style=" display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div> <div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div></div></div><div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div> <div style="display:block; height:50px; margin:0 auto 12px; width:50px;"><svg width="50px" height="50px" viewBox="0 0 60 60" version="1.1" xmlns="https://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><g stroke="none" stroke-width="1" fill="none" fill-rule="evenodd"><g transform="translate(-511.000000, -20.000000)" fill="#000000"><g><path d="M556.869,30.41 C554.814,30.41 553.148,32.076 553.148,34.131 C553.148,36.186 554.814,37.852 556.869,37.852 C558.924,37.852 560.59,36.186 560.59,34.131 C560.59,32.076 558.924,30.41 556.869,30.41 M541,60.657 C535.114,60.657 530.342,55.887 530.342,50 C530.342,44.114 535.114,39.342 541,39.342 C546.887,39.342 551.658,44.114 551.658,50 C551.658,55.887 546.887,60.657 541,60.657 M541,33.886 C532.1,33.886 524.886,41.1 524.886,50 C524.886,58.899 532.1,66.113 541,66.113 C549.9,66.113 557.115,58.899 557.115,50 C557.115,41.1 549.9,33.886 541,33.886 M565.378,62.101 C565.244,65.022 564.756,66.606 564.346,67.663 C563.803,69.06 563.154,70.057 562.106,71.106 C561.058,72.155 560.06,72.803 558.662,73.347 C557.607,73.757 556.021,74.244 553.102,74.378 C549.944,74.521 548.997,74.552 541,74.552 C533.003,74.552 532.056,74.521 528.898,74.378 C525.979,74.244 524.393,73.757 523.338,73.347 C521.94,72.803 520.942,72.155 519.894,71.106 C518.846,70.057 518.197,69.06 517.654,67.663 C517.244,66.606 516.755,65.022 516.623,62.101 C516.479,58.943 516.448,57.996 516.448,50 C516.448,42.003 516.479,41.056 516.623,37.899 C516.755,34.978 517.244,33.391 517.654,32.338 C518.197,30.938 518.846,29.942 519.894,28.894 C520.942,27.846 521.94,27.196 523.338,26.654 C524.393,26.244 525.979,25.756 528.898,25.623 C532.057,25.479 533.004,25.448 541,25.448 C548.997,25.448 549.943,25.479 553.102,25.623 C556.021,25.756 557.607,26.244 558.662,26.654 C560.06,27.196 561.058,27.846 562.106,28.894 C563.154,29.942 563.803,30.938 564.346,32.338 C564.756,33.391 565.244,34.978 565.378,37.899 C565.522,41.056 565.552,42.003 565.552,50 C565.552,57.996 565.522,58.943 565.378,62.101 M570.82,37.631 C570.674,34.438 570.167,32.258 569.425,30.349 C568.659,28.377 567.633,26.702 565.965,25.035 C564.297,23.368 562.623,22.342 560.652,21.575 C558.743,20.834 556.562,20.326 553.369,20.18 C550.169,20.033 549.148,20 541,20 C532.853,20 531.831,20.033 528.631,20.18 C525.438,20.326 523.257,20.834 521.349,21.575 C519.376,22.342 517.703,23.368 516.035,25.035 C514.368,26.702 513.342,28.377 512.574,30.349 C511.834,32.258 511.326,34.438 511.181,37.631 C511.035,40.831 511,41.851 511,50 C511,58.147 511.035,59.17 511.181,62.369 C511.326,65.562 511.834,67.743 512.574,69.651 C513.342,71.625 514.368,73.296 516.035,74.965 C517.703,76.634 519.376,77.658 521.349,78.425 C523.257,79.167 525.438,79.673 528.631,79.82 C531.831,79.965 532.853,80.001 541,80.001 C549.148,80.001 550.169,79.965 553.369,79.82 C556.562,79.673 558.743,79.167 560.652,78.425 C562.623,77.658 564.297,76.634 565.965,74.965 C567.633,73.296 568.659,71.625 569.425,69.651 C570.167,67.743 570.674,65.562 570.82,62.369 C570.966,59.17 571,58.147 571,50 C571,41.851 570.966,40.831 570.82,37.631"></path></g></g></g></svg></div><div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style=" color:#3897f0; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:550; line-height:18px;">View this post on Instagram</div></div><div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"><div> <div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"></div> <div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"></div></div><div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"></div> <div style=" width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; 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overflow:hidden; padding:8px 0 7px; text-align:center; text-overflow:ellipsis; white-space:nowrap;"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DWEruGxiPG1/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">A post shared by Theo (@theo_peyre)</a></p></div></blockquote>
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**[Follow @chartedsails on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/chartedsails/)** to see more content like this from sailors who are using the app to get faster.

## Get it on your phone

All of this is available right now in the ChartedSails app — free to install, free to import your files. If you've been doing your analysis on the web, try opening your latest session on your phone. You might be surprised how much faster it is to flip through the data when you're sitting on the dock right after racing.

**[Download ChartedSails](https://www.chartedsails.com/app)** and look at your own data today.

Questions? Drop me a line at [thomas@chartedsails.com](mailto:thomas@chartedsails.com) or [book a quick call](https://savvycal.com/chartedsails/chat) — happy to walk you through it.


Race Analysis at Your Fingertips

Upload sailing videos from your phone. They sync to your data, play in the replay, and anyone with the link can watch them.

The coach films from the RIB. A sailor records from the bow. Someone else shoots a few clips between races. By the time you're back at the dock, there are forty videos spread across five phones.

Someone suggests a WhatsApp group. Someone else creates a Google Drive folder. A week later, you're staring at a list of files named `IMG_4872.MOV` through `IMG_4913.MOV`, trying to figure out which one has the start of race three.

Capturing video isn't the problem — everyone has a great camera in their pocket. The problem is that once you've filmed it, the video goes nowhere useful.

Until now.

## Upload your videos. They become part of the replay.

ChartedSails now lets you upload videos directly to the server — from your phone, right after sailing.

Open any session, tap the MEDIA button, and drag and drop your videos. ChartedSails reads the timestamp from the file and synchronizes the video to your sailing data automatically. That's it.

You can upload from the web or directly from your phone. Either way, the videos live on the server — they're just there, every time you open the session.

On mobile, it's even better. Open the app, and your videos are right there in the replay. It's like scrolling TikTok, except it's you — you're kicking ass on the water, and you have the numbers to prove it.

## Click on a moment. The right video plays.

Open the replay, scroll to the start of race three, and click. If there's a video for that moment, it starts playing — synchronized to your track.

You see the video alongside your speed, heel angle, and pitch. A mini map shows the boat moving in real time. The data and the video tell the same story, at the same time.

No more scrubbing through unnamed files to find the right moment. No more guessing what was happening in that clip. The replay becomes the index for all your video.

This changes the debrief completely. Instead of "let me find that video where we messed up the tack," it's "click here — watch."

## From your phone to the replay in seconds

The fastest way to get video into ChartedSails is to upload directly from the phone that filmed it. Open the session on your phone, tap the plus, and pick your clips. The original files keep their timestamp metadata, so synchronization is automatic.

![Upload photos and videos from your phone](/assets/blog/video-upload/mobile-upload.webp)

This works beautifully with iPhone video — the quality is excellent and the metadata is always there.

One important thing: don't send videos through WhatsApp or Messenger first. These apps re-encode the video and strip the timestamp metadata, which means ChartedSails can't sync them automatically. If you need to transfer videos between devices, use AirDrop or share them via Google Drive. These preserve the original file and its metadata. But honestly, it's just easier to install the app and have everyone upload their own videos directly.

## What if the timestamps don't match?

Sometimes video timestamps are off — especially with action cameras or drones. ChartedSails has a re-sync tool that lets you manually align the video to your data. Select a recognizable moment in both the video and the track, and the tool shifts all your video at once.

## Share the link. Everyone sees the video.

Because the videos are on the server, sharing is simple. Send the session link to your teammate, your coach, or your class association — they open it and see everything, including the video.

No more passing files around. No more "can you send me that clip?" No more Google Drive folders that nobody remembers to check.

And if a sailor wants to keep a video because it's a great clip? Long press on the video in the mobile app to download it straight to your photo gallery.

## Storage and limits

Every ChartedSails subscriber gets 1,000 minutes of video storage — that's more than 16 hours. Videos are kept on the server for 90 days. After that, they're automatically removed from the server, but you can still play synchronized video from your local files.

If you're a team or a club, our group plans include video uploads for everyone on the team. And we're happy to offer more capacity and longer retention — [book a quick call](https://savvycal.com/chartedsails/chat) and we'll figure out what works for you.

## Photos too

Video gets all the attention, but you can upload photos the same way. They're timestamped and appear in the replay timeline, so you can scroll through your session and see exactly when each photo was taken.

---

> "I used to film every gybe from the coach boat and then spend the evening trying to find the right clips to share with the team.
>
> Now I upload the videos from my phone, and when we debrief, I just click on the gybe in the replay — the video plays with the speed and heel angle right there.
>
> This makes things easier and much clearer for sailors."
>
> Giovanni Bonzio - 49er Olympic Coach - SailAddiction.com

---

## Try it on your next session

Video upload is available to all ChartedSails subscribers. If you don't have an account yet, start a free trial — record your next session, upload your videos, and see what your sailing looks like when the data and the video come together.

If you've been using ChartedSails without video, this is the upgrade you didn't know you were missing. Open your last session, tap the plus, and upload a clip. It takes ten seconds to see why this changes everything.

Your Sailing Videos, Finally Useful

ChartedSails is on the App Store — and the easiest way to get your whole fleet on data just got ridiculously simple.

Here's a scene you've probably lived.

You just had a great day on the water. Six boats, tight racing, some really interesting wind shifts. You want to look at the data and figure out what happened on that second beat where everything changed.

Except only two people recorded. One has a Garmin file they'll email you tomorrow. The other forgot to stop recording and has 9 hours of GPS noise. Nobody else brought a device.

So you debrief from memory, argue about who was on the right side of the first shift, and promise yourselves you'll all record next time. You won't.

**This is the coordination problem that kills fleet data.** It's not that sailors don't want to analyze their sailing. It's that getting everyone to record, export, and upload in a way that ends up in the same session is an unreasonable amount of logistics for a Wednesday evening race.

We built groups to fix this.

## Download. Create a group. Go sailing.

ChartedSails is now on the App Store, and this is the part that matters most: **groups.**

Here's how it works:

**Step 1: One person creates a group.** You pick a name ("HMBYC Laser Fleet", "Tuesday Training", etc), and you get a 6-letter code.

**Step 2: Share the code.** Text it to your fleet WhatsApp. Pin it on the club noticeboard. Say it at the skippers' meeting. Everyone downloads the free app and joins with the code. Takes 30 seconds.

![Share your group code](/assets/blog/team-sailing/share-group.png)

**Step 3: Go sailing.** Everyone hits record. The app runs in the background — no fiddling, no settings to configure. When you come back in and reconnect to wifi or cell, the data uploads automatically.

That's it. All the tracks end up together. You can see the fleet on the map, replay the race, see who went left and who went right, and how the fleet spread out on each beat.

![A replay with 8 boats](/assets/blog/team-sailing/race-upwind-leg.png)

The setup takes 2 minutes. After that, it's zero effort every time you sail. The app just works.

## One boat is data. Six boats is a story.

Here's the thing about sailing data that we've learned from working with thousands of sessions: **a single GPS trace is interesting, but it can only tell you so much.**

You can see your own track. You can see your speed. But you can't answer the question that actually matters: *why did I finish where I finished?*

Add the rest of the fleet, and suddenly the data comes alive:

- You can see that the boats that went right on the first beat gained 50 meters. Was it a shift? A current line? Now you know.
- You can see that your tacks took 2 seconds longer than the boat that beat you. That's 8 seconds over 4 tacks. That's the margin.
- You can see that you were 0.3 knots slower upwind but 0.5 knots faster downwind — so the race was lost on the beats, not the runs.

![Report comparing the VMG of all the boats](/assets/blog/team-sailing/vmg-distribution.png)

None of this is visible from a single track. **The fleet context is what turns GPS data into actual insight.** And groups are what make fleet context effortless.

## This is already working

Groups have been running in the wild for months.

**Gavin Ball's Waszp fleet in Kaneohe, Hawaii** has logged 16 sessions over their winter training season. Pearl (Waszp Female World Champion) trains with him. She uploads every single time using her Garmin watch. No nagging, no reminders. The data syncs automatically. It's always there.

**Ravi Parent coaches A-Cat groups in Florida.** His UKSC A-Class fleet has 6 members, 10 sessions — mostly captured with Vakaros. Ravi himself has analyzed over 34 sessions across multiple groups spanning two years. He uses a different group for each fleet he coaches — one coach, multiple programs, all in one place.

**Laser sailors training in Lanzarote** recorded 10 sessions over their winter period, averaging 2.7 hours each. This isn't casual sailing — it's structured coaching, and the data backs up every debrief.

And of course **America One Racing** uses groups to coordinate their Waszp Olympic campaign program. 22 members, 29 sessions, with coaches Leandro Spina, Ravi Parent, and Ben Rosenberg all managing the data. [More details here](/blog/live-coaching).

The pattern is the same everywhere: **one person sets up the group, shares the code, and the whole fleet is on data within a day.**


## It's free

Groups are free. Creating one, joining one, recording — all free. Everyone in the group sees all the GPS traces, the replay, speed and course for every boat. That's already a fundamentally better debrief than arguing from memory at the bar.

## Getting started

**If you're an iPhone user:**

1. [Download ChartedSails from the App Store](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chartedsails-sailing-tracker/id1627073986)
2. Create an account (or sign in if you already have one)
3. Tap "Groups" and create a new group
4. Share the code with your fleet
5. Go sailing this weekend

**If you're already a ChartedSails user on the web:**

You can create groups on the web too (menu -> Groups -> Create Group). Your existing account works across both. Everything syncs — sessions you record on the phone show up on the web, and vice versa.

**If you're on Android:**

We're working on it. [Sign up here](https://forms.gle/W9uMhT1SqjxGgHp57) to join the Android beta and be the first to know when it's ready.

## Set up your fleet before opening day

Racing season is starting. Spring series, frostbite finales, the first warm-weather regattas — it's all about to kick off.

This is the best time to set up your group: before the season starts, while everyone's planning and motivated. Share the code at your next fleet meeting, in your WhatsApp group, or at the bar after the first race. Get people on the app now so that by opening day, the whole fleet is recording without thinking about it.

The coordination problem is solved. The app is free. The only thing left is to share the code.


Sailing Is a Team Sport. Your Data Should Be Too.

How America One Racing brought live telemetry to their foiling camp with just iPhones and ChartedSails.

If you coach competitive sailors, you know the drill.

You're on the RIB, watching your fleet. You can see who's fast and who's not — roughly. You can shout feedback through a megaphone. You scribble notes on a whiteboard that's going to get soaked.

Then you get home, and the debrief starts. What happened on that second upwind? Who had the best start? What was Boat 3's heel angle when they capsized? You try to reconstruct the session from memory, maybe cross-referencing a few GPS files someone remembered to export.

It works. Coaches have been doing it this way for decades. But there's a gap between what you *saw* and what actually *happened* — and that gap gets wider with every boat you add to the group.

## What if your iPad showed you everything?

Since October 2025, we've been working with America One Racing on something different. During their foiling camps in Penscaola and in Miami, every boat carries an iPhone. That's it — no specialized hardware, no $1,500 GPS trackers, no complicated setup.

Each phone streams live data over cellular: position, speed, heading, heel angle, pitch. The coach opens ChartedSails on their iPad, and they can see every boat on the map, updating in real time.

> "This elevates the standard of coaching and gives our athletes a new level of clarity and performance insight." — Leandro Spina, Director, America One Racing

But live positions are just the beginning. From the coach's iPad, you can also:

**Set up the course.** Drop marks directly on the map by pinging their GPS positions from the app. Your sailors can see the course on their phones too.

**Run the race timer.** Start the countdown from your iPad. Every phone in the fleet gets the signal.

<div style="position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden;">
<iframe style="position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mSanlVnU6FQ?si=hjrDwZhNTE38gzIU" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</div>

**Take notes on the water that stick to the data.** This is a big one. See something worth noting? Tap to add a comment directly inside ChartedSails: "Boat 3 sailing too low on this beat" or "Good gybe from Gavin, minimal speed loss." Every note is automatically timestamped and tied to the exact GPS position. When you get back to shore, your observations are already organized, attached to the data, and ready for the debrief. No more scribbling on a whiteboard that gets soaked. No more trying to remember what you saw on race 3.

**End the session with one tap.** When you're done for the day, hit "End Session" and every phone stops recording, uploads its data, and it's all waiting for you when you sit down to debrief. No chasing files, no exports, no "can you send me your track?"

## You can start with the phones you already have

Here's the part that surprises people: **the cost to try this is $0.**

If your sailors have iPhones, they can use their own. Download the ChartedSails app, join the session, mount the phone to the boat, and you're streaming live data. That's it. No new hardware to buy, no trackers to charge, no setup to troubleshoot.

This is the fastest way to see if live coaching data changes your practice. One afternoon, a few phones, and you'll know.

**When you're ready to go all-in,** the dedicated setup is straightforward: get refurbished iPhones for each boat, add protective cases with 3D-printed mounts designed for your specific class, install eSIMs for reliable cellular ($9/month per boat with Nomad eSIM on AT&T/Verizon), and pack it all in a suitcase. That's your portable coaching telemetry kit.

For context: most live tracking solutions require specialized GPS hardware at over a grand per boat. For a program with 8–10 boats, that's at least $10,000 in trackers alone. An iPhone does more — GPS, heel, pitch, heading, cellular streaming — and it's still a phone when you're done.

## Hard data to back up what you see

Every coach develops instincts on the water. You can tell when a boat looks slow, when someone's angle is off, when a gybe was sloppy. But instinct is hard to debrief with.

"I think A was going faster than B" becomes a debate. With live data, it becomes a fact. You can see that A was doing 6.8 knots VMG at 42° while B was doing 5.9 at 47° — and now the conversation is about *why*, not *whether*.

That shift changes everything about the debrief.

Instead of "I think you were slow on that beat," you can say "on beat 2, your VMG was 5.9 knots while Gavin was doing 6.8. You were sailing 5° lower. Let's look at what he was doing differently."

Instead of trying to remember what happened on race 4, you can pull up the replay with every boat's track, see the annotations you made on the water, and walk through it moment by moment.

Instead of spending an hour piecing together data from different sources, you sit down and it's all there. Organized by race, by leg, by boat. The hard work happened automatically.

## Getting started

**Option 1: Try it this weekend ($0)**

1. Have your sailors download the ChartedSails app on their own iPhones
2. Create a group and schedule a session
3. Have each sailor join the session and mount their phone to the boat
4. Open the live view on your iPad and coach with data

**Option 2: Full dedicated setup**

1. Get iPhones for your fleet — refurbished works great, even an older model
2. Add protective cases and 3D-printed mounts for your boat class (we can help with designs)
3. Install eSIMs for cellular data — Nomad eSIM, $9 for 3GB / 30 days
4. Pack everything in a suitcase — your portable coaching telemetry kit

Either way, you're sailing with live data in under 30 minutes the first time. After that, it's 5 minutes before each session.

## Want to try this with your team?

We're working with a small number of coaching programs to get this right. If you coach a competitive sailing team and this sounds like something that would change your practice, I'd love to talk.

**Email me at [thomas@chartedsails.com](mailto:thomas@chartedsails.com)** or **[schedule a 20-minute call](https://savvycal.com/chartedsails/chat).** I'll walk you through the setup, answer your questions, and we can figure out if this is a good fit for your program.


See Every Boat From the Coach Boat — In Real Time

A real story from the A Scow racing community showing how GPS data prevented a protest hearing and improved fairness on the water.

During an A Scow race on Tuesday, May 27th, 2025, at the first windward mark, a tense situation unfolded. Two boats were approaching the mark when one boat tacked near the three-boat-length zone. What happened next could have easily led to a lengthy protest hearing and potential disqualification.

## The Situation

The initial disagreement was clear:

- One skipper believed the other boat had tacked inside the zone and failed to luff properly
- The other skipper thought they had completed their tack outside the zone
- Both crews were convinced they were right
- A protest room showdown felt unavoidable

## The ChartedSails Solution

Before heading to the protest room, both skippers reviewed their ChartedSails tracking data. What they saw surprised everyone—and changed the course of the conversation.

![GPS tracking data showing the tacking maneuver outside the three-boat-length zone](/assets/blog/justice-on-the-water/tacking-outside-the-zone.png)
_ChartedSails GPS tracking clearly showed the boat tacked outside the three-boat-length zone_

### What the data revealed:

- The boat in question had actually tacked outside the three-boat-length zone
- The GPS tracking showed precise positions and timing that were impossible to determine accurately in real-time during the heat of racing
- Both skippers' perceptions during the race had been incorrect

## The Resolution

Armed with objective data, both parties had an honest conversation:

**Skipper 1:** "I was wrong, you definitely got across head to wind before you entered the zone."

**Skipper 2:** "I was wrong too. I thought you luffed more than necessary, but now I see you matched us. If we had tacked in the zone, we definitely would have fouled you."

Since neither boat had actually fouled the other, they withdrew the protest. No time was wasted in the protest room, and everyone got a fair result.

## The Impact

The result? ChartedSails didn't just prevent a protest hearing—it improved fairness, understanding, and sportsmanship on the water.

- **No protest hearing needed** — saving time for sailors and race committee
- **Fair racing result** — based on what actually happened, not perceptions
- **Better sportsmanship** — objective data led to honest admissions and mutual respect
- **Learning opportunity** — both sailors gained insights into what really happened during a complex tactical situation

## The Power of Visual Analysis

One of ChartedSails' most useful features for protest analysis is that boats are drawn to scale on the map based on their registered length. Better yet, the system automatically draws the three-boat-length zone around marks—making complex scenarios easy to understand at a glance.

> "Using ChartedSails avoided a protest hearing for us. The track showed the other boat tacked outside the zone - we all thought they tacked in the zone. No harm, no foul."
>
> — John, A Scow racer

## Try ChartedSails – See Your Races Clearly

Ready to bring objective data analysis to your racing? [Get started today](https://www.chartedsails.com/sailing-data-course/welcome) with GPS tracking and analysis that helps deliver fair, accurate racing results.

_Have a ChartedSails success story of your own? We'd love to hear about it - [share your story with us](mailto:hello@chartedsails.com)._


Justice on the Water: How ChartedSails Data Resolved a Racing Dispute

Explore all the variables your sailing instruments capture in ChartedSails. Dive deeper into heel, pitch, true wind, and more for advanced performance analysis.

## Introduction

Sailboats are complex machines, and skippers and crew rely on a wide range of instruments to help them navigate and optimize performance. Capturing sensor data for debriefing used to be reserved to professional teams but that is not the case anymore. Modern instruments can capture a vast array of variables, going far beyond just GPS position. This is a small revolution for sailing debriefs and we are here to help you make the most of it.

## ChartedSails

At ChartedSails, we provide specialized software that allows sailors to debrief their training sessions and races. Our software is designed to be user-friendly and customizable, allowing sailors to load, display, and analyze the data captured by the instruments on their sailboat. Sailors can work with a coach or alone to identify areas for improvement.

Over the past years we have seen a tremendous change in the capabilities of sailing GPS. There are now a wide range of devices able to capture your GPS data, but also your heel and pitch, tension in the rigging, boat speed in the water, heart-rate of the sailor, etc.

All of these variables and a few more are now available in ChartedSails. We have significantly rewrote how we process and handle data to be able to load and display these variables. And where ChartedSails used to limit data to one point per second, we are now able to take full advantage of the high resolution of the newer GPS units that capture up to 10 points per second. You get more detailed tracks, more precise analysis and it even runs faster than before.

## GPS Vendors and Variables Captured

Different GPS vendors offer varying instruments and sensors that capture different variables. Here's a look at some of the variables that can be captured by different GPS vendors:

- **Expedition Software** is the gold standard to capture data on a boat. ChartedSails will display most variables captured by Expedition.
    
    This includes:
    
    - The basics: position, speed and course over ground
    - Wind data: apparent and true wind direction and speed
    - Boat attitude: heel and pitch
    - Boat speed (in the water)
    - Rudder angle
    - Tension of the forestay
    
    To get all the variables, upload the CSV Expedition file to ChartedSails. There is no need to export or convert the files. All versions are supported.
    
- **Velocitek** offers GPS-based instruments that capture position, speed over ground, heading (real heading from a compass - not estimated from GPS course), heel and pitch. They also record pings of the marks and the precise start time of races. All will be visible in ChartedSails.
    
    To download from your Velocitek device, plug it into your computer and upload the VTK file to ChartedSails. To keep the maximum information, do not use a converter. 
    
- **Vakaros** devices capture position, speed over ground, heading and they can also capture wind data, boat speed, depth and load from load cells when connected to appropriate instruments on your boat. Pings of the marks and precise start time are captured as well.
    
    To benefit from all the capabilities of your Vakaros device you need to export the data in Vakaros format (VKX) from the mobile app and load it in ChartedSails.
    
- **Garmin Watches**: capture basic GPS-based variables (position, sog and cog)
and have the additional benefit of recording heart-rate. Using the lap button
on the watch you can mark precise moment in the race (start signal, beginning
of a drill, etc) and these will be visible as little markers on your track
in ChartedSails.

- **Cyclops Marine Load Cells**: capture the load on the rigging. They can be used in combination with other GPS units like Vakaros or Sailmon, but you can also export the data from their mobile app in CSV format and load it in ChartedSails.

- **Sailmon** devices capture position, speed and course over ground, heel,
pitch and when connected to appropriate sensors you will also get wind data,
and one load measurement for the rigging. To use data from sailmon devices,
export in CSV format. ChartedSails will recognize the file and load all the
variables included.

- **Capture from NMEA and NMEA2000 buses**
    
    ChartedSails can now also load directly from NMEA and NMEA2000
captures. We have tested with the **NKE Mini-Logger** and
**SignalK Server.** We will
continue to work on expanding this category.
    

This list is bound to change as existing devices become smarter and new ones
appear on the market. As we test new files and verify compatibility we will
update this page. 

If your device is not listed above or if your sensors are not supported, please
send us a note. Our policy is that if it can be recorded we want to support it.

## How to access these variables?

To keep the program simple, only the most essential variables are shown by
default in ChartedSails. To look at more variables, simply extend the size of
the instruments panel.

![Accessing extended variables in ChartedSails](/assets/blog/explore-further/expand-variables.webp)

## Wind data in ChartedSails

After much consideration, we decided to continue using the wind slider in
ChartedSails to set a general wind direction, and this is still the wind source
used to calculate your VMG and maneuver statistics.

There are two reasons for this :

1. When you are racing, you are optimizing to get to the next mark as fast
as possible. You effectively need to look at your Velocity Made Correct to
the course and that is what we give you now with the wind slider and VMG (and
yes we may end up renaming VMG to VMC). 
2. When comparing multiple boats,
differences in wind sensor calibration and local wind conditions would make
VMG comparisons useless if they were not based on one unique wind value for
everyone.

Let us know how you feel about these decisions. ChartedSails improves with your feedback.

## Data Visualization

Although it’s a huge step forward to have access to all these new variables,
there is a lot more we want to do in terms of data visualization. Stay tuned!

## Conclusion

The times where we had to argue for the importance of data in sailing are long
gone. With smarter sailing instruments and more sensors, we are adding more
dimensions to the GPS tracks and dramatically expanding the usefulness of the
data driven debrief.

As always, we are committed to turn data points into understandable and actionable
information that is useful to sailors at all levels.

We were amazed to see what you did with heel and pitch when we introduced
them about a year ago. We cannot wait to see what you will do with load-cells,
heart-rate and of course, wind data.

As always please keep in touch!




Explore further, dig deeper

Build compelling sailing debriefs with ChartedSails performance reports. Learn how to present race data that drives real improvement for your team.

Debriefing with your crew is an essential part of improving your sailing performance. If you are lucky, you will take some time together, in person, after the race. When you run out of time, the debriefing might be just a phone call or an email.

Whatever you do, having some form of debriefing, is already a huge step up from doing nothing!

To provide some inspiration, we have rounded up some example of debriefings prepared by coaches and sailors. They all used ChartedSails to review their data and identify key points to focus on and then they used different techniques and tools to present the data and make it easy to share.

## Cilian Dickson - J/24 🇮🇪

Cilian is a J/24 sailor in Ireland, winner of the [J/24 Irish National Championship](https://j24ireland.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Results-2021.pdf) on his boat Headcase.

Cilian has a Velocitek ProStart on board and started using ChartedSails a few months ago.

Last month, he participated in a J/24 training event with the fleet and collected data from multiple boats to compare their performances. After loading the tracks in ChartedSails, he compiled key performance numbers from each race into a few Powerpoint slides.

![J24 training race day analysis](/assets/blog/compelling-reports/cilian-j24.png)
_One slide summarizes upwind performance of all the boats accross seven different races_

They chose to focus on:

- Starts: Distance to line and line speed
- Upwind performance (Distance sailed, average speed, average VMG)
- Downwind performance
- Tacking performance (using ChartedSails maneuver analysis).

In each slide he adds a few comments: is the fleet consistent? who is doing the best?

Take a look [at the full report](/assets/blog/compelling-reports/LRYC-J24-Training-10_April-Names.pdf) for some inspiration on your next race day! (Shared with permission from Cilian - boat names have been changed.)

## Ali Charlton - Elliott 770 🇺🇸

Ali is the skipper of Missy, a [Elliott 770](https://sailboatdata.com/sailboat/elliott-770/) at the Oklahoma City Boat Club.

Ali also chose PowerPoint to collect key numbers from the day and share them with his crew. The first thing we noticed is that the slides include who was on the boat that day (important when your crew rotates). He also includes [wind data from USGS](https://waterdata.usgs.gov/ok/nwis/uv?site_no=07159550) which is a great idea.

The slides are very rich and combine screenshots of ChartedSails, tables from the maneuver analysis, USGS wind data and comments.

It's a lot but Ali managed to focus on a few important points in a one slide per day format. It looks good, and it's easy to share via email or social media.

![Ali's report on Missy Elliott 770 performance](/assets/blog/compelling-reports/ali-missy.png)
_Ali prepared a one page summary for each day. He shares them on Facebook._

## CISA 2022

[CISA Advanced Racing Clinic](https://www.instagram.com/cisasailing/) was held March 19th to March 21st at Alamitos Bay Yacht Club in Long Beach, California.

Three classes were presents: i420s, ILCAs and 29ers. Over 60 sailors and 10+ coaches.

For this event, we chose to use Google Docs to present the data. With a large number of boats we focused on "big picture": is the fleet consistent? when was the race won?

And when it was relevant, we zoomed in on specific moments: did you see the shift during this leg? What was the cost of missing the shift?

![Extract from ChartedSails performance report for CISA 2022](/assets/blog/compelling-reports/cisa-clinic.webp)
_Focus on one upwind leg to discuss tactical decision-making and the importance of distance._

The resulting presentation is just a few slides per day which were reviewed during the debriefing. And when sailors had specific questions, we opened ChartedSails and zoomed in on the data!

## Conclusion

Some best practices from these three examples:

- Slides are a great way to present a debriefing and share it
- Find a few interesting things from the day and focus on them. Screenshots of ChartedSails, photos and other data (such as external wind data) are all great ways to illustrate your points.
- Make it easy to save and share: A one-pager summary of each race day will be a great way to review progress at the end of the season.

How do you debrief with your crew? With training partners? Let us know what are your best practices and send us your best reports!


Compelling Sailing Debriefs

Learn one-design sailing fundamentals with coach Fuzz Spanhake. Master sail trim, heel angle, and sailing modes to improve your racing performance.

“Fuzz” is a very respected coach and one of the first users of ChartedSails. I sat down with him recently to discuss the basics of one-design sailing and coaching.

<i>**Thomas - ChartedSails: I know you coach a lot of Etchells and J70s. Can you tell me what are the first things you focus on when you start working with a new boat?**</i>

The basics are always the same and as coaches we end up spending most of our time working on sail trim, heel angle and sailing the boat properly.

With sail trim, you need to become familiar with different twists of the mainsail and learn to recognize the difference between a medium twist, tight twist and ease twist. This is most easily seen from a coaching boat and with photos or videos. Even by yourself, you can take pictures and associate them to different marks on the main sheet to learn what twist you get from each setting (<i>Thomas: for help analyzing sail pictures, check out <a href="https://www.thesailcloud.com" target="_blank">thesailcloud.com</a>.</i>).
If you can practice with another boat, have one boat stay consistent and the other boat change trim. This is the most effective way to learn and see the impact of different settings.

When it comes to heel angle you always want to keep the boat as flat as possible.
While we are on the subject of crew weight, you can also play with fore and aft trim: have the crew move around the boat. More than bow up or bow down, you are looking for the least disturbance in the water behind the transom.

Sail trim and heel angle come together to make sure that you are sailing the boat properly for the mode that you are trying to sail in.

<i>**Thomas - ChartedSails: I have heard you mention modes a lot. What are the most common sailing modes and when should we use them?**</i>

There are three basic sailing modes that you need to be comfortable with when racing. You need to practice them so you can quickly switch to one and sail it effectively.

The first mode is high mode where you are trying to sail as high as possible. You would use this on the start to identify an open lane and take it. This is also useful if you are below someone and need to give them some room to tack. In this mode the telltales are not flat, they are typically flying up 45º to 60º.

The second mode is VMG mode. That is where you are trying to go as fast as possible towards the next mark. This is your default mode.

And finally there is fast mode. You would use this after tacking on top of someone to lock them in position or to quickly switch from one side of the course to the other side. In this mode you are sailing a bit lower, your VMG is not as good but your boat speed is the highest.

<i>**Thomas - ChartedSails: What should people look at in their sailing tracks?**</i>

The GPS track gives you a chance to measure your speed, your sailing angles and your VMG (In ChartedSails, just bring your mouse over the track to get that information). Except when you have a specific tactical goal you should be sailing in your best VMG mode. Look at your VMG leg by leg, your sailing angles and verify that you were sailing best VMG. If you can collect data from different boats this will become even more obvious.

<i>**Thomas - ChartedSails: And what else would you look at?**</i>

There is so much to look at! The tools are here and the first thing is to use them. After modes I would look at some tactical decisions:

- Did you pick the right side of the gates after the first downwind leg? How did you execute this turn? For this, I would recommend looking at videos too because your track will not show you what the other boats were doing.
- Did you decide to attack or defend in the second beat? Is this reflected in the data?
- If you chose to switch sides, did you effectively sail fast mode from one side to the other? How much height did you lose in the process?

And really, as much as possible, ask yourself, the driver, the trimmer: what were we trying to do? Did we actually do this? These questions will help you progress a lot, and the sooner you do it after sailing, the more effective the debriefing will be.

<i>**Thomas - ChartedSails: Thanks a lot “Fuzz”! If you have questions for “Fuzz”, head over to his website at [gsyachting.com](https://www.gsyachting.com/).**</i>


One design coaching basics with Fuzz

Analyze your sailboat races leg by leg with ChartedSails. Break down tactics, performance, and maneuvers to find gains on every leg of the course.

We just updated ChartedSails interface and added the most requested feature of 2020, race analysis leg by leg.

To demonstrate how this works we made two short videos.

### 1 - Setup the race

This first video covers:

- How to highlight and save races
- How to set the marks
- How to set the wind direction

<iframe width="896" height="504" style="width: 100%" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1fBL8QFrPmY" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

### 2 - Analyze the race

Learn how to:

- Compare VMG of boats sailing on similar tacks
- Measure distance sailed, average speed and time leg by leg
- Understand how the race was won

<iframe width="896" height="504" style="width: 100%" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y62GZ39fedA" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>


Tactics, Performance and Maneuvers - Analyze the race leg by leg

Learn how to use GPS pinging for accurate start line analysis. Improve your racing starts by tracking time, distance, and speed with modern sailing GPS devices.

Good starts are all about time and distance. If you sail in a class that allows pinging the line, you ping the line.

What you may not know is that modern sailing GPSs record all your pings and start times in the files with your sailing track. ChartedSails can display these events and use them to tell you how well you did.

## Pings and race timers

When you upload a new track to ChartedSails, all the events of the day are displayed on the chart.

Move your mouse over the markers to see what type of pings (PIN / BOAT) they represent and when they were recorded.

![ChartedSails can display all race events recorded by your GPS.](/assets/blog/start-analysis/race-events.png)

## Use the pings for race analysis

To use the recorded pings for race analysis, make a selection on the timeline to highlight the race that you are interested in.

The CREATE RACE button will show a GPS icon to inform you that this race will use the marks you pinged while sailing.

![Highlight the race to create a new race](/assets/blog/start-analysis/make-selection.gif)

To finalize this race, set the other marks ([watch video][setup-race]) and confirm the new race.

## Start Analysis

To analyze the start, simply move your mouse over the track between the start and the line. ChartedSails shows you key information about your start:

![Hover over the track to see start analysis data](/assets/blog/start-analysis/hover-for-start-analysis.gif)


 - **Distance To Line**

 	How far your boat was from the line when the gun fired (this is the distance you had to sail to reach the line, not the shortest distance to the line).

 - **Time To Line**

   How long it took your boat to reach the start line.

 - **Speed over ground at the gun**

   How fast your boat was sailing when the gun fired.

 - **Speed over ground at the line**

   How fast your boat was sailing when it crossed the line.

## Compatibility

All users can benefit from Start Analysis. You just need to [setup the race][setup-race] for this feature to work. 

To see the pings and the race timer events on the map you need a compatible GPS. ChartedSails currently supports the new Velocitek Prostart and the Vakaros Atlas. If you would like to see support for another GPS, please [contact us][contact].

[setup-race]: /blog/tactics-performance-maneuvers-analyze-the-race-leg-by-leg
[contact]: mailto:ahoy@chartedsails.com


Use your GPS to ping the start line

Compare the shapes of two J/70 gybes using GPS data to improve your downwind technique. Learn what makes a fast gybe by analyzing speed, angle, and turn shape.

The corollary to Ed Baird’s _“Losing a quarter of a boatlength less than your
opponent in each tack means one length gained in a four-tack beat.”_ Must be
_“losing a quarter of a boatlength less than your opponent in each gybe means
one length gained in a four-gybe run.”_ (from [Staying on Target](https://www.sailingworld.com/how-to/staying-on-target/), by Ed Baird).

In many modern classes a four-gybe run might be a lot of maneuvers but you
get the point; fractional boat lengths matter.

Just like [we learnt from good and bad
tacks](/blog/learn-from-sailing-data-good-and-bad-tacks) looking at the shape
of the turn and the speed through the maneuver can tell us a lot about a
gybe. Again, this is very easy to do using ChartedSails and the data from
your [Velocitek ProStart](https://www.velocitek.com/pages/prostart). Using
the speed colored tails, boat card and stripchart, quantitative and
qualitative analysis is easy.

Once again, you can look at each gybe in three parts: entry, turn and
exit:

- For the entry you want to see that you are on your VMG angle and traveling
  at target speed into the turn.

- During the turn you want to see that the momentum is carried downwind (and
  down the course) and you have a nice smooth turn (consistent rate of turn).
  Just like tacks the rate of turn will vary with wind and sea conditions and
  generally speaking, you want a consistent rate of turn in each maneuver.

- For the exit you want to see that the turn stops at a good acceleration or
  speed build angle, the boat is able to accelerate straight away and there is
  no searching for exit angle.

### Follow Along!

For this blog post, we invite you to follow along on your computer. We will
be looking at the first gybe of the race. Note that most of the tools we use
here are only available on the computer version so you might want to wait
until you are home to try this.

1. Open the <a href="/session/j70-davis-island" target="_blank">J70 racing at Davis Island</a> session
2. Click on the "First gybe" bookmark (in the timeline) to focus on the first gybe.
   ![Open the "First gybe" bookmark](/assets/blog/downwind-technique/open-bookmark.gif)

## Entry

Green is S-ing and you can see (switch to the speed-colored tail) that the
speed is going up and down . This is a topic that is probably worth another
post all to its own. Stand by for that...

Approaching the turn you see Green get slow (from 11kts down to 7kts). To rebuild speed, they head
up and then gybe. This may have been traffic related but it is not ideal if
you are in open water.

![Use the colored trail button to quickly identify slowdowns and acceleration.](/assets/blog/downwind-technique/entry.png)

Pink, on the other hand, is steering a much tighter groove. The course and
speed vary much less than Green. Going into the gybe there is little or no
change in course and speed.

Using the ChartedSails boat cards we see Pink enters at 10.4 of boatspeed and
7.6 VMG.

![Pink has a steady course and the best VMG into the gybe.](/assets/blog/downwind-technique/pink-entry.png)

Green enters at 10.9 knots with 7.2 knots of VMG. Green has an
additional 0.5 knots of boatspeed but 0.4 knots less VMG. Quantitatively we
can see that the turn up was too large and the boat is sailing too high going
into the gybe.

![Green zigzags into the gybe, sails faster but with a lower VMG into the gybe.](/assets/blog/downwind-technique/green-entry.png)

### How does the turn up before the gybe impact your race?

First, you lose gauge down the course. You’re sailing across the course
instead of down it, towards the leeward mark.

Second, it is harder to judge your turn and your exit angle. Because you’ve
just headed up you can more easily get lost in the turn and misjudge your
exit angle. If you’re a numbers person, and you do some quick math to pick
your exit angle, you might pick an angle that is too low because you were
artificially high when you started the gybe.

Third, momentum. Because you just headed up, you now need to turn through a
greater number of degrees. This means you’ll use more rudder (which acts as a
brake) or you’ll be turning for a longer period of time. Either way, you’ll
carry less momentum out of the turn.

## Turn

Green has a much sharper turn. With the quick turn down Green enters the gybe with 9.8kts of boatspeed and is doing 8.4 knots
of boatspeed (also VMG) at dead-downwind and they get there fast. At a
glance these figures appear great but the turn happens so quickly that the
benefit from the bear away is short lived. What happens next is that the rate
of turn remains high and the speed and VMG plummet.

![Green enters fast into the gybe but slows down considerably](/assets/blog/downwind-technique/green-gybe.png)

A fast turn also makes it tough on the crew who have less time to do their
sail handling and boat handling through the turn. And because everything is
happening so quickly, the driver has less time to pick their exit angle.

Pink has a nice smooth turn. Their speed and VMG are not as high as Green
but their low speeds are much higher as they are able to carry more momentum
through the bear away into the turn and down the course.

![Pink carries more momentum through the gybe](/assets/blog/downwind-technique/pink-gybe.png)

Using the ChartedSails boat card we can see that Green travels 94 meters in
22 seconds and Pink travels 99 meters in the same time (centered around their
respective gybes).

## Exit

Green had a wiggle up then down then back up searching for the exit. While
minor, all of this driving loses gauge, burns speed and makes things more
challenging for the trimmers.

![After the gybe, Pink is sailing much faster](/assets/blog/downwind-technique/exit.png)

Pink exits straight, accelerates and then bears away (likely as a puff hits).
Looking at the track we see a nice steady course out of the gybe. There is no
searching for the exit angle. Using the heat mapped track and the speed
stripchart you see the speed bottoms and turns as the boat accelerates and
then the big acceleration and bear away as they link up with the next puff.

Moving the mouse over the track, we can see that after the gybe, Pink's VMG
is 5.7kts while Green who is sailing higher and slower only has a VMG of
3.5kts.

## Conclusion

Driving a sailboat well takes an incredible amount of practice and focus. It
is way easier to be a Monday-morning quarterback and pick apart maneuvers in
a debrief than it is to execute them well in the heat of battle. But
continuous improvement and learning is the name of the game.

Using ChartedSails makes it easy for sailors and coaches to debrief a day of
sailing. The more you can learn from a day on the water, the better you can
be the next day.

Here we looked at data from two different boats and looking at one maneuver
we can learn a lot about technique and ways to improve. If you have not done so already,
[open up this J70 replay](/session/j70-davis-island) and take a look at the next gybe.

[Recording sailing data is
easy](/blog/eight-ways-to-record-gps-tracks-of-sailing-drills-and-regattas),
upload your own data and get a friend in your fleet to do the same to start
the group learning in this extended off season, this sailing season, and
beyond!


Learn from sailing data: Downwind Technique

Looking at the shape of the turn and the speed through a tack can tell us a lot about the maneuver. Learn how to analyze your tacks.

> Losing a quarter of a boatlength less than your opponent in each tack means one length gained in a four-tack beat.
>
> _Ed Baird - [Staying on Target](https://www.sailingworld.com/how-to/staying-on-target/)_

Looking at the shape of the turn and the speed through a tack can tell us a
lot about the maneuver. This is very easy to do using ChartedSails and the
data from your Velocitek ProStart or other GPS logger. ChartedSails makes the
quantitative and qualitative analysis of our maneuvers very simple.

You can look at each tack in three parts: entry, turn and exit:

- For the entry you want to see that you are on a close hauled angle and the
  boat was at target speed going into the turn.

- During the turn you want to see that the momentum is carried into the wind
  and the rate of turn is consistent. The rate of turn will vary with the
  conditions (wind and sea state). But generally speaking, you want a
  consistent rate of turn in each maneuver.

- For the exit you want to see that the turn stops at a good acceleration or
  speed build angle, the boat is able to accelerate straight away and you are
  close to a close hauled angle.

Let’s take a look at a couple tacks recorded on a Melges IC37!

## First, a good tack

In this tack we have a nice smooth turn and the speed bottoms and increases
on approximately the same angle out of the tack. This means the momentum is
carried through the turn. We can see the low speed point and the speed
carried through the turn using ChartedSails’ speed-colored tail.

![First tack overview](/assets/blog/tacks/tack1-overview.gif)

### Entry

Using ChartedSails, we average 10s of data before the tack (notice the blue
background on the boat card when averaging) to see see our boatspeed and VMG
going into the maneuver.

![First tack - Entry](/assets/blog/tacks/tack1-entry.png)

Looking at the boat polars for our Melges IC37, we can see that we are a
little low and fast wth 7.2 knots of boat speed but we are not far off (we
had about 10 knots of wind that day). We’re moving up the racecourse well
with 5.3 knots of VMG.

![Boat polars for Melges IC37](/assets/blog/tacks/ic37-boat-polars.png)
_Designer provided boat polars for the Melges IC37._

### Turn

Looking at the track we can see a nice smooth carve up into the wind as
evidenced by the maintained momentum. The boat card shows that we’re still
traveling 6.8 knots at 100% VMG! We only drop 0.4 knots of boatspeed and our
VMG has jumped 1.5 knots!

![First tack - Turn](/assets/blog/tacks/tack1-turn.png)

### Exit

Looking at the track we see a nice steady course out of the tack. There is no
searching for the exit angle. Using the heat mapped track and the speed
stripchart you see the speed bottoms and turns as the boat accelerates.

![First tack - Exit](/assets/blog/tacks/tack1-exit.gif)

## Tack 2 - A wild one!

Looking at the track, we can see right away that this tack does not have the
same nice smooth shape of tack 1. The shape is more complex with a tightening
radius as the turn progresses.

![Second tack - Overview](/assets/blog/tacks/tack2-overview.gif)

### Entry

Looking at the track and the boat card, the entry is pretty standard. The
course is relatively straight and the boatspeed is good.

![Second tack - Entry](/assets/blog/tacks/tack2-entry.png)

### Turn

The turn into the wind is good and the momentum is carried up the course.
However the speed is not carried as well into the wind. Using the boat card,
we can see that we lose 2.4 knots of boatspeed.

![Second tack - Turn](/assets/blog/tacks/tack2-turn.png)

### Exit

Here’s where things get exciting! Looking at the track you can see the radius
of the turn tightening in the later stages of the tack. The boat continues
turning, well past a good exit angle. We measure with ChartedSails a TWA as
high as 68° for a moment. Using the boat card we can easily compare the exit
angle with the entry angle. The entry is 43° and the exit peaks at 68° or ~25°
of over tack.

![Second tack - Exit](/assets/blog/tacks/tack2-exit.png)

Why is this bad? Won’t the boat accelerate back quickly at 68° TWA?

Yes, the boat will accelerate quickly at 68° TWA, but it is accelerating
across the course and we lose gauge up the course (see image below).
Additionally this means the sails need to get eased to a reaching angle and
then retrimmed to an upwind angle as the boat course corrects.

Quantitatively, using ChartedSails boat card, we can see that the VMG at this
exit angle is 1.8 knots with a boatspeed of 5.0 knots. Compare that with just
a few seconds before a VMG of 3.8 knots with 5.3 knots of boatspeed.

![Second tack - Distance lost to the wind](/assets/blog/tacks/tack2-exit-dlw.png)

## Conclusion

Using ChartedSails makes it easy for sailors and coaches to debrief a day of
sailing. The more you can learn from a day on the water, the better you can
be the next day.

Adding training partners’ and friends’ tracks to ChartedSails gives you even
more to talk about and even more learning opportunities as a group.


Learn from sailing data: good and bad tacks

Master the five essential tools in ChartedSails for analyzing your sailing tracks. From replays to speed charts, learn how to extract insights from every session.

We built ChartedSails to enable more sailors to use data in their training
and tuning routine. Every new feature is carefully designed to be easily
accessible and intuitive to use.

If you are not recording yet, make sure to read our [howto record sailing
sessions](/blog/eight-ways-to-record-gps-tracks-of-sailing-drills-and-regattas) guide.

Keep reading to learn about the key tools to analyze your sailing drills and regattas.

## 1. Navigate your replay

When you open a sailing session in ChartedSails you will find a large
timeline at the bottom of your screen showing your speed (in Knots) over
time. By moving your mouse over the graph you can easily see where the boats
were at a given time and what was their speed and course at that time.
![ChartedSails timeline](/assets/blog/analysis-howto/timeline-navigation.gif)

Click on the graph to move the playhead.

## 2. Control the playback

The `Play` button on the left of the graph launches the replay. Click on the
replay speed to switch between different speeds.

![Control replay playback](/assets/blog/analysis-howto/timeline-play.gif)

## 3. Know your tail modes

ChartedSails can display boat tracks in different ways:

- **Track colored as a function of speed**

  ![Track colored as a function of speed.](/assets/blog/analysis-howto/tailmode-speed.png)

  This is the default mode if you have only one boat in your replay. The
  color scale is displayed on the side of the screen and is automatically
  adjusted to the maximum speed of your boat. In this mode, you can easily
  notice fast segments and slower segments. You can also very effectively
  look at tacks and gybes to see how long before the manoeuver you started
  losing speed and how fast you got back to your previous speed on the other
  tack.

- **Full tail**

  ![Full track mode](/assets/blog/analysis-howto/tailmode-full.png)

  In this mode, each track is drawn in the color of the boat (see the boat
  cards in the top left corner to get the name of your boat). This makes it
  easy to compare trajectories and evaluate your tactical choices during a
  race. This is the default mode when you have multiple boats in a replay.

- **Partial Tail**

  ![Partial tail mode](/assets/blog/analysis-howto/tailmode-partial.png)

  In this mode, ChartedSails shows 10 minutes of sailing tracks for each
  boat. This makes it easier to look at long replays when boats have sailed
  over their tracks multiple times. Another way to deal with long tracks is
  to zoom on the part you are most interested in. Keep reading to learn how
  to do this!

## 4. Set up your wind

ChartedSails can help you measure the True Wind Angle and the Velocity Made
Good so you can effectively compare different tacks. Without a precise source
for wind, we rely on an estimate of the wind direction.

To set the wind direction on a session, click the 'Set Wind Direction` button
and rotate the map using the compass until the wind is coming up from the
top. It's usually very easy to find the wind direction just by looking at the
tracks.

Once the wind direction is set, ChartedSails will show True Wind Angle and
Velocity Made Good (your speed in the direction of the wind).

![Set wind direction](/assets/blog/analysis-howto/setwind.webp)

## 5. Use the time bracket tool for precise measurements

The big picture is interesting but you will often need to zoom in on specific
moments to isolate a leg, a manoeuver or even a complete race and take
measurements.

To zoom on the timeline, click on the graph and while keeping the mouse
clicked, drag your mouse on the graph. As you drag the mouse, the tracks
adjust to show precisely what you are selecting. When you are satisfied with
your selection, release the mouse button. The timeline will zoom
automatically to your selection.

If you need to adjust the selection, you can position the mouse on the
beginning or end of the selection and adjust the edges. Finally, click on the
X mark in the top right of the selection to close the active selection.

![Select on the timeline](/assets/blog/analysis-howto/timeline-selection.gif)

When a selection is active, the boat cards show average speed, total distance
sailed, average true wind angle and average velocity made good for each boat.

![Boat cards with selection active](/assets/blog/analysis-howto/boatcards-selection.png)

## Conclusion

Now that you know all the basic tools required to analyze your sailing
sessions, we suggest you take a new look at [your sessions](/) or one
of the demos available on the homepage and try answering the following
questions:

- What is your typical tack-to-tack angle?
- Which boat sailed the shortest distance in the race?
- What is the best VMG you were able to sustain for at least a minute upwind?
  What was your true wind angle? And what was your boat speed? This can now
  become your target boat speed (for similar wind conditions).

If you have any questions, just hit the blue chat button or [send us an
email](mailto:ahoy@chartedsails.com).


Five tools to analyze your sailing tracks

Discover 8 ways to record GPS tracks of your sailing sessions. From phone apps to dedicated devices like Velocitek and Vakaros, find the best method for your boat.

Recording all training sessions, drills and races is the very first step in using
data to improve your sailing performance. There are many ways to do it and
no excuses for not starting today!

## Record sailing sessions with your phone

We all have smartphones and many of us already take them on the water. The
wetter the dinghy the more complicated it gets but [waterproof
pouches](https://amzn.to/2T5JD6N) are cheap and will protect your phone from
splashes. For more serious dunking, [the Pelican
cases](https://amzn.to/2v2amsN) are always a solid option, come with strong
hooks to tie them to the boat and do not interfere with the GPS signal.

For iOS users we recommend `Open GPX Tracker`. It is free, no ads and lets
you easily export GPX files that are compatible with ChartedSails. For higher
accuracy, set the "Activity Type" to Fitness in the settings.

[![Open GPX Tracker for iOS](/assets/blog/record-howto/opengpx-tracker.png)](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/open-gpx-tracker/id984503772)
_Click the image to download OpenGPX Tracker for iOS._

### And for Android users

For Android users, we recommend `GPS Logger`. It is also free, without ads
and offers easy export of GPX files.

[![GPS Logger](/assets/blog/record-howto/gpslogger.png)](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.basicairdata.graziano.gpslogger)_Click the image to download GPX Logger for Android._

For both iOS and Android users, the easiest way to collect the files is to
email them to yourself. A slightly more advanced option is to save them to a
cloud disk storage like Dropbox, Google Drive or iCloud.

Now of course there is always a risk involved with expensive phones on
dinghies and if you do not want to take that risk - or make your students
take it, you might consider a dedicated sailing GPS.

## Velocitek GPS

Velocitek is extremely well known in the dinghy world and all their GPSs
record data on an internal memory. We have extensively tested ChartedSails
with both the ProStart and the SpeedPuck.

[![Velocitek ProStart and SpeedPuck](/assets/blog/record-howto/velocitek-gps.png)](https://amzn.to/2x4lsy2)
_The Velocitek Prostart and the SpeedPuck are great options to record sailing tracks._

To view your data in ChartedSails, simply connect the Velocitek device to a
computer via USB and use the Velocitek Control Center. After downloading a
track, the program will offer the option to "Open in ChartedSails" directly.

It is the easiest way to get your data from the water to the computer.

![Velocitek Control Center offers the option to open tracks in ChartedSails](/assets/blog/record-howto/velocitek-controlcenter.png)

## Vakaros Atlas

[![Vakaros Atlas](/assets/blog/record-howto/vakaros.jpeg)](https://www.vakaros.com)

The Vakaros Atlas now supports logging of all sailing sessions. At the end of the day, the data is available for download via the Vakaros mobile app and you can upload it directly to ChartedSails from your phone using the mobile browser.

For more information on logging with the Vakaros Atlas, visit [vakaros.com](https://www.vakaros.com).

## Use a Garmin running watch to go sailing

**Update Nov 2021**: ChartedSails now supports automatic synchronization with
Garmin. [Click here for more details](/blog/take-your-garmin-watch-sailing).

Garmin offers a plethora of sport watches and we like to mention them here
because there is a good chance you or someone around you already has one. If
you don't, you can pick up the entry level [Forerunner
25](https://amzn.to/2WloKaT) for ~\$95 on Amazon and it will do the job just
fine.

Just record your sailing sessions as a "Run" or "Cycle" activity and when you
are done they will automatically sync to your phone and to the web via Garmin
Connect.

To export the track and use it on ChartedSails you will need to visit [Garmin
Connect website](https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activities) and go to the
"All Activities" page. From there, select your sailing session (click on the
title) and on the details page click on the Gear icon in the top right and
'Export to GPX'.

![Export Garmin sailing activities as GPX files for
ChartedSails](/assets/blog/record-howto/garmin-export.gif)

Garmin GPX files work perfectly on ChartedSails and this process works with
all Garmin activity watches.

## Wear that Apple watch on your dinghy!

[Apple says the Apple Watch 2 and newer models can be use for ocean
swimming](https://support.apple.com/en-us/109522) but not for scuba diving
or water skiing. Depending on the type of sailor you are, you will need to
decide if you want to take that risk.

Open GPX Tracker, our recommendation for iOS also has an Apple Watch version,
and it is also completely free. We recommend it.

[![Open GPX Tracker for Apple
Watch](/assets/blog/record-howto/applewatch.png)](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/open-gpx-tracker/id984503772#?platform=appleWatch)

## Take your GoPro sailing

<iframe width="896" height="504" style="width: 100%;" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fx_4DD_ksP8" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

There is no doubt that GoPro cameras are extremely cool. Did you know that
all [GoPro cameras](https://amzn.to/2WmeXkU) since the GoPro 5 record GPS
data?

**ChartedSails will automatically extract GPS data from the video.** Just click Upload, select your video file and let the magic happens. To save time and bandwidth, the GPS data is extracted on your computer and the full video file is not uploaded. Repeat the operation for each video file and you will have your full session.

And if you are not sure how to mount the GoPro on your boat, Jon Deutsch has
[some suggestions for you on his
blog](https://jdeutsch.com/2012/10/26/laser-gopro-mount-locations/).

## Use Expedition Sailing with ChartedSails

[![Expedition Navigation and Sailing
Software](/assets/blog/record-howto/expeditionmarine.jpg)](https://www.expeditionmarine.com/)
_Expedition Sailing is a popular Windows application in the sailing world._

Ok this one might not apply to a lot of dinghies but if you also sail on
bigger boats you might be interested to learn that ChartedSails can directly
open the ".csv" files recorded by Expedition Sailing.

## Live tracking of dinghy sailing

We are testing a number of live trackers with top-level athletes. The data is
available to the coach in realtime and there is no need to physically connect
to the GPS at the end of the day to prepare the debrief.

If you are a coach
interested in adding live tracking of sailboats to your tools, [contact
us](mailto:ahoy@chartedsails.com) and we will get you set up.

## What are we missing?

What other tools are you using or would you like to use with ChartedSails?
[Send us an email](mailto:ahoy@chartedsails.com) and we will make sure to add
support for it and update this list.

Now that you know how to record sailing data, make sure to learn how to use [our tools
to analyze your sailing sessions](/blog/five-tools-to-analyze-your-sailing-sessions).


8 ways to record GPS tracks of your sailing drills and regattas

Share your sailing replays with your crew, coach, or training partners. Invite by email, control permissions, and get the most from your time on the water.

Whether you are a coach working with a large fleet or a solo skipper training
with a partner, sharing your replays is a great way to extend the practice
and make sure you are getting the maximum value from your time on the water.

## Share your sailing sessions

To share a session, simply click on the share button and type the email address of the person you want to invite. Add a message if you would like and click send. That's it!

![Howto share a sailing session](/assets/blog/share-howto.webp)

## Sharing like a pro

If you need to share with a lot of people, a WhatsApp group or to post the
replay on your blog, you can simply copy the URL in the navigation bar and
send it. Anyone with the URL will be able to watch the replay but they will
not be able to edit it.

## A note on data and privacy

All the data you upload to ChartedSails is **private** and cannot be
discovered by search engine or by other users.

However, if you post the link to another website, a forum or a social
network, search engines will discover the data and may show it in search
results. If that happens and you need us to "hide" something, just [reach
out](mailto:ahoy@chartedsails.com) and we will help you.


Share sailing sessions with the crew

Learn how to trim your sailing GPS tracks in ChartedSails. Focus on the data that matters by removing unwanted sections from your recorded sessions.

Inevitably you will soon be [recording](/blog/eight-ways-to-record-gps-tracks-of-sailing-drills-and-regattas) more data than you need. Often you will only care about a few hours in a full day recording. Another day the GPS will be left on when the boat is on the freeway.

## Trim a sailing session

To help you focus on the data that really matters to you, you can easily trim
your sailing tracks in ChartedSails:

- Click Edit in the top right corner
- Move the left and right bars on the timeline to select the data you want to focus on
- Click save to record this change

### What happened to my data?

When you trim a session the data is not removed, it's just hidden away and
ChartedSails will not use those hidden moments to calculate averages and
other stats. If you ever need it back, you can simply click trim again and
re-extend the session.

## Dividing a session into multiple races

Very often you will have one file with multiple interesting moments (speed tests, races, etc).

ChartedSails allows you to very easily bookmark these moments to get back to them later. To make a bookmark, start by making a selection on the timeline (click and hold your mouse as you move the cursor - or use two fingers on touch screens), then give the selection a name.

You can also adjust the weather conditions (wind) for each bookmark. The program will remember your adjustments. This is very useful when the wind rotated throughout the day.

To learn more about races, please watch [our videos on race management](/blog/tactics-performance-maneuvers-analyze-the-race-leg-by-leg).


CHARTEDSAILS BLOG

Sailing with an Apple Watch (2026): The Best App and Workflow

Sailing with an Apple Watch (2026): The Best App and Workflow

Sailing with a Vakaros Atlas (2026): Atlas 2, Edge, and Analysis

Sailing with a Velocitek Prostart (2026): Race Starts and Track Analysis

Sailing with a Garmin Watch (2026): Setup, Recording & Analysis

Your sailing day, summarized

Your Vakaros Data, Automatically in ChartedSails

Race Analysis at Your Fingertips

Your Sailing Videos, Finally Useful

Sailing Is a Team Sport. Your Data Should Be Too.

See Every Boat From the Coach Boat — In Real Time

Justice on the Water: How ChartedSails Data Resolved a Racing Dispute

Explore further, dig deeper

Compelling Sailing Debriefs

One design coaching basics with Fuzz

Tactics, Performance and Maneuvers - Analyze the race leg by leg

Use your GPS to ping the start line

Learn from sailing data: Downwind Technique

Learn from sailing data: good and bad tacks

Five tools to analyze your sailing tracks

8 ways to record GPS tracks of your sailing drills and regattas

Share sailing sessions with the crew

Trim your sailing tracks