Vi är nu redo för start i Gotland Runt. Superkul att vara tillbaka då vi seglade senast 2016. Extra kul att man har gjort det enklare att följa racet. Kan framför allt rekommendera de Race Updates som kommer löpande på YouTube.
If you’ve been involved in offshore racing for a while, you’ve probably come across the new way of calculating results: Weather Routing Scoring (WRS). The idea: combine a boat’s theoretical performance (the VPP polars on its certificate) with a weather model for the actual race, then measure how close each boat got to its possible performance under the conditions.
Sounds good in theory. In practice – as we all know – this is not an exact science. The VPP isn’t really your boat’s true performance, it’s an approximation with some pretty large holes in it. And the weather rarely behaves the way the models think it should.
As the method has become more widely used, we’ve started to see some nasty side effects. At the recent ORC DH Worlds in Scheveningen, several results were very surprising. In Norway, sailors in this year’s Færderseilasen want their money back. There’s been talk of a bug for some time, but ORC has not responded – and as with the XR-41 case, it’s once again the tech-savvy designers and navigators doing the heavy lifting to actually figure out what’s going on.
The deeper question isn’t only the bug. It’s about transparency: should sailors be able to understand their relative rating before, during and after the race? And how much should the race committee’s choice of weather model, routing algorithm and scoring method really affect the result? At some point you have to ask whether a less scientifically ambitious rule that sailors actually understand is the better trade-off.
A small but telling data point from home: our last offshore race at Sandhamn Open. Not a single sailor I spoke to understood the results. And if you re-score the same race with different ORC methods, the order changes a lot – see the table below, scored five different ORC ways. Most boats shift one to four places depending on which method you pick. For a fleet of twelve, that’s not a rounding error – that’s the gap between a podium finish and the back of the pack.
Pos
Båt
Elapsed
Orig
a) CLD ToT
a) CLD ToD
b) TN Med ToT
b) TN Med ToD
1
Pro4u
16:56:12
1
17:00:52 (1)
−32:15 (1)
18:34:27 (1)
55:51 (1)
2
Blur
17:00:59
3
17:19:21 (2)
−13:36 (2)
18:53:05 (2)
1:12:03 (3)
3
Pandion
15:27:48
2
17:20:20 (3)
−11:28 (3)
19:00:43 (3)
1:11:11 (2)
4
Oxygen
15:58:18
4
17:31:32 (4)
−01:30 (4)
19:08:37 (4)
1:19:34 (4)
5
Joint Venture
16:04:51
5
17:35:09 (5)
01:52 (5)
19:14:03 (6)
1:24:22 (5)
6
AlmaViva
16:15:25
7
17:36:51 (6)
03:18 (6)
19:14:53 (7)
1:25:48 (7)
7
Yrsa
17:35:28
8
17:40:31 (7)
07:21 (7)
19:18:28 (8)
1:36:00 (9)
8
Andiamo
16:56:12
6
17:42:20 (8)
08:38 (8)
19:09:13 (5)
1:24:49 (6)
9
Matador
14:26:19
12
17:53:21 (9)
16:12 (9)
19:30:23 (9)
1:26:46 (8)
10
Heist
14:44:04
9
18:06:57 (10)
27:27 (10)
19:42:15 (11)
1:36:26 (10)
11
The Trooper
17:21:52
10
18:08:57 (11)
34:07 (12)
19:38:33 (10)
1:50:50 (12)
12
Nemo Rosso
15:00:08
11
18:14:12 (12)
33:42 (11)
19:49:09 (12)
1:42:51 (11)
Sandhamn Open Hav, 105.32 NM, originally scored by WRS, comparison to (a) Coastal/Long Distance and (b) Triple Number CLD Medium – both methods in ToT och ToD.. ToD corrected in mm:ss; negative = faster than cert-implied.
To see what this can look like from the inside, here’s what happened to Team Gaia at the DH Worlds – finishing second across the line, scored last in the results. That’s what it looks like from a competing team in the middle of the storm. The frustration is justified . but it doesn’t tell us why the numbers behave the way they do.
For that, Nils Melsom Kristensen has done his homework. He sailed the recent Færderseilasen on the X-41 Saillogic, works as a scientist at MET Norway, and produced the official weather briefing for the event. He has dug into the actual mechanism behind the WRS output – and what he’s found is worth reading carefully.
Over to Nils.
How can we fix the ORC WRS?
by Nils Melsom Kristensen (nilsmk@duck.com)
Weather routing scoring could have been one of the best things that has happened to handicap racing in ages, but unfortunately it seems to be failing. Surprise surprise, it’s not primarily due to unreliable weather models, it’s a fundamental flaw in the weather routing module. Here is my humble attempt at explaining the problem in a way that is understandable to most sailors. All the work below is based on the recent Færder race in Norway.
Disclaimer: I was sailing the race onboard the X-41 Saillogic. I also work as a scientist at MET Norway and produced the official weather briefing for the event, but I am not directly connected to any of the weather models used in the WRS. So even if I might have a personal interest in the case, my only agenda is to fix the WRS, which is currently not working as intended.
To explain this, I will use the case of four X-41 sailing in the same class, same course, same start. Here are some facts about the boats and rating. All percentage differences below use Saillogic as reference.
It is expected to have some differences in the rating relatively between boats when moving from APH to WRS, since the polar diagrams are not exactly the same. However, to have One Design boats (like the X-41) with only slightly different sail configurations to change by 8% when moving from one system to another is something that should be grounds for a more thorough examination.
Let’s first look at the measurement certificates (link in table above). The VPP performance number (polars) can be found below.
Then, let us compare these two. See both absolute and relative differences in speed in the tables below. Positive numbers means Saillogic is faster, negative numbers means BarX is faster.
As we can see, Saillogic is generally faster than BarX, which is also expected since the APH of BarX is 0.8% less than Saillogic. The largest relative difference in predicted speed is 8.8%. This is reaching in 24kt TWS. The Færder race saw a maximum wind of about 16kt for a few hours, while the boats were sailing upwind or very tight reaching at TWA 50-90 deg.
Then, looking at the relative differences in less than 10kt TWS above, we see the maximum difference is 5.1% in 4kt TWS.
Again looking at the WRS prediction, we see both boats should spend no more than about 2 hours in wind below 5kt, and when taking into account that the predicted total sailing time for Saillogic is about 16 hours, and BarX about 17.5 hours, this accounts for very small parts of the race, and no difference in performance between the boats for the wind range used in WRS is remotely close to the 8.8% difference in rating.
So, let us continue the search.
As was said during the official weather briefing, the weather was very uncertain due to the passing of a small local low pressure system that was passing over the race course during the race. In hindsight, the weather development was very close to the latest forecast that was used in the WRS scoring for the race. The low probably passed a bit further south than expected, giving a more stable breeze than expected, but directions were very close to the forecasted weather. It is common knowledge that forecasting weather is not a precise science due to a number of reasons, something every meteorologist is open and honest about. However, the forecast was generally in good agreement with the actual weather for the race. And, the real weather has no impact on the rating we have discussed so far…
There is no perfect forecast, no perfect weather routing, and no perfect rating system, but the WRS should theoretically be one of the better “simple” systems we can come up with, and it is therefore very surprising that the rating behaves so unpredictable.
Let us dig deeper…
If we look at the WRS output for the Færder race, and the four X-41’s, we can view their predicted courses in the map below.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of clutter from the mark names, but trust me when I say that the predicted optimal routes align very well.
So, why would the WRS predict that almost identical boats, sailing the same route, in the same wind perform so differently?
If we zoom in on the predicted routes, we see something strange. This is the crux of the matter. We can clearly see that the wind barbs are placed at different positions along the optimal routes. When using a grid-based routine algorithm, these wind barbs are usually placed at the start and end of the route segments, so we assume the same is the case here. In the example below, I have zoomed in on the part of the course between Moss and almost Færder. Now, take a close look at the “brownish” optimal route, and then the white, light grey and purple. The routes on the left are the ones going south, while the ones on the right are the ones returning north. On the southward routes, there are clearly very few wind barbs on the brown route. In fact, going south in this area, I can only spot two (I tried to mark them with red dots), whereas the purple have at least eight.
Why does this matter, you say? Well it does. The wind at the start and end of the routing segment is the wind used to calculate the time spent for that segment based on the boat’s performance prediction. Either the wind at the start of the segment is used on the entire segment, or the wind is linearly interpolated between the two.
If the wind was stable, and did not change in time or space, then it would not matter how many of these routing points you had, since the sum of the predicted times for each segment would be the same as the value for the very long segment. But when the wind is changing, we get a kind of aliasing that would give a different sum of time for the same route depending on where, and how many routing segments you have. See a simplified example in the appendix below.
This type of behaviour in the routing algorithm is common knowledge among offshore navigators who use grid based routing software. When these long jumps occur, it is common to make small changes in the routing settings to try to avoid them. Why they happen, I don’t really know, but I guess there is a bug somewhere… As far as I know, these jumps do not appear commonly in isochronal based routing algorithms.
So, where do we go from here, how do we fix it? Well, only the provider of the routing can do that, but they should start by ensuring that the routing segments have a more evenly distributed length, and that they are not too long. Additionally, it would be wise of the ORC to admit the problem, and how this may have influenced the results of races that have been scored using WRS.
As I final note, even if I am very certain that this is the problem, I can be wrong, and I am definitely open to other explanations if anyone has one.
Appendix
Comparing the yachts that sailed the longest course, APH on x-axis, WRS on y-axis. Red line is linear regression, while the yellow are +/- 1 standard deviation and the green +/- 2 standard deviations. Yachts that fall below the red line have “better WRS than APH” , while the yachts above the red line “have worse”. Boats in blue generally behave as expected, while the red and orange are some that should be looked into.
Overall, it is expected that relatively similar boats that are considered “all-round boats”, should have a similar relative relation between them if it is APH or WRS.
Average leg length (of the predicted route) vs absolute deviation from the regression line, minimum leg length vs abs_deviation and maximum leg length vs abs_deviation. See e.g. BarX has the longest leg of all yachts, over 18nm on a 88nm race…
Efter Marstrand Big Boat så var det dags att ta båten till Östersjön för Gotland Runt och RORC Baltic Sea Race. Ett bra sätt att värma upp, och att få segla lite mer tillsammans med hela teamet (de långa racen kör vi doublehanded) var att segla Sandhamn Open som också var SM i ORCi.
Eftersom offshore-racet startade 20:00 så hade vi dagen på oss att kolla så att allt funkade. Efter en kort kryss med J1.5 och en repa tillbaka med Code 0 så kändes allt på plats och vi kunde belöna oss själva med en tidig middag på Seglarhotellet.
Sedan dags för skepparmöte. Efter en vecka med ostadigt väder såg det ut bli fina förutsättningar för ett race på havet. Förutom vi som körde ORCi, fanns det två klasser i SRS; en för full besättning och en för doublehandedseglarna.
Samma startområde som Gotland Runt, söder om Sandön. Vi gjorde en bra start i lovart, men vinden vred med strax efter start och vi hade nog hellre haft vår A3 än Code 0. Det är också svårt att vara en av de långsammaste båterna, då man blir ifrånseglad av allt och alla. Och man vet inte riktigt om det är rätt eller om man skall göra något annorlunda 😀
Fin kryss söderut mot Dämban. Vi visste att det skulle vrida vänster, och ville hålla oss till vänster om fleeten. Här hade det antagligen varit bättre att segla på skiften, då vridet kom senare än vad vi hade gissat. Här tappade vi en del på Pro4U som rundade någon distans före.
Vi hade också svårt att nå våra targets i den korta sjön. Verkade som vi inte var ensamma dock.
Sedan en reachingbog tillbaka till Revenge (typ). Fantastisk nattsegling som alla borde få uppleva någon gång.
Perfekt för vår A3 där vi nu fått massa data att analysera. Men väldigt jämnt mot andra team. Bra fight mot Mumm 36 Shogun och Farr 30 Andiamo. Mycket nyttigt att försöka hänga med snabbare båtar.
Sedan ytterligare en bra kryss mot SO och Väderbojen. Här seglade vi mycket bra och halverade avståndet till Pro4U.
Soluppgång och lång läns norrut mot Svenska Högarna. Här mötte vi Pogo 36 Boxer som till slut blev 2:a i doublehandedklassen.
Kul också att se flera J/111 på banan. En sån skulle man ha 🤣
Innan rundningen vid Svenska Högarna försökte jag lista ut hur vi låg till. Vi visste att vi var efter Pro4U eftersom vi skall slå dem på vattnet (nu var de ca 0.6 distans före), men vilka andra fightades vi med? Den officiella trackingen var TracTrac, men det funkade inte alls, vare sig för SRS eller ORCi. Vad säger resultatlistan ovan? Ingen aning. Värdelöst.
Med lite jobb med Excel och andra båtars mätbrev kändes som vi hade bra koll och jag gissade att vi var 2:a i vår klass.
Lång bog med TWA 75-90 där vi fick utväxling på vår Code. När det var brant så seglade vi jämt med Pro4U som körde jibtop och stagsegel, men när det gick över TWA 85 så var vi snabbare.
Avslutningsvis en kort läns in till mållinjen vid Skanskobb. Vi kände oss nöjda med vår insats och ytterligare ett bevis på att Pro4U inte gör särskilt många misstag.
Resultatrapporteringen dröjde eftersom KSSS också hade strul med TracTrac. 18:30, dvs nästan 5 timmar efter att sista båt gått i mål kom detta screenshot i WhatsApp-gruppen. Jag vet inte hur resultathantering kan vara ett problem 2026?
Det var samma issues på Marstrand Big Boat. Och på Færdern i år. Att seglarna inte har en aning om hur det går, vare sig på havet eller efter målgång kan inte vara så det är tänkt? Kommer nog ett separat inlägg om detta.
Så här blev det till slut:
Pos
Yacht Name
Sail No
Type
Finish Time
Elapsed
Delta
1
Garmin Team Pro4u
SWE 88
FIRST 36.7 MOD
+1 13:01:12
16:56:12
0:00:00
2
Pandion
FRA 017
XR 41
+1 11:32:48
15:27:48
0:09:28
3
Blur
SWE 53435
J 99 FIN KEEL
+1 13:05:59
17:00:59
0:15:45
4
Oxygen
SWE 44
X 41 OD
+1 12:03:18
15:58:18
0:26:29
5
Joint Venture 4.0
SWE 4991
X 41
+1 12:09:51
16:04:51
0:28:56
6
Andiamo
SWE 659
FARR 30 OD
+1 13:01:12
16:56:12
0:30:23
7
AlmaViva
SWE 70
First 40
+1 12:20:25
16:15:25
0:31:15
8
YRSA
SWE 345
ARCONA 340
+1 13:40:28
17:35:28
0:38:12
9
Heist
SWE 53205
KER 40 CUSTOM KEEL
+1 10:49:04
14:44:04
0:39:37
10
THE TROOPER
SWE 91811
FARR 30 OD
+1 13:26:52
17:21:52
0:49:27
11
Nemo Rosso
SWE 981
KER 40
+1 11:05:08
15:00:08
0:54:37
12
MATADOR
SWE 15
ELLIOTT 44 – CUSTOM
+1 10:31:19
Eftersom vi skall segla Gotland Runt på SRS, och inte alls är optimerade för ORCi, så räknade jag om alla båtars tider enligt SRS för att se hur vi presterat. Ganska bra visade det sig 🤣
Pos
Båt
Klass
SRS
Seglad
Korrigerad
Δ
1
Blur
ORCi
1.054
17:00:59
17:56:06
—
2
Pro4u
ORCi
1.065*
16:56:12
18:02:15
06:08
3
Amazigh
SRS DH
1.062
16:59:56
18:03:10
07:03
4
Boxer
SRS DH
1.090
16:43:51
18:14:11
18:04
5
Amarone
SRS FC
1.046
17:26:14
18:14:21
18:14
6
Jolene
SRS DH
1.167
15:38:29
18:15:12
19:05
7
CAG
SRS FC
1.127
16:13:58
18:17:39
21:32
8
Elva
SRS DH
1.103
16:39:07
18:22:01
25:54
9
Swee
SRS FC
1.280
14:26:25
18:29:00
32:53
10
Shogun
SRS FC
1.105
16:45:38
18:31:13
35:06
11
Oriole
SRS FC
1.032
18:05:59
18:40:44
44:37
12
Alapocas
SRS FC
0.949
19:41:38
18:41:22
45:15
13
Joint Venture
ORCi
1.164
16:04:51
18:43:05
46:58
14
Imperiet II
SRS FC
1.100
17:01:02
18:43:08
47:01
15
MATADOR
ORCi
1.299
14:26:19
18:45:20
49:13
16
YRSA
ORCi
1.067
17:35:28
18:46:10
50:03
17
Andiamo
ORCi
1.109
16:56:12
18:46:57
50:50
18
Heist
ORCi
1.275
14:44:04
18:47:11
51:04
19
Spirit
SRS DH
1.055
17:49:25
18:48:14
52:07
20
Pandion
ORCi
1.218
15:27:48
18:50:03
53:56
21
AlmaViva
ORCi
1.162
16:15:25
18:53:26
57:19
22
Malva
SRS FC
1.065
17:44:54
18:54:07
58:00
23
Oxygen
ORCi
1.187
15:58:18
18:57:30
1:01:23
24
Happy Yachting
SRS FC
1.238
15:21:48
19:01:11
1:05:04
25
CAP
SRS FC
1.076
17:44:39
19:05:33
1:09:26
26
Nemo Rosso
ORCi
1.280
15:00:08
19:12:10
1:16:03
27
Blåvinge
SRS FC
1.096
17:32:39
19:13:42
1:17:35
28
The Trooper
ORCi
1.111
17:21:52
19:17:30
1:21:23
29
Ellen
SRS FC
1.158
16:59:52
19:41:00
1:44:53
30
Axioma
SRS FC
1.133
17:44:49
20:06:26
2:10:19
31
Iris
SRS FC
1.183
18:01:16
21:19:08
3:23:01
32
Stora Blå
SRS FC
1.204
17:52:13
21:30:56
3:34:49
*) SRS från 2025.
Belöning!
Under söndagen planerades 3-4 banseglingar utanför Sandhamn. Prognosen var utmanande för tävlingsledningen då vindar skulle ticka från NV till S i samband med att en liten front passerade. Och massor av regn. Men det blev fyra riktigt bra race, där egentligen bara det sista blev riktigt skevt.
Framförallt starterna var svåra, med kort linje och massor av snabba båtar. Men vi gjorde det bästa av situationen och lyckades ofta ta oss ut rimligt ok i lovart.
Rent racingmässigt var det nästan en kopia av Marstrand Big Boat, väldigt jämnt på havet med Pro4U och massor av kul dueller. Men på korrigerad tid rår vi inte på dem. I alla fall inte under ORCi.
Men det är sjukt lärorikt att få sparra mot världens bästa båt!
Glatt gäng efter sista racet: Mats Björk (keyboard), Wille Eriksson (trim), Peter Gustafsson (rorsman), Mattias Bodlund (mast), Simon Kindt (fördäck) & Pelle Pedersen (storskot).
Stort grattis till Patrik och hela teamet på Pro4U. Kul att få hänga med er både på bryggan och i rundningarna. Även Pandion & Heist gjorde bra insatser i helt nya båtar.
Stort tack också till KSSS som arrade på ett fantastiskt sätt. Resultatrapporteringen var väl enda plumpen i protokollet. Annars perfekt.
Tack B&G, Henri Lloyd, J/boats, J/Composites, Maurten, North Sails, Liros, Spinlock och alla andra som stöttar oss.
Profilen SWE 8971 is the world’s first extruded yacht. SAPA, Scandinavian Aluminum Profiles AB produced it in 1981. The initiator of Profilen, creative impact photographer and sailor Lennart Hyse, initiated the idea, collected a crew, took the role as the project manager, documented the story and created a classic slideshow of the unique story. Here is the filmed version, with a Swedish voice-over by Lennart Lundh and Bengt Kviberg.
Producer: Lennar Hyse Photo: Lennart Hyse Yacht design: Peter Norlin Yacht construction: Anders Löfqvist Racing crew members: Peter Norlin, Peter Sundin, Roger Nilsson, Lennart Hyse (and more) Assisting Crew & Maintenance: Bjorn Bertoft Owner, developer, marketing: SAPA (2026: Hydro www.hydro.com)
Efter förra årets övertygande serie 1-1-1-1-1 så var nog andras förväntningar ganska höga. Men vi visste också att nivån på fältet var ganska mycket högre i år. En annan faktor var att vi skulle segla ORCi, något som vår båt inte alls är optimerad för.
Ready to race.
Fredagen inleddes med North Sails Clinic. Mycket nyttigt att få se bilder på sina segel utifrån, och kunna ha en diskussion om hur stor och fock samverkar på ett bra sätt. Vi var ganska rätt ute med de referenser vi hade förra året, och som vi nu har justerat för vår nya garderob.
Nu fick vi också känna på First 36.7 Pro4U. De är ju regerande världsmästare i ORCi, kan sin båt utan och innan och har varit i en egen klass här hemma under många år. De är benchmarket som vi andra kan mäta oss mot. Och jag hade inga illusioner om att vi skulle rå på dem i deras paradgren.
På träningen kändes det som vi hade lite edge på kryss, men hade svårt att hänga med dem utför.
Kul att se Kwanza tillbaka. Nu i en FarEast 28R på hemmaplan (när man inte seglar ClubSwan 43 i Medelhavet).
Tätt även i träningsracen.
Skepparmöte och en prognos som kunde innehålla mycket vind.
Våra prognoser pekade på en sydvästlig gradient byggande till 14–17 kt över lunch, följt av en kallfrontpassage runt 15:30 med en dramatisk vridning från SSW till WSW och tryckfall. Sju av åtta vädermodeller var överens om mönstret.
Vinden byggde precis enligt prognos och toppade strax efter kl 12. Men fronten kom aldrig – den passerade någon gång under kvällen/natten som en utdragen process istället för det dramatiska skiftet vi var preppade för. Pre-frontal vridning började anas mot slutet av sista racet, men det blev aldrig något stort vrid.
Fantastiska förhållanden där vi seglade bra. När vi inte ställde till det för oss själva. Jag hade väldiga problem i starterna då det var en relativt kort linje och massor av stora båtar. Man undrar lite vad vitsen är att dela in i klasser om alla ändå skall starta samtidigt? Nu kunde ingen båt i Klass C starta vettigt. Visst, det är samma för alla, men jag hade tyckt det var tråkigt att transportera hit från Tyskland för att inte få en egen start…
Tack till Anna-Lena Elled och Search för fina bilder.
En annan sak som var klurigt var att man körde kryss-gate i stället för ett märke med spread. Vi upplevde att detta gav upphov till fler farliga situationer där framförallt de snabbare båtarna ofta rundade det fördelaktiga högra märket och gippsatte vilket gjorde att det blev svårhanterliga situationer ett par gånger.
Dagens tema. Vi var före Pro4U i ett race, och tätt efter i de flesta. Men vi mäter högre än vad de gör, så de slog oss på korrigerat i alla race.
Vår serie efter första dagen: 2-2-3-2.
Klassisk regattamiddag på Såsen. Skönt att ingen blivit äldre sedan vi var här förra gången.
Fighting faces på Xp-33 Vindrus.
Äntligen en bra start… Då vart det så klart allmän omstart.
Mer på samma tema. Race 5 tyckte vi att vi seglade närmast perfekt och var var 1:24 före Patrik Forsgren i mål. Men ändå förlorade vi det racet med 17 sekunder.
Sista racet tappade vi skärpan lite och hade problem med farten ett par tillfällen. Dagens resultat: 2-5.
Totalt en andraplats efter världens bästa Class C-båt. Det måste vi vara nöjda med. Vi skulle säkert kunna optimera båten bättre om vi skulle segla mer ORCi. Nu är ju planen att segla doublehanded i IRC, så vi låter nog bli det.
Kunde inte låta bli att räkna om resultaten i SRS. Då hade vi slagit dem 🤣
Stort tack till hela gänget; Wille Eriksson (trim), Johan Fredriksson (stor), Fredrik Roos (mast), Mats Björk (keyboard), Jens Allroth (trim), Mattias Bodlund (fördäck), Pelle Pedersen (strategi) och Peter Gustafsson (rorsman)
Stort tack också till B&G, Henri Lloyd, J/boats, J/Composites, Maurten, North Sails, Liros, Spinlock och alla andra som stöttar oss.
Stort grattis till Patrik Forsgren och hans fantastiska gång. Vi ses igen på Sandhamn Open.
Stabil leverans av MSS och Lars Wilhelmsen. Mycket hög nivå på fleeten, så vi borde kunna locka ännu fler bra båtar nästa gång. Egen start och snabbare resultat var den enda feedbacken vi hade.
Följande propå damp ner i mailboxen. Låter ju superintressant för rätt team?
Ansökan att representera Sverige vid OFFSHORE DOUBLE HANDED WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP 2026 i Marseilles
Svenska Havskappseglinsförbundet öppnar ansökan om deltagande för att representera Sverige vid Offshore Double Handed World Championship 2026.
Mästerskapet går 2026 i Marseilles, Frankrike den 23 september till 2 oktober med av Svenska Havskappseglingsförbundet nominerat(de?) lag. Lagen ska bestå av en kvinna och en man. Båda med erfarenhet från liknande segling och skall som individ och lag uppfylla övriga ställda krav.
Arrangör är Union Nautique Marseillaise (UNM) tillsammans med Cap Regatta som förser evenemanget med båtar av typen C30 (Sun Fast 30 One Design) under World Sailings regi.
Nu finns den formella inbjudan ute och vi har i dagsläget en troika med intresserade team från Sverige till detta Världsmästerskap. SHF har fått i uppgift från SSF att nominera och anmäla upp till 2 Svenska lag!
Jag uppmuntrar alla initiativ som får ut fler människor på havet, och jag gillar folk som tar action istället för att bara prata. Madeleine Lithvall gör båda delarna med Gybe Set.
Hon köpte en Diva 399 förra sommaren — Est! Est!! Est!!! — och har lagt vintern på att uppgradera båten till en bra plattform för kölbåtskappsegling. Egen ingång till sporten var familjesegling och sjöscouter, inte den klassiska jollevägen, plus några år som coach och skeppare. Hon vet vad som saknas i början av en kappseglingsresa eftersom hon stått där själv. På meritlistan finns bland annat sju Gotland Runt, brons i Baltic Sea Race double-handed, pallplatser i X-41 och J/111 och match racing på WMRT.
Formatet är en crash course på tre kvällar, team om åtta personer ombord, hands-on. Det avgörande är att alla får testa allt: styra, trimma, fördäck, taktik, navigation.
För 2026 körs kurserna i intro- och fortsättningsnivå, plus två tävlingar i programmet: Lidingö Runt och Ornö Runt som clinics. Det finns platser kvar till Ornö Runt. Madeleine driver dessutom Gybe Set, som lyfter tjejer i sporten globalt.
Me during the Bermuda 1-2, just south of Nantucket. Tricky conditions for any autopilot.
After more than 7 seasons with the H5000 across two boats, countless hours on Sailing Anarchy threads, B&G’s own advanced training materials, and conversations with people who set these systems up for a living, I’ve collected a set of insights that would have saved me a lot of time. Many aren’t obvious from the manual. A few I had to learn the hard way.
Written from the perspective of doublehanded racing on a 33-36 ft performance yacht (J/111, now J/99), but the principles apply to any H5000 installation where the autopilot matters.
Before anything else: update your software. Running the latest H5000 Pilot Computer software (currently version 2.0.0.2) is essential for getting the best performance out of the system. Many of the issues people still describe online were addressed in this release. Download it here, and read point 3 below carefully – there’s one setting you need to disable after the update or you won’t see the improvement.
1. There are actually two different pilots inside your H5000
This is the single most important thing to understand, and it isn’t always obvious from the documentation.
Perf 1 is essentially the same algorithm as B&G’s standard cruising pilot, the NAC-2. No sailing-specific intelligence. It behaves like a classical PID controller, which means three things happen at once: Rudder Gain (proportional) sets how much rudder per degree of heading error. Big error, big correction. Counter Rudder (derivative) watches how fast the error is changing and brakes the turn before you overshoot. Think of it as anticipation. AutoTrim (integral) slowly learns a steady-state rudder offset to compensate for persistent weather helm. Cruising Speed scales all of this by boat speed (see point 4). That’s the whole algorithm. And that’s what AutoTune calibrates.
Perf 2-5 gradually blend in something different: the “Performance Sail” algorithm, which uses an internal mathematical boat model with fixed gain tables you can’t see or adjust. The blend isn’t linear either. Experienced users describe it as more of an exponential curve than a volume dial: the step from Perf 2 to 3 is small, but from 4 to 5 it’s large.
Why this matters: AutoTune mainly calibrates the Perf 1 algorithm. If you run Perf 3 (which handles most conditions on a boat our size), your Rudder Gain setting has diminishing effect. If the pilot steers poorly at Perf 3 and you start tweaking Rudder Gain, you’re adjusting a parameter the system is mostly ignoring. The problem is almost certainly somewhere else.
On top of the steering algorithms sit the Expert Systems, and understanding what they do is just as important. Gust Response and TWS Response don’t change how the rudder is controlled. They change the target TWA that the pilot is aiming at. When a gust hits, Gust Response shifts the target a few degrees lower (bear-away). When the gust passes, it slowly returns. TWS Response does the same thing but for sustained wind increases, and it stays low as long as the wind stays up.
The exception is Heel Compensation, which acts directly on the rudder as a fast-learning weather helm compensator. It tracks average heel and reacts to rapid increases. Think of it as a much faster version of AutoTrim that responds within a gust cycle rather than over 60 seconds.
For troubleshooting: if the boat bears away too much in gusts, look at Gust Response gain before Rudder Gain. If the boat rounds up in gusts, look at Heel Compensation before the Perf level. Wrong layer, wrong fix.
This is also the principle behind products like Pixel Sur Mer’s Exocet system, which takes external target management much further. Their overlays can steer to heel angle, target speed, or polar-optimised wind angles, using data the H5000’s internal systems don’t have access to. Pixel Sur Mer have been B&G’s development partner for many years and the collaboration has improved the H5000’s own algorithms. If you’re racing at a level where the built-in Expert Systems aren’t enough, their Exocet Essential is worth looking at.
2. Don’t turn everything on
It’s tempting to enable every feature; Gust Response, TWS Response, Heel Compensation, Auto Response, Recovery Mode, because they all sound useful. Don’t.
Start with the basics: Perf 3, Wind Mode Auto, everything else off. Sail the boat. Understand how it steers with just the core algorithm. Is it holding course? Tracking through tacks? Handling waves?
Then add features one at a time. Enable TWS Response first (generally more useful than Gust Response for sustained conditions). See if it helps. Then try Heel Compensation. Then Gust Response. Each time you add a feature, sail enough to understand what it does to your boat in your conditions.
The reason this matters: the Expert Systems interact. Gust Response and TWS Response can fight each other if their gains overlap. Heel Compensation at too high a gain looks exactly like oscillation from too much Rudder Gain. If you turn everything on at once and something goes wrong, you have no idea which feature is causing the problem.
B&G’s own Level 300+ training material says the same thing: only activate advanced features one at a time.
3. Turn some things off
Two settings should be off by default for racing, and one commissioning step is easy to overlook.
Turn off Adapt — especially after the 2.0.0.2 software update. This is the single most important setting change you can make, and the one most people miss. Adapt is a background learning function that continuously refines the pilot’s understanding of how your rudder translates to turn rate. The 2.0.0.2 release came with a Technical Bulletin specifically calling out that Adapt should be disabled after the update, but in practice most owners haven’t picked up on it, and they don’t see the performance improvement the new software is supposed to deliver. If you’ve updated and feel like nothing changed, this is almost certainly why. Go into the Pilot menu and turn Adapt off. Re-run AutoTune any time your boat’s characteristics change significantly (different keel position, rig tune, bottom state).
Turn off leeway-corrected wind for the pilot. The H5000 can include leeway in its TWA calculation, which is great for navigation displays and tactical decisions. But for the pilot it can create a feedback loop: leeway changes with heel, heel changes with gusts, so if the pilot steers to a leeway-corrected TWA, every gust shifts the target angle. The pilot chases this moving target, producing constant rudder activity and unstable steering. Keep leeway correction on for your displays and Expedition, but verify it’s off for the pilot input via the H5000 web interface.
Save Rudder Drive settings before commissioning. This step is documented in B&G’s Level 300+ training material but easy to miss. Before starting Dockside Commissioning or the Rudder Test, you have to visit the Rudder Drive settings page and press Save, even if all settings are already correct. Otherwise your settings aren’t stored, and downstream steps (Rudder Test, AutoTune) may not behave as expected. I suspect this explains some of the “I can’t get my pilot to work” reports on forums where people have done everything right but the system refuses to cooperate.
4. Cruising Speed is not what it sounds like
The name is misleading. Cruising Speed is the reference point around which the PID controller scales its response. Below this speed, the pilot applies more rudder (the boat is sluggish, needs more authority). Above it, less rudder (the boat is responsive, needs less). It functions as a gain reference more than a speed setting.
B&G’s guidelines: 5-6 kn for 10m, 7 kn for 12m, 10 kn for 20m. In practice, many racing setups run higher; a SunFast 3300 (10m) uses 8-12 kn. Our J/111 ran 6-10 kn. Experiment, but know what you’re actually changing. It also serves as the failsafe speed if both BSP and SOG fail, so don’t set it to something absurd.
5. The pilot watches you steer for 30 seconds before it takes over
When you press AUTO, the pilot doesn’t start from zero. It samples your average rudder angle over the preceding 30 seconds or so and uses that as its starting weather helm offset. That becomes the initial value for AutoTrim.
Practical consequence: steer straight and steady for at least 30 seconds before engaging. If you hand over during a luff, a course change, or while fighting a wave, the pilot starts with a wrong baseline. It will steer poorly for up to 60 seconds while AutoTrim re-learns the correct offset. On a doublehanded boat where you engage the pilot to go do something on the foredeck, those 60 seconds matter.
6. AWA isn’t always best upwind
The conventional wisdom (and B&G’s default Auto mode) is AWA upwind, TWA downwind, switching at 70° TWA. Works well in moderate conditions. But there are two situations where TWA can be better upwind.
Light air (under 8-10 kts): AWA fluctuates constantly with every puff and lull. The pilot chases these fluctuations, producing constant rudder activity that costs speed. TWA is more stable, giving smoother steering. Some experienced pilots use TWA upwind most of the time for this reason.
Heavy air (18+ kts, TWA 55-62°): when sailing wider angles for safety and speed, TWA provides more stable target tracking and prevents the pilot from pinching in lulls.
Our default remains Auto mode, which works well for the J/99 in 10-18 kts. But it’s worth experimenting at the extremes.
7. Check your hard-over time
One setting that doesn’t get much attention: how long it takes the rudder to swing from full port to full starboard. B&G’s spec is 12-15 seconds for 30-90 foot yachts, never above 25 seconds. Performance boats are usually toward the lower end.
Several owners on Sailing Anarchy have reported that their pilot steered noticeably better after slowing the hard-over time to around 12 seconds, especially when it had been set faster. The mechanism isn’t obvious; the drive speed is something the PID values are implicitly calibrated against, so changing one without retuning the other might be part of it. Either way, worth knowing your number.
To check yours, put the pilot in NFU (Non Follow Up) mode, drive the rudder fully one way, then start a stopwatch as you drive it the other way. If you change the setting, re-run AutoTune afterwards.
Thanks to the UK Double Handed Offshore Series and Matt Eeles at B&Gfor letting me tag along on their H5000 training session in Southampton.
8. Troubleshoot in layers, not parameters
Think of the pilot as a stack. Hardware at the bottom, target intelligence at the top:
Layer 5: Expert Systems (Gust/TWS Response, Heel Compensation)
Layer 4: Steering algorithm (PID at Perf 1, PS algorithm at Perf 2-5)
Layer 3: Mode and target (compass, AWA, TWA)
Layer 2: Sensors (BSP, heading, wind)
Layer 1: Drive (motor, ram, rudder feedback)
When the pilot misbehaves, resist the urge to jump straight to Rudder Gain. Work from the inputs upward instead.
Start with the sensors. Is BSP correct? Compare to SOG in zero current. Is heading calibrated? Is wind data trustworthy? A fouled paddlewheel produces the same symptoms as bad PID tuning.
If sensors check out, look at mode and target. Are you in the right mode? Is TWA calibrated for the current conditions?
Then look at the Expert Systems. Are Gust Response and TWS Response interacting badly? Is Heel Compensation gain too high? That looks exactly like oscillation.
Only then consider the steering algorithm itself: Rudder Gain and Counter Rudder. And only if you’re running Perf 1-2. At Perf 3+, these have limited effect.
Finally, check the drive. Is Motor Output sufficient? Is the ram hitting its end stops? Is battery voltage holding up under load?
The most common mistake I’ve made is adjusting the steering algorithm when the real problem was a sensor. Fix the inputs first.
If you have experience with the H5000 pilot, especially on 30-40 ft performance boats raced doublehanded, I’d love to hear what works for you. What Perf level do you run? Do you use Gust Response or TWS Response? What was the single most impactful adjustment you made? Comment below.
Thanks to Matt Eeles at B&G for input and sharing the field experience that shaped much of what’s here.
