Speed polar

Feb 21, 2013
4,638
Hunter 46 Point Richmond, CA
US Sailing has polars for a number of boats, but you may be disappointed with the few number of Hunters available. I understand they developed/have these for a Hunter 35.5. I looked up polars for your sailboat on the usual suspect site like I-36 and did not find one:


Check out these threads:


This site explains how to create your own polar diagrams Create Polar Diagram
 
Nov 21, 2007
631
Beneteau Oceanis 34 Kingston, WA
I have found a document with the polars for my boat, created by the designers, and have it saved as a PDF. It has both the familiar diagram and the data in a table format.

Two questions;
  • First, what would be a reasonable approach for me, as a daysailing regional cruiser, to make use of this information, to make myself a better sailor? We don't race, we don't have any multi-day passages to make, but I want to learn more and improve my sailing performance.
  • Second, I've found a spot in my Zues2 where I can either enter polar data or load it from a file. I have entered what it will allow me to enter, but I can't find any information on how to load it or read it from a file. What format does the data need to be in to load or import it (CSV, text)? I'm hoping that I can import the entire table of polar data, based on the idea that more granular data (the entire table) would be more accurate and more useful than just the few rows that have been entered. Especially since some of the rows that I've entered have no exact corresponding data point in the actual table of data, it's between wind speed values, so I split the difference and entered that value.
What I have found, so far, is the Sailsteer screen on the Zues, which displays Target Speed. With Target Speed and actual boat speed displayed, I can start looking around at the list of sail trim adjustments and other things I might be able to do to boost my current boat speed. If my Target boat speed is four knots, and I'm only doing two, then I need probably need to make some adjustments. If I make those adjustments, and my boat speed improves to three knots, then I've hopefully learned something...
 
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