# Anything better than tell tales?



## scalvo (Dec 19, 2010)

Hi there,

Is there any kind of system to control having the right sailing position better than the tell tales? Anything digital maybe?

I am tired of tell tales not working when they get wet or when its dark (besides the fact of having to look up). Am I the only one thinking that there should be a better solution?


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## JomsViking (Apr 28, 2007)

There is no better solution - at least within my budget. Larry Ellison have some stuff they used in the AC 
It is a great solution IMHO an they seldom hang when there's any real wind?
Except maybe when using recycled cassette tape for tell-tales


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

Why go digital... doesn't make much sense when the system as a whole is analog. Telltales on the sail, nylon spinnaker material for the main's leech and acrylic yarn for the genny... and you're good to go.


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## Minnewaska (Feb 21, 2010)

When I can't see or use the telltales on a sloop, I use the speedo. Start with easing the foresail until it luffs and trim in to stop the luff. Then trim in a little and wait, then a little more. Back off when speed starts to drop again, then match the main to the foresail. This is hard in rough or gusty conditions.

Sometimes, if its a familiar boat, you can just feel the right spot.


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## bubb2 (Nov 9, 2002)

*Anything better than tell tales?*

Experience.

As a former full time sailing instructor I always wished to cut the tell tails off the boats, but the owner of the sailing school would not let me. Knowing wind direction and how it is flowing over the sails is a learned skill. Tell tails allow you to cheat the learning curve. Knowing the wind direction should come as second nature and you can speed up the learning curve by every time you exit you home or car that you spend 15 sec's with your eyes closed feeling which direction the breeze is coming from. Before long you will know with out thinking about it where the wind is.

When it comes to sail trim, Experience also is your best tool. If you sail the same boat long enough you can feel by the "pull' of the sheets if you have the boat in trim or not, just by feel. I understand using tell tails when racing, but for the average cruiser they make us lazy.


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## Boasun (Feb 10, 2007)

bubb2 said:


> *Anything better than tell tales?*
> 
> Experience.
> 
> ...


This also known as sailing by the seat of your pants. And that skill comes after a lot of experience on the water.


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## Barquito (Dec 5, 2007)

Agree. Starting on a cat rigged dinghy w/o any tell tails, we would just sheet out 'till we see it luff a little, then sheet in a bit. When I got onto a boat that actually had tell tails, I was usually dead-on without having to look. Not optimized for racing, but probably very close.

You don't have some device in mind that would solve this problem, do you?


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## jackdale (Dec 1, 2008)

Boasun said:


> This also known as sailing by the seat of your pants. And that skill comes after a lot of experience on the water.


+1

Telltales are useful for both the student sailor and experienced sailors especially racers.

For the student sailor they are a visual clue for laminar flow.

For the racer they are a clue about the best approach to the wind. The use of telltales at different heights is also helps fine tune the jib car position.


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## billyruffn (Sep 21, 2004)

scalvo said:


> I am tired of tell tales not working when they get wet or when its dark (besides the fact of having to look up).


Wet telltales? Coat them with a little silicone.

When it's dark -- get a flash light.

Tired of looking up (at the sail) -- Dude, stay home! If you can't be bothered to look at your sail, what are you doing out there in the first place?


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

+1 Nicely put BR.


billyruffn said:


> Wet telltales? Coat them with a little silicone.
> 
> When it's dark -- get a flash light.
> 
> Tired of looking up (at the sail) -- Dude, stay home! *If you can't be bothered to look at your sail, what are you doing out there in the first place?*


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## waterdog52 (Oct 10, 2010)

I use the tails and windex to fine tune the feel.


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## zz4gta (Aug 15, 2007)

Only thing better than tell tails, is more tell tails.

BTW - Larry Ellison is still using tell tails.


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

zz4gta said:


> Only thing better than tell tails, is more tell tails.
> 
> BTW - Larry Ellison is still using tell tails.


That looks more like an *Arvel Gentry tuft system *than regular telltales.


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## scalvo (Dec 19, 2010)

sailingdog said:


> +1 Nicely put BR.


I'm new to sailing and I just thought that nowadays, with all the technological advance, there might be something better than the good old telltales!!

Wouldn't it make sense?


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## nickmerc (Nov 2, 2008)

Telltails are inexpensive, reliable, robust, simple, and effective. Why change? I don't know if anyone else finds this to be true, but electronic stuff these days is bordering on disposable. It's either outdated in a year or less or it is so chintzy to fails in a few years of moderate use.

If an electronic sensor was to be mounted on a sail to measure airflow, it would have to be very tough to withstand flogging and be very small to minimize it influence on the airflow it is trying to measure.


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## jackdale (Dec 1, 2008)

scalvo said:


> I'm new to sailing and I just thought that nowadays, with all the technological advance, there might be something better than the good old telltales!!
> 
> Wouldn't it make sense?


Wind instruments have some uses such as wind speeds, but sail trim and helming are more intuitive using telltales. IMHO

Even then, my sail selection and reefing are based more on feel than gauges.


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## RichH (Jul 10, 2000)

The primary purpose of tell tales is to SHAPE/SET the sails and to occasionally check the aerodynamic flow. Once you set up for trim and shape and sailing angle, the only tell tales you really need are a ROW of sequential tell tales on the headsail: 3-5 telltales in a row from the luff and positioned about eye-level from the deck - these are called 'Steering tales' and the ones you look at to keep the boat in the 'groove'. Even in the dark its easy to read the 'steering tales'. Once set up correctlly you only have to 'occasionally' glance at the 'other tales' to be sure that youre optimized. 
The second most important is the speedo + inclinometer/seat of the pants to keep the boat on a steady heel angle while maintaining the highest relative forward speed. 
Third is a GPS with a VMG (velocity made good) function set to a far/infinite distance waypoint ... to make sure that youre going in the right direction at the best possible angle - important for both long distance cruising and racing.

There is super high tech 'instrumentation' used in sophisticated aerodynamic plotting of a foil .... very costly and requires very highly specialized education to use them. Simple tell tales will get you 99.9% 'there'.

To keep tell tales from sticking to a wet sail, use two kinds: 
1. ripstop nylon that has been 'wrinkled'/creased and sprayed with a water repellent (Apseal 303 Fabric Guard). When the ripstop no longer can hold a stiff wrinkle/crease - replace them. 
2. Wrinkled audio tape.

For the most comprehensive article ever written for the use of tell tales (and steering tales) go to: Magazine Articles and read the sequence of 4 articles starting with "Checking Trim on the Wind" .... and the next 3 in the sequence. Use of steering tales is in the first article.

Dont let anyone tell you that to maximize/optimize a sail's trim/shape/set that you dont need tell-tales. It is physically impossible to use a Mark-I eyeball to see a 'flow separation' (the bursting of a laminar flow regime in the all important 'boundary layer').

;-)


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## SlowButSteady (Feb 17, 2010)

You might note there is pretty good evidence that both birds and bats use "tell tales" to help control their angle of attack and wing shape. No, they don't watch their wings, nor do they have special "tell tale" feathers, much less tape bits of old cassette tape to their wings (as far as I know). However, they do appear to feel the fluttering of their feathers just as their wing, or sections of their wing, approach a stall condition, and then use the info to adjust wing shape, AOA, et cetera, appropriately. It's hard to argue with a couple of hundred million years of natural selection.

I suppose one could wire up a bunch of electronic tell tales, with tiny strain gages to sense the fluttering of the material, power it all with a whole pile of Wheatstone bridge amplifiers, and feed the resultant into a microprocessor that then flashed the data on an LCD screen. Making all that waterproof, salt proof, and furler/reef proof might be a bit tricky. However, once you got the bugs worked out, you could put the screen in the cabin of the boat, rig up the rudder to an hydraulic system, the sheets to power winches, control the whole shooting match with buttons and joysticks, and rig up a nice padded chair on gimbals (so you won't feel any of that nasty boat motion and healing). Add an HVAC system to keep the cabin a comfy 72 deg. F, and a nice big fridge within easy reach, and you're all set. ------ NOW you're really sailing.

OR, you could sacrifice that old Milli-Vanilli cassette tape you've been treasuring all these years, and turn it into a set of nice tell tales. That, and a $5 flashlight will give you more info about your sail than you probably need.


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## scalvo (Dec 19, 2010)

SlowButSteady said:


> You might note there is pretty good evidence that both birds and bats use "tell tales" to help control their angle of attack and wing shape. No, they don't watch their wings, nor do they have special "tell tale" feathers, much less tape bits of old cassette tape to their wings (as far as I know). However, they do appear to feel the fluttering of their feathers just as their wing, or sections of their wing, approach a stall condition, and then use the info to adjust wing shape, AOA, et cetera, appropriately. It's hard to argue with a couple of hundred million years of natural selection.
> 
> I suppose one could wire up a bunch of electronic tell tales, with tiny strain gages to sense the fluttering of the material, power it all with a whole pile of Wheatstone bridge amplifiers, and feed the resultant into a microprocessor that then flashed the data on an LCD screen. Making all that waterproof, salt proof, and furler/reef proof might be a bit tricky. However, once you got the bugs worked out, you could put the screen in the cabin of the boat, rig up the rudder to an hydraulic system, the sheets to power winches, control the whole shooting match with buttons and joysticks, and rig up a nice padded chair on gimbals (so you won't feel any of that nasty boat motion and healing). Add an HVAC system to keep the cabin a comfy 72 deg. F, and a nice big fridge within easy reach, and you're all set. ------ NOW you're really sailing.
> 
> OR, you could sacrifice that old Milli-Vanilli cassette tape you've been treasuring all these years, and turn it into a set of nice tell tales. That, and a $5 flashlight will give you more info about your sail than you probably need.


Hehehe, I love your sarcastic comment!!! First of all, I'd never sacrifice my Milli-Vanilli cassette, secondly, to feel exactly like at home you dont need to go out sailing!!

I was actually trying to figure out whether there is a better system than tell tails! In my mind I had something very similar to what you described (bunch of electronic tell tales, with tiny strain gages to sense the fluttering of the material, power it all with a whole pile of Wheatstone bridge amplifiers, and feed the resultant into a microprocessor that then flashed the data on an LCD screen).

I was wondering whether thats a real business opportunity, not that im an engineer, you know, just daydreaming....!


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## Boasun (Feb 10, 2007)

On boats with no 'Tell Tales' I always watch the Luff. Back wind it tad bit and then fall off or sheet in until it just fills... Always worked for me.


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## denverd0n (Jun 20, 2008)

bubb2 said:


> As a former full time sailing instructor I always wished to cut the tell tails off the boats, but the owner of the sailing school would not let me. Knowing wind direction and how it is flowing over the sails is a learned skill. Tell tails allow you to cheat the learning curve.


Cheat the learning curve!?!

Tell tales are HOW you learn what the wind is doing on your sails. Without them I probably would have given up on sailing before I figured it out by the seat of my pants. Tell tales SPEED the learning curve, and give you a visual reference of what the wind is doing. That is not cheating!

No offense, but I sure am glad that none of the sailing instructors I have had have ever made the horrible mistake of cutting off the tell tales!

I suppose if you are teaching a very experienced and advanced class, then maybe the time comes to learn how to read the sail by itself, without focusing on the tell tales. But then as you advance in sailing skill you sort of naturally get to the point where you can tell what the boat and the sail are doing, and how the sail should be trimmed, even if the tell tales aren't telling you exactly the same thing.


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## Barquito (Dec 5, 2007)

> No offense, but I sure am glad that none of the sailing instructors I have had have ever made the horrible mistake of cutting off the tell tales!


The boats we started on may have had tell tales at one time, but have long since been ripped to shreds. I can see the utility in not having tell tales on a very beginner lesson. You basically just use the whole sail as a tell tale. If it is luffing sheet it in, if not you need to sheet out to see of you are over-trimmed. Later (maybe just a few lessons), add more refinement by using tell tales.


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## tommays (Sep 9, 2008)

Even in a fancy wind tunnel they use a smoke generator to eyeball up whats going on


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## hellosailor (Apr 11, 2006)

An array of tightbeam doppler wind radars, mounted in the shrouds, reading the windspeed at selected spots where the telltalls used to be, feeding directly into the automatic sailtrim system.

Perfectly feasible with off the shelf technology, but its gonna cost quite a bit more than the best woolies and a tube of glue.

I'd expect that when you weren't sailing, the radar array could be set to "stun" to keep the birds from landing on your spreaders and masthead, too.


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## scalvo (Dec 19, 2010)

hellosailor said:


> An array of tightbeam doppler wind radars, mounted in the shrouds, reading the windspeed at selected spots where the telltalls used to be, feeding directly into the automatic sailtrim system.
> 
> Perfectly feasible with off the shelf technology, but its gonna cost quite a bit more than the best woolies and a tube of glue.
> 
> I'd expect that when you weren't sailing, the radar array could be set to "stun" to keep the birds from landing on your spreaders and masthead, too.


I thought by having a series of sensors in key places of the sails you could have a display where you see whether your sails are set most efficiently. This can or cannot be connected to an automatic sailtrim system.

The point would be to have something more sophisticated than telltails, that would probably help beginners and racers, or everybody during dark nights. Of course anything would be more expensive than woolies and glue, but the information provided could be a bit better!


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## nickmerc (Nov 2, 2008)

Glider pilots who fly cross country races have a nifty gauge that tells them when they hit pockets of lift (thermals and waves). Of the ones I have spoken and flown with, all of them have pieces of yarn taped to the wind screen to get a fast and reliable indication of how the airflow changes so they know when to try and gain more altitude.

besides showing you how the air is flowing over the sail, what else would you want to know?
________
properties in Pattaya


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## SlowButSteady (Feb 17, 2010)

scalvo said:


> I thought by having a series of sensors in key places of the sails you could have a display where you see whether your sails are set most efficiently. This can or cannot be connected to an automatic sailtrim system.
> 
> The point would be to have something more sophisticated than telltails, that would probably help beginners and racers, or everybody during dark nights. Of course anything would be more expensive than woolies and glue, but the information provided could be a bit better!


I think you're missing the basic point here. The information you want is whether the sail, or section of a sail, is approaching a stall condition. This is characterized by a transition from laminar to turbulent flow over the surface of the sail, which is EXACTLY what a tell-tale indicates. You might well be able to throw enough money at someone to get them to rig up an electronic system (that will probably, sorta, maybe work ... some of the time), but it will never give you better information than a few judiciously placed bits of yarn or tape. Sometimes, believe it or not, analog really is as good or better than digital (and in this case, a hell-of-a-lot cheaper).


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## jackdale (Dec 1, 2008)

scalvo said:


> The point would be to have something more sophisticated than telltails, that would probably help beginners and racers, or everybody during dark nights. Of course anything would be more expensive than woolies and glue, but the information provided could be a bit better!


Why the need to get caught in the technological imperative?


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## HDChopper (Oct 17, 2010)

There is such a thing as a electric stall warning horn as in airplanes ( very expencive) but that only go's off After you feel it in the stick  

I would bet you if you had such a system installed on your boat , before it went off you would feel it in your tiller feel your velocity foward drop off and Hear your sails fluttering first...

I have tuffed wings before just to get the AOI set better but you take them off once done because you feel a stall ...


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## tommays (Sep 9, 2008)

They cant keep those dam wind direction/speed head unit and displays working and you want to put more electronic things on the boat


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## RichH (Jul 10, 2000)

Stall (turbulence) conditions are easy to discern with either instrumentation or tell tales or eyeballs. 
For precise sail angles for optimization vs. invisible stall SEPARATION, there is nothing that works better than a tell-tale; as instrumentation has a very hard time measuring the very small finite pressure changes between laminar boundary layer pressures and separation pressures ('bursting' of the boundary layer). Even the Mark-1 eyeball will never 'see' a separation stall. 

Any fool can see a stagnation stall in a sail; but only tell tales will show a separation stall.


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## wzittel (Nov 10, 2010)

*Mc Lube 'em...*

Wow... four pages of responses on telltales? Cool....

+1 for the notion that telltales are invaluable in lighter conditions. And +1 for the notion that over 12-14 knots, the telltales don't reveal anything can't be felt in the boat or judged by angle of heel (a well sailed boat maintains a constant angle of heel).

As for the telltales sticking when wet, try liberally spraying the telltale and surrounding sail with Mc Lube... slippery stuff that helps repel water. Can work wonders, and easy to do!


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## scalvo (Dec 19, 2010)

I guess the question would be: if you had the chance of paying say $500/$1000 more for a set of sails that have reliable sensor that indicate the pressure on different points of the sail to help you sail. And would be conveniently displayed in the cockpit. Would you buy it?

If the answer is NO. Do you think other sailors (beginners/racers) would be interested?

Thanks a lot!


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## Minnewaska (Feb 21, 2010)

scalvo said:


> I guess the question would be: if you had the chance of paying say $500/$1000 more for a set of sails that have reliable sensor that indicate the pressure on different points of the sail to help you sail. And would be conveniently displayed in the cockpit. Would you buy it?
> 
> If the answer is NO. Do you think other sailors (beginners/racers) would be interested?
> 
> Thanks a lot!


Sure it would sell at that price. If conceivable, the cost would have at least one more zero at the end, I'm sure. Then it would break often and require more than your estimate just to maintain annually. Call me cynical.


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## jackdale (Dec 1, 2008)

scalvo said:


> I guess the question would be: if you had the chance of paying say $500/$1000 more for a set of sails that have reliable sensor that indicate the pressure on different points of the sail to help you sail. And would be conveniently displayed in the cockpit. Would you buy it?
> 
> If the answer is NO. Do you think other sailors (beginners/racers) would be interested?
> 
> Thanks a lot!


Two more potential problems
1) more weight aloft
2) could interfere with the air flow over the sails


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## SlowButSteady (Feb 17, 2010)

scalvo said:


> I guess the question would be: if you had the chance of paying say $500/$1000 more for a set of sails that have reliable sensor that indicate the pressure on different points of the sail to help you sail. And would be conveniently displayed in the cockpit. Would you buy it?
> 
> If the answer is NO. Do you think other sailors (beginners/racers) would be interested?
> 
> Thanks a lot!


Hmmm...$1000 verses little or no $ for the same info. Let me think.......


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## hellosailor (Apr 11, 2006)

Scalvo, unless you have the technology to BUILD IT and SELL IT at that price, which would mean you could put 18 sensors, nine on each side, three sets of three, just like woolies, onto a sail for a net cost of less than $250 in order to sell it retail for 2-4x that price...

Why even bother to ask. Really. 

So, do you have the technology? That can work, last at least five years, not ruin sail shape, and still be sold at that price?


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## scalvo (Dec 19, 2010)

hellosailor said:


> Scalvo, unless you have the technology to BUILD IT and SELL IT at that price, which would mean you could put 18 sensors, nine on each side, three sets of three, just like woolies, onto a sail for a net cost of less than $250 in order to sell it retail for 2-4x that price...
> 
> Why even bother to ask. Really.
> 
> So, do you have the technology? That can work, last at least five years, not ruin sail shape, and still be sold at that price?


If I had the technology I would be selling it instead of asking! However, I am thinking about trying to do so, I know some engineers with sensor experience and we might do it!

As you might know (or guess) before you do something like this, you do some research to find out whether people would be interested! That is why im asking here where a lot of experience sailors gather!

Anyway, thanks for your criticism! always helpful


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## SlowButSteady (Feb 17, 2010)

Scalvo, let me describe an analogous system which (hopefully) will show you why your idea, while somewhat interesting at first glance, is pretty much doomed upon closer inspection.

Many moons ago, my dad developed a system to control the baking process in cookie factories. This was accomplished by using a small proton nmr spectrometer to measure the amount of "bound" and "free" water in a cookie as it came out of the oven; the relative and absolute amounts of which makes for a very good predictor of the "doneness" a baked good, and proton nmr can determine these variables very rapidly. To do all this required a mechanical sampling device, a very strong rare-earth magnet (with a very homogeneous field strength), a ridiculously strong r.f. transmitter (that can be pulsed extremely rapidly), an extremely sensitive r.f. receiver, a very fast (for that time) A-to-D transformer, and a computer to run the whole she-bang. As I recall, the price tag on such a system was something in the neighborhood of $100k, which was well worth it for running a huge industrial cookie oven where consistency, quality control, and energy efficiency can mean big-time $$$. It also meant that there were always lots of packages of high-end cookies (i.e., "scientific samples") laying around my dad's lab at the time  .

*Now*, one could rig up such a system to control cookie baking at home. Mass production might get the price tag down in the low tens of thousands of dollars range (a more realistic price range for the system you're talking about). Given what some people pay for a fancy two oven Viking range, with all the bells and whistles, that doesn't seem all that out of the question. *OR*, one can just keep an eye on the cookies until they look done. Which would you choose?


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## HDChopper (Oct 17, 2010)

scalvo said:


> I guess the question would be: if you had the chance of paying say $500/$1000 more for a set of sails that have reliable sensor that indicate the pressure on different points of the sail to help you sail. And would be conveniently displayed in the cockpit. Would you buy it?
> 
> If the answer is NO. Do you think other sailors (beginners/racers) would be interested?
> 
> Thanks a lot!


I believe the tech exist allright as like smart body armor , the same could be done to sails ...But it would be wayyyy more cost than what you are thinking as the tech ( as firbers/thread) would be woven in to sail cloth , not something added....


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## mccary (Feb 24, 2002)

FWIW, Telltales are the easiest method and the cheapest. I want to fall back on some old axioms: If it ain't broke, don't fix it! and if those telltales fall off there is the other old axiom: When in doubt, let it out. Armed with a few pennies worth of yarn and the knowledge of how sails work and the ability to change almost instantly you can make her go as fast as possible much of the time. I once heard a lecture by and AC Tactician, he said that 90% of the time AC boats are NOT in perfect sail trim... and they use the most up-to-date electronics.


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## Minnewaska (Feb 21, 2010)

Hypothetically assuming this could be done, at a significant investment, this just wouldn't sell to anyone but high end racers and that population is too small.

I have a feeling that the OP think this could be an alternative to learning to sail in the first place. The OP started this thread as a query for trimming in the dark, but then morphed it to engineering something for beginners/racers. 

For those that already know how to make the boat go, this investment would provide a very marginal benefit and not be worth that much. Even if one used it to come up the learning curve, it would quickly have little more than the same marginal value. Perfect sail trim often translates to a few tenths of a knot. A whole knot is rare.

Other technologies, such as chartplotters, autopilots and cockpit speed or wind instruments have huge value, even to experienced sailors, so the market is viable.

My final answer, thumbs down on being economically viable.


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## OsmundL (Nov 11, 2008)

scalvo said:


> If I had the technology I would be selling it instead of asking! However, I am thinking about trying to do so, I know some engineers with sensor experience and we might do it!
> As you might know (or guess) before you do something like this, you do some research to find out whether people would be interested! That is why im asking here where a lot of experience sailors gather!
> Anyway, thanks for your criticism! always helpful


Scalvo, to say it politely, I'm not sure this is an idea whose time has come. Have you considered the variables?
Airmar has sold state sensors to measure pressure, speed etc. using doppler effects and such. I have their SOG sensor and prefer it to paddle wheels merely because it doesn't go dead after clogging up on the first seaweed out of harbour. But accuracy? So-so, depending on heel, currents, moving w/motor or without. Airmar also has a similar device to substitute for the windwane, even correcting for the mast's heel and so. Do I believe it is accurate? Maybe.
Ok, these are minor technical quibbles, but telltales are in a different league. For a start, they're not supposed to hang or stand equally under different wind conditions and courses.

Second, sails are not inert matter. You trim them, they wear and the luff sags, the backstay tension affects their shape, just to begin the long list. It is not that sensors could not register these variations, it is that you must read them and calibrate. That's a lot of variance to make sense of when a glimpse of your sail and telltales gives you intuitive feedback.

I can see it now: well tethered in a marina, I spend a quarter of an hour calibrating and setting a perfect sail. Then I go sailing. The wind builds up, we reef, someone adjusts the outhaul. I'm bent over a complex readout while I ought to be sailing.

A year ago I brought a novice along, and he quickly got the hang of reading my wind instruments. Soon he was steering meticulously within the 30-60 degree window upwind. He was mesmerised by it, I had to beg him to look at the sails, and in the end stuck tape over the readout to force him.

Nothing is more instant that a telltale. At least on my boat, we set "smoothing" of the wind readouts to a couple of seconds just to reduce the NMEA traffic.

I suppose if you could have a self-contained sensor up there - or rather the half a dozen that are required, each with a sound alarm, it might bring back some of the immediacy - but before long you'd turn off all those horrid alarms, wouldn't you, just as we turn off AIS alarms when there's just too much traffic ☺


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## AE28 (Jun 20, 2008)

scalvo
1. No
2. IDK


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## w1651 (May 2, 2010)

JomsViking said:


> There is no better solution - at least within my budget. Larry Ellison have some stuff they used in the AC
> It is a great solution IMHO an they seldom hang when there's any real wind?
> Except maybe when using recycled cassette tape for tell-tales


Which tape do you prefer? Rock,Jazz, Pop, or Blues. 
I prefer Blues tape for the time spent in the doldrums.


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## hellosailor (Apr 11, 2006)

"Larry Ellison have some stuff they used in the AC "

I must be behind the times. Last I heard, they were using VIDEO analysis of extra draft stripes placed on the sails to analyze sail shape. But nothing in terms of measuring pressure or windflow directly, just sail shape from the draft stripes.

Did I miss the news?


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