Sail Tactician

For dinghy and keelboat racers: start-line countdown and favored end, live VMG and laylines, coached training drills, and a logbook for performance analysis.

Sail Tactician is a racing instrument for your Apple Watch and iPhone — start-line tactics, live VMG, guided coaching, and a full logbook that tells you what to fix.

START STRONG Ping the pin and committee boat, and the app does the rest: distance to line, time to line, time to burn, and which end is favored — updating every second as you set up. The countdown calls every second from up to 30 seconds out, with spoken numbers or beeps, and a long tone at the gun. Start from your wrist, or mount the phone and run the countdown from the watch as a remote — both count down to the same gun.

SAIL FAST A live compass with your no-sail zone drawn from your own boat's angles. VMG with a target heading and tack/gybe calls. Ping the windward mark and unlock VMC, distance to mark, and laylines projected from the mark at your class's upwind angle. Build your own race screens — 1-up through 8-up — from speed, heading, VMG, distance to line, heading tape, compass, and more. Lock a screen to stay class-compliant when your class limits on-board instruments.

TRAIN WITH A COACH Pick a workout and drill with real feedback. Tacks, gybes, roll tacks, VMG holds, speed runs, race starts, mark roundings, penalty turns, and your own custom drills. The app counts your reps and coaches as you go — "Big speed loss, carry more turn speed", "Pinching, bear away 4°" — and won't call the next rep until you're back up to speed. Ten preset workouts included, or build your own. Choose a workout from your watch and run it on the mounted phone.

KNOW YOUR BOAT Over fifty classes built in — ILCA 7 (Laser), Optimist, Snipe, Lightning, Melges 24, J/70, Etchells, MC Scow, Nacra 17, Moth, and more — each with its own upwind and downwind angles, or define your own. Mount the phone and it reads live heel and trim, with sensor calibration that zeroes to your actual mount angle, a bubble level to fine-tune, and heading alignment to your bow. The screen goes to full brightness for the race so it stays readable through sunglasses.

REVIEW EVERY RACE Every session records at up to 10 Hz with speed, course, heel, trim, and heart rate. Replay the race full-screen with a scrubber that jumps between maneuvers. Speed and VMG charts, a polar diagram, port vs starboard, upwind/downwind splits, and tack efficiency. Coaching Review scores every tack and gybe on any session you've ever recorded — not just guided workouts — and drops a numbered dot on the map at the spot each one happened. Recommended Training turns those gaps into a workout you can start with one tap. Set the wind or start line after the fact if you didn't capture them live.

FOLLOWS YOU EVERYWHERE Sessions sync privately between your iPhone and Apple Watch over iCloud — your data stays in your own private database. Sign in with Apple is optional; everything works signed out. Import and export races as STX, GPX, CSV, KML, or TCX, and read Vakaros VKX and NMEA 0183 logs — back them up, send them to a coach, or open them in Strava, Google Earth, or Numbers. Speeds in knots, MPH, or KPH throughout.

Capsize and knockdown detection requires the iPhone mounted to the boat.