Tako as RL sailing trainer

Ida and I took our Sunfish out for the first time today, and I just wanted to thank Kanker and the SL sailing community. The sailing skills I've learned in world directly applied to the RL boat. We had a great couple hours on the water, and it worked just like I thought it would.

Here's some of the differences between the SL Tako and the RL Sunfish:

1. When you let go of the "rudder" on a Tako, the boat follows the course it is on. When you let go of the rudder on a Sunfish, the boat immediately turns to the wind.
   
2. Close-hauled in a Sunfish is much, much closer than it seems in the Tako.
   
3. When you get hiked too far over in a Tako, you go fast. When you get hiked too far over in a Sunfish, you get wet. (as in, you fall out)
   
4. Obviously, in the Tako your wind and sheet angles are known values, while in the Sunfish you have to have a much greater feel for the wind and sail.
   

It was a great day, though, and I encourage all SL sailors to get on the water RL if you ever have the chance.

Close-hauled courses are deceptive in RL. In the Flying Tako, we don't perceive apparent wind, that is, the vector sum of both your boat's and the wind's velocity. To keep things simplified, the Tako physics model instead operates only on true wind, that is, the wind's velocity relative to the boat's heading, and leaves out those intermediate 'translation' steps to and from the apparent wind sensed while the boat is in motion.

In actuality, the Flying Tako's no-go zone is extremely close to the wind at 35 degrees. Short of extreme speed-record designs like the Moth class, you generally won't find RL dinghies capable of sailing upwind of 45 degrees true wind. What you experience onboard in RL is very different, though - after summing the boat's velocity, that 45 degree true wind will be experienced as something closer to 25 degrees apparent wind at high speed. Thirty-five degrees true wind is generally only attainable by the highest-performance racing sloops, for example, America's Cup class boats can manage a close haul at 36 degrees true wind, which is experienced as 16 degrees apparent wind on a very fast tack.

You've probably read about the t/class boats I'm working on, slowly. I'll probably finish developing the trainer first, but the idea is that anybody can hop in and learn to sail strictly by reading the visual and auditory feedback from the sail, telltales, handling, possibly locally-generated waves, and the like; no HUDs nor data displays. Their controls will also be strictly analogous to RL lines and tiller, and I'd like to experiment with apparent wind. The higher-performance models may incorporate a capsizing feature. Any plans this ambitious are likely subject to incremental implementation, of course, but the ideas sound fun.

Regardless, wonderful to read about your SL-> RL experiences, and congratulations again on your new boat! Pacifien and I hope to try something similar ourselves in late September, and Static's been living it every weekend for the past few months.