The short version
- Who it's for
- Keelboat crews and tacticians: PHRF boats, J/70s, J/24s, Etchells and other one-designs.
- The setup
- An iPhone in a waterproof case on a bracket at the helm is the race display. The Apple Watch is the remote: start the countdown on the wrist and the phone follows.
- On screen
- The favored end, distance and time to the line, Burn, VMG, wind shifts, and heel and trim from the mounted phone. You choose the layout.
- What it costs
- The countdown, compass, speed, heading and heel display are free. Pro adds the line tools, VMG and shift tracking.
A wired instrument system means transducers, a masthead unit, cabling and a weekend with a drill. A phone you already own, in a case on a bracket, covers a useful share of it in five minutes, start line included.
Mount the phone, keep the watch
Fix the iPhone with the screen up and its top toward the bow, then turn on Phone Mounted in Setup → Phone. That's the switch for everything a mounted phone does:
- Heel and trim, live in degrees. Level it once at the dock, at any mount angle; the session keeps heel for the debrief.
- The screen stays on while the app is open, at full brightness from the countdown to the finish.
- Bow alignment is learned while you sail both tacks, so a bracket aimed a few degrees off the centerline doesn't skew your heading.
- Back-to-back races: the post-race summary closes itself after 20 seconds and returns to the start screen.
With a watch paired, starting the countdown on the wrist starts it on the phone too. Pause, sync, reset and end on the watch all drive the phone, and both count to the same gun. The phone records the one session, with your heart rate streamed from the watch. So the helm reads the big screen, and whoever calls the start keeps their hand on the clock.
The watch's setup is what races. It hands the phone its wind, boat and start line once, when the countdown starts. Change one afterwards and you reset and restart the countdown to send it across.
The start
Sail past the pin and the committee boat and tap each. With Pro, the phone shows the favored end with the bias in degrees and what it's worth in distance, your distance to the line, and Burn: seconds in hand, or late, to hit the line at the gun. Distances read in meters or feet. More on line bias.
A phone measures from where it's mounted, and a bracket keeps that offset to the bow the same all race. It updates about once a second. That's enough to know whether you're early or late and by roughly how much; it won't hold you to the meter in a hot fleet. See phone and watch vs a dedicated instrument.
Up the beat
Capture the wind before the start, bow into it. With Pro, the app refines it from the courses you sail on both tacks. Put the Wind Shift cell on a race view and the tactician sees how far the wind has moved since the start, and LIFT or HEAD against your average on this tack. The VMG Steering Cue gives the helm one line: IN THE GROOVE within 3° of target, or which way to steer and by how much. More on VMG.
Race views are yours to build. A stack gives every number the full width and reads from further away; a grid fits up to eight. A Heading Tape or full Compass rose fills a wide slot.
If your class limits instruments, Class-Compliant Lock fixes the race to one page you've built, and Black Box shows only the clock. Your class rules decide what's allowed.
After the race
The Coach card ranks findings in seconds lost at your own speed: the start, an overstood layline, a banged corner, tacks that cost more than your usual one. Place the windward mark on the map where you rounded and each beat is drawn inside its tacking cone. Coaching the crew? See for coaches. Save your boat with rigging notes, like shroud tension by wind range, and they print in full on the Boat step of Setup while you rig.
Questions
Does it connect to my boat's instruments?
No. There's no NMEA 2000 or Bluetooth wind feed. Everything comes from the GPS, compass and motion sensors in the iPhone and Apple Watch, so speed is over the ground, not through the water.
Do I need the watch?
No. The iPhone alone runs the countdown, the line and the race views. The watch adds a remote on your wrist and your heart rate. You need iOS 17.6 or later, and watchOS 10.6 or later for the watch.
Is my boat in the app?
Presets include the J/70, J/24, J/105, J/111, Etchells, Sonar, Melges 24, SB20 and several cruiser/racers. For a PHRF boat that isn't listed, add a custom boat with your own upwind and downwind angles. See the boat profiles.
What does Pro add?
Line bias and the favored end, distance and time to the line, Burn, VMG with tack and gybe calls, wind-shift tracking, your whole history, all drills, and sharing and comparison. It's $4.99 a month or $29.99 a year, with the first month free. See pricing.
Sources
Everything here describes Sail Tactician 3.2 and is taken from the in-app User Guide (Settings → Support → User Guide): Device Mounting, the Sail Tab, Metric Views, Wind Shift Tracking and Coach.
What changed
- First published.
Put a racing instrument on your wrist.
Start line, wind shifts and VMG at a glance, and a coach in your pocket afterwards. Free to download for Apple Watch and iPhone, with the full debrief on your first five races.
Download on the App Store