Sail Tactician — Setup Guide

Welcome to Sail Tactician! This quick guide will get you from download to your first race in four essential steps — plus a fifth for your first coached training session.

You'll configure your boat profile, set the wind direction, customize your race views, and record your first countdown.

Configure Your Boat Class

Both devices

Sail Tactician uses your boat class to calculate VMG (velocity made good) angles and the no-sail zone. Setting this correctly sharpens every tactical cue during a race.

iPhone: Open Settings → Tap Boat, or tap the Boat row in the Sail tab's Setup
Apple Watch: Open Race Setup and tap the boat class row, or Settings → Boat
Choose from over 50 presets (ILCA 7, 470, MC Scow, and more), or save a boat of your own with your own upwind and downwind angles

Tip: If you're unsure of your boat's polar angles, start with a similar class and adjust later — dial your own boat in between 25–60° upwind and 120–175° downwind. The no-sail zone and VMG targets follow automatically.

Set Wind Direction

Both devices

Wind direction drives the favored end, your target heading, and the no-sail zone. Set it yourself on the water, or let the app start from a forecast.

Point to Wind: point the bow straight into the breeze, then tap Point to Wind in the Sail tab's Setup → Wind (iPhone) or Settings (Watch) — one tap
Manual Entry: type the direction, or nudge it with −/+, in Setup → Wind
Weather: a WeatherKit forecast fills in a starting number automatically, labeled FORECAST since it covers a wide grid square

Best practice: Set the wind as close to race time as you can — a forecast is a fallback, and often well out at a lake or in a shoreline breeze. Re-capture it if it swings, or let Wind Shift Tracking pick it up once you've sailed a few minutes on both tacks.

Customize Your Race Views

Both devices

Race views are the metric screens you swipe between during a race. Both Apple Watch and iPhone ship with several presets, but you can build your own on either device to match your racing style.

Open Settings → Display → Race Views
Choose a layout family: full-width stacks (1-up through 4 Stacked) read best from the helm; grids (2 Side, 3-up, Quadrant, 6-up, 8-up) fit more on one page
Seven presets ship — Race View, Compass, Tape + Speed, Big Speed, Start Tactician, Race Compliant, and Full Data
The eye shows or hides a view in the race pager; the radio button sets which one opens at the gun
To build your own, tap a cell in the preview to assign a metric, or use Create Custom View

For class-compliant racing: Some one-designs forbid certain data on screen. Turn on Class Compliant (Lock Swipe) on a view — the shipped Race Compliant preset is heading and speed only — and paging locks during the race so you stay rule-legal.

Record Your First Race

Both devices

You're ready to race. Set the countdown, then tap Start — nothing else to arm.

Apple Watch: on the Timer screen, set the countdown with −/+ in whole minutes. At 0 the key reads Start now and recording begins with no countdown
iPhone: on the pre-start hub, tap the countdown to change it in Setup's Timer step, then tap the green ▶ at the bottom to start
Cues sound in the final seconds — spoken numbers or beeps, with a long tone at the gun — and every whole minute from ten down is called too
Recording begins the instant you tap Start, as a HealthKit sailing workout on the watch — the pre-start is kept, and your race stats count from the gun
During the race, your speed, heading, heart rate, and position log at your selected recording rate (default 1 Hz)
When you cross the finish, tap End Race and confirm — the session saves to the Logbook

Battery tip: 1 Hz (one GPS sample per second) is plenty for most races. Try 5 Hz or 10 Hz for short, data-intensive sessions, then check the "Recorded at about … Hz" line afterward — a phone's GPS often can't actually deliver faster than 1 Hz, in which case drop it back down.

Run a Guided Training Session

Both devices

Racing shows you what's slow; training fixes it. A guided workout counts and grades your reps on the water, with spoken and haptic coaching as you drill. Training is marked beta in the app.

On the Sail tab's pre-start hub, tap the Type chip and cycle to Training (or set it in Setup → Type)
Setup → Type shows a Workout section — pick a guided workout, or Free Training to just record. Eleven presets ship: Tacking Basics is free; Tacking Clinic, Gybe Day, Upwind Speed & Groove, Start Sequence Practice and the rest need Pro
Set the wind first — tacks, gybes, and VMG holds are graded from it, so they won't be scored without it. A Race Start drill needs the start line too
Tap Start. After the countdown you get the coaching card: the command to sail right now (TACK 3/10), your progress, and the technique note for that drill
Use +1 if a rep wasn't detected, Next to skip ahead. The app advances automatically when you hit each target
Sailing with the phone mounted? Pick the workout on the watch instead — open Race Setup, tap the Type tile, choose Training, and the mounted iPhone runs it

Don't know what to practice? Open a finished session, or the Analytics tab, and look for the Recommended Training card — it names your biggest gap and loads the workout that targets it.

You're all set! Here's what's next:

After your first race, open it in the Logbook to see your GPS track, speed chart, polar diagram, and the Coach card — then tap ⋯ → Replay to watch the whole race back with jump-to-maneuver
Capture the start line in Setup → Marks: sail past the pin and the boat and tap each row. A row is a toggle — tap a captured end again to drop it — and you'll get live distance-to-line, time-to-line, and bias
Sign in with Apple — it's optional, and turns on private iCloud sync between your iPhone and Apple Watch; everything works fully signed out
If your phone is mounted on the boat, turn on Phone Mounted to Boat in Settings to see live heel and trim