Just noticed Grumps posted an Alpha PB, congrats!!
I got my Alpha PB yesterday, was very happy been trying to break 20 knots for over 2 months.
I find the Alpha category one of the most interesting and challenging of the lot. There is a science to it, anybody worked it out yet, or similarly interested?
Sailquik or TimeMachine for technical response??
As soon as I know what the hell it is Hardie I'll try and work out a science to it ;)
i think the explanation Mal gives on his web site is pretty much it..
in a nut shell its an indication of ones speed tight reaching across the wind with a gybe thrown in the middle of the run.
a great gybe(planning) will (usually) result in a higher average.
a high apha speed should not be mistaken for just a great gybe as it is possible to pull high speed gybes at the end of very broad speed runs and not record a alpha speed at all, because you have to pinch your way back up wind-this being a slower point of sail . because of the way Mal has designed the program you must sail back to the starting point of your alpha 'run' to with in 50 meters this part of the program esentially restricts your best runs to being square with the wind as you want to be equally fast on both tacks.
hope this helps more importantly i hope its correct
I think you're bang on the money there Snides.
I very rarely plane out of gybes, so when I did about a week ago I thought it would improve my alpha considerably. I was very surprised to see that my best alpha was a non-planing gybe, my high speed hero didn't even count! Looking back at it the run up to the gybe was very broad, so my exit didn't cross over the path.
For the best alpha I think you need to:
1) Shoot upwind about 200m before the gybe
2) Plane out of the gybe
3) Aim to cross your track about 200m after the gybe.
Personally (and by the way my PB was simply by accident) I think the best way to really complete in an alpha racing sense would be to set up a course consisting of two bouys, which you figure 8 around that way you have to cross over in the middle forcing a so called Alpha.
Could be fun.
I may be wrong but back in May 12 when Seq team got together; Justin explained to me a alpha is a 500m run,gybe, back to the 500 mark. So I worked on that assumption and got over 21knts. If you go a bit longer it may be the bit you need to get a higher speed. The GPS site calls it alpha 500 which could mean 250 each way or 500 each way. 
yeah, vando explained it to me that way.
on that note. just crank the gybe. no big high speed arcs. carve it round and come out the other side. save heaps of time doin that.
what i didn't know is that realspeed works it out. so sail across the wind, gybe and sail back across the wind.
realspeed will then calc your fastest
The Alpha distances of 250, 500m and 1000m are the total distance including both legs and the turn. So for an Alpha 500 you would set the marker buoys about 220m apart.
Looking at some of the best Alpha tracks on my site, I suspect a good alpha needs to have a fully planing jybe. One of Andrew Daffs runs managed a minimum speed of nearly 20 knots which is absolutely flying. It looks like the best runs are from a very fast entry into a run turning upwind to wash off the speed then gybe out with a square run back to where you started.
Its about your average speed, not how 'tight' the gybe is. As long as you get back to your original position (or near it) within the prescribed distance, then it might pay to lose a little ground if it means a faster gybe.
Another trick you should explore is to try to judge what the 50m proximity looks like and stay just inside 50m downwind from your incoming track. This will give you a higher average because you dont have to hold your ground so much.
I am also keen to see what guys can do on the waves. I reckon the best Alpha 250s will be on wave gear in strong winds and using the wave as a rebound wall.
Bloody smart arses
I'm still happy with coming out of a gybe Dry
Reaching a 20knot average would be a ball tearing fluke
which would have me double checking the data
Very interesting Mal,
I was saying to hardy just the other day, flying at a wave from downwind, gybing on it and using the wave to get you back upwind, should get the best alpha.
I was also thinking that a fairly broad reach before a short more upwind stretch just before the gybe, then a square run back to the 50m divergence at the 500m traveled mark would be the fastest on flat water.
It's how to judge the 50m divergence that I find hard, several of my runs cross because I,m not sure where I've come from and don't want to be too wide.
20kn minimum speed is flying, but does that mean a wider gybe?
Could a slower but tighter gybe allow you to go a bit more downwind?
Remember Robby Naish once won a race by doing a slam gybe, getting in front of a guy who did a long wide gybe.
I found that the strategy Nebbian describes is pretty close to the mark for me on flatish water. I ran down the speed course and gradually rounded up to square trying to hold as much speed as possible. The, just before the gybe I used a bit of that speed to pinch upwind slightly and then a short bearaway into the gybe to maximise speed in, try and keep it VERY smooth in the rig flip and feet swap (that order) and accellerate as quick as possible back on a square reach.
I tried the idea of really slamming a gybe but that is a pretty hard thing to do when travelling at 30 knots, even on pretty flat water. At that speed, even a gybe with a 25m diameter feels a bit like a slam gybe. :-)
My best 500m Alpha so far(yet to be posted up) had a 30.5 knot gybe entry and a slow point in the gybe at 19.4 knots. Average speed 25.987 Kts. I am pretty happy with that one!
iSonic 87 with stock Drake 320 fin, KA Koncept 5.8m and around 20 knots of breeze.
certainly sounds fast! Think you should be very happy!!!
so you don't think going upwind a bit more just before the gybe, say dropping min speed to about 15 or so but a much tighter gybe, and come out more downwind, so you can accelerate faster, would be faster.
Guess I keep thinking 2 people racing, that could be a winning strategy then, bet alpha is average speed, not first to the post, so the fastest min speed is probably the way to go.
The short answer is, its too early to know... The whole concept of alpha-racing is brand new.
That's why it's fun thinking about it, to work out different strategies, to try out.
OK, so we are debating how best to perform the 500 metres with the highest overall average ... thats great BUT, its called Alpha Racing, how do you actually race using this concept???
Do you all stand in the shallows, race out to a buoy one at a time, gybe and zip back to the starting point, check your time and then send the next bloke out, check his time etc.
Theres got to be a way of competing at this, on the spot, rather than just posting times onto the speed site .... or is this just the latent competitive side coming out in me???
quote:
Originally posted by grumplestiltskin
OK, so we are debating how best to perform the 500 metres with the highest overall average ... thats great BUT, its called Alpha Racing, how do you actually race using this concept???
Do you all stand in the shallows, race out to a buoy one at a time, gybe and zip back to the starting point, check your time and then send the next bloke out, check his time etc.
Theres got to be a way of competing at this, on the spot, rather than just posting times onto the speed site .... or is this just the latent competitive side coming out in me???
Sailquik has tried this. whoever nailed the start won, the others could not pass. what the computer allows is timed legs like rallying or downhill ski-ing etc. if you took a laptop to the beach you could get a more real time analysis but why bother. it's fun as it is.
can anyone tell me how to work out or read the alpha run in Realspeed? I got no idea...
Hey SickEmRex,
To read Alpha, you need to download the alphaRacing.rsp file from my website. Go to the bottom of this page http://www.intellimass.com/TrackData/Alpha%20Racing/Alpha%20Racing.htm and right click the link to copy the rsp to your hard disk. First open it using RealSpeed then open the file you want to analyse.
In the new RealSpeed 1.9 due out soon you will be able to create your own Alpha divisions which is a bit more convenient. The beta is available on my website.
Hey ELMO, I see you are over 21knts for alpha already. That didn't take long. Did you tear those nuts off???? Great result for team.
Scott ,post your Alpha track to Mal at Realspeed and he,ll put it on the ladder.Well done that speed puts you 4th.
Wow that's really setting the benchmark, I'll have to go and try my gybe on a wave theory, and see what happens.
Nebs, is it possible to have a "benchmark" page showing the best result for each category? Or may be the best 5.
I know this is meant to be a team thing, but it's still interesting to see what the best results are. Especially for the alpha, where it's all so new.
Even if you keep it as a team result, by just linking to the best of the monthly rankings, that would give a fair idea.
Hmmmm... It's entirely possible Decrepit, easy as pie to do.
The problem is that the competition is slowly migrating away from Hardie's ideal of a completely team-based competition, towards a more individual-based approach.
Talking to some people at the windwanderers there is a variety of opinions on where they see the website headed, some are after a more individual focus, some are completely happy with the team-based idea.
Reading between the lines some people are treating this as an Australian-based version of GPS-SS, which is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your viewpoint. I've tried to talk to the GPS-SS people about having data from our site automatically appearing on their site, but they haven't gotten back to me 
.
The way I see it, if the demand is there then the niche should be filled. I consider the GPS-SS site to be more world-based than our site, and quite enjoy the way that some friendly rivalry is developing between the various states (and teams!) in our Aussie challenge. I love the way that we're all in contact with each other as well, through Laurie's excellent Seabreeze forum.
Your idea of linking to the best score for each category is a good one, but I'd like a bit more input from other people before I go ahead and implement it.
