Spinlock Sail-sense
Top race boats manually log every sail change and the number of tacks each sail accumulates, with the data then laboriously transferred to a spreadsheet after racing. This Sail-sense device has potential to consign that process to history but also has relevance to the wider cruising community.
It’s the core element of a sail inventory system, logging the two to sail wear tear – exposure to UV and flogging. device incorporates a UV sensor and enabling it to count the of seconds of low, medium and intensity events for each parameter. The data is then sent to a smartphone without any human input, as the can figure out which sail is used. Data can be viewed as bar manipulated with analytical tools and uploaded to the cloud with GPS tags for more sophisticated analysis. “There’s a massive cultural shift to learning more about the activities we take part in through our devices – we call it the Strava effect,” says Charlie Carter, Spinlock project and product manager, referencing the popular app cyclists use to analyse rides and share experiences. “We see this as having wide appeal for everyone from cruisers to top-end racers.”
Carter expects benefits to rapidly accrue as data is collected, both on individual boats and within the wider sail-making community. For example, sailmakers could give service intervals based on total hours of use, or the duration of high intensity flogging. This could make an enormous difference to larger cruising yachts, whose sails are not easy to inspect on a regular basis, but where timely servicing and repairs have potential to significantly extend sail life and minimise risk of failure on passage. Price: £150, plus £25 annual subscription. www.spinlock.co.uk