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GrumpySmurf said..
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As a follow up question to this - Why are you guys interested in wider alpha 500's?
Am I correct that your wider gybes are faster? As looking at my gybe plots, so far all my gybes (fast or slow ones) have been "narrower" than the 50m - see below. I assume that is a big part of the reason I am slow?
It's very useful to know if you're going too wide, and very frustrating to get a pb alpha at 51m!!!! But you can then modify your technique once you know what you're doing wrong. Yep wider gybes are usually faster, because there's more down wind component in them.
Your example has quite a big upwind component so slowing it down.
In real speed I have 2 extra alpha divisions, one at 60m and the other at 70m. At a glance I can see if I've gone too wide.
GPSARP has a very handy distance slider for alpha separation, but as sailquick says, you have to remember to reset it.