About the
Art of Sailing Regatta

Is sailing a skill? Or an art form?  

During our first-in-the-world sketchy sailing event you’ll have a chance to answer the question in your own unique way by sailing your own picture! The course sailed by each boat will be recorded by a tracking app on your phone. The picture created by your track will be scored for artistic impression by a panel of respected artists, and for sailing technique by a panel of skilled sailors. Each of the completed pictures will be displayed on-screen during happy hour and dinner.

Although some sailors are likely to start their own party early, even while still sailing, the official party will start after sailing, at the Columbia Sailing Club.  We’ll start with happy hour and live music and follow that with a catered dinner, and more music. Prizes will be awarded after dinner.  Awards will be presented for the tracks that yield the best artistic impressions, for the tracks that were created using the best sailing techniques, and for the best combined scores.

Each sketchy team will register a helmsperson, a trimmer, and a navigator, and may optionally include other crew. More back seat navigators and more sail-handlers are encouraged! It’s a party – bring your friends!

Let your imagination run wild! Give your kids (or grandkids) a crayon and let them sketch your course plan. Then take ‘em with you on the boat. This is not a race; it intends to attract people who don’t normally race. So sketch up a course plan, get your boat off the dock, and sail the best picture you’ve ever sailed in your life!

Registration is open at URL: http://www.regattanetwork.com/event/31698

Tips for Planning your Sailing Artwork

Here’s an example of development of a simple course plan. We’ll call this picture “Home on the Range”.

First, sketch up the concept picture. Use a pencil; if you’re not a real artist you’ll probably do a lot of erasing. Here is my simple house on a flat prairie. Easy peasy!

Add a longhorn steer if you dare! We dare not, so we’ll omit the steer from the remaining directions. 

Decide a strategy for orienting the picture relative to the wind. For straight lines with right angle corners, like for most of the lines in this picture, we'll let the wind be 45 degrees from vertical so that either direction along a horizontal or vertical line could be in the “go” zone of your boat. Now sketch arrows on each line segment to indicate which directions each line could be sailed considering the wind direction. In this picture, all lines can be sailed in either direction except for the left roofline which can only be sailed downwind. (The other direction is in the no-go zone of the boat.)

Decide a sequence for sailing the line segments. You can only sail a downwind segment by first getting to the upwind end of it. Draw a single-line approximation to your sketch that creates all of the most significant features.

Pick a few key points that should serve as waypoints – places where lines meet or where you will change course.  You can probably “freehand” sail some lines without waypoints to keep the number of waypoints small. Here we picked six, indicated by the red dots.

On sailing day, rotate your sketch to line up with the wind direction. Pop your waypoints down on a chart of the lake, and go sail your picture! If you’re brave, add the longhorn steer.

Tracking App

Many tracking apps are available for your phone. Many allow a free trial period of two-weeks or one-month. We anticipate making an agreement with a particular company to use their app for this event so that everyone will use the same one, but if that doesn’t happen, each competitor can pick their own. Some of the ones available include Garmin Navionics Boating, Trace, SailMaster. Your smart watch probably also can track your course if you tell it you’re biking or kayaking some other outdoor sport.