SmartSail: Visualizing Wind Force on the Sail to Learn and Enjoy Sailing Easily

Sailing is not easy for beginners to learn because controlling a sailboat is not intuitive. We have developed a radio-controlled sailboat, prototypes of SmartSail, has an augmented-feedback user interface to visualize force on the sail to make controlling a sailboat easier. SmartSail visualizes the subtle changes of the sail not only for the sailor but also for the trainer or spectators viewing from the land. The goal of SmartSail is to enhance both the sailor’s and audience’s experience on sailing. Sailing is still being developed as a frontier technology such as designing a sailboat for the America’s Cup which enables sailors to obtain speed faster than the wind speed. On the other hand, these hi-tech sailing is too hard to understand how does it sail well for the beginner than traditional sailing, and is also not easy to use for casual entertainment. Basically, sailing is a difficult sport because it requires an understanding of the factors around the sailboat including wind, waves and trimming of sails (changing the angle of the sail) to obtain forces on the sails accordingly. Usually, people start to learn sailing by studying on land. After that, the sailor learns to sail by watching and reading the wind and waves to control the sailboat, including trimming the sails on the sailboat. Additionally, sailors have to recognize subtle changes on the surface of the sail or the wind all the time to keep the sailboat in a good trim and this subtle change is difficult to be recognized by beginners. These problems are the main reasons why learning sailing is not easy for beginners. To solve these problems, we designed the SmartSail system.

Koh Sueda
National University of Singapore