Power
… or how a famous German software company is fast raising the stakes in course management
In F1 Lewis Hamilton knows where his power is coming from because his Mercedes McLaren is fuelled up before the race with a carefully calculated amount of fuel that depends on conditions, track layout, driving style and so on. A sailor, however, never quite knows how much power he’s going to get, which direction it will come from and how long it might last. Solving the problem of predicting
weather and current conditions has gone through a quantum leap in the past few years, particularly in long-distance offshore racing. But big gains are also being made in short-course competition, particularly in Olympic sailing. At the forefront of this drive for greater knowledge and forecasting accuracy is Buell Software, in Germany. It all started just over 20 years
ago when Ingo Buell, a PhD in physics, entered a national competition to win a prize fund put
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forward by Daimler Benz Aerosail to develop technology that would help Germany’s Olympic sailors succeed at the Atlanta Games in 1996. Aided by his Masters students at Kiel University, Buell developed some routeing software. Jochen Schümann, competing in the Soling keelboat, analysed the printouts every morning before racing. He went on to win the gold medal, and so Buell Software was born. Buell have provided current
and tidal analysis to a number of Olympic teams for the past two Games, London 2012 and Rio 2016, but their new program for 2020, SailTokyo, takes things to a new level with integration of wind data and many other new features, as sales manager Yvette von der Burchard explains: ‘It’s a cloud- based team solution designed to prepare your sailing team for the Olympic Games – Tokyo 2020, Marseille 2024 – and all the World
The 2018 Miami Olympic Classes Regatta saw several of the big sailing teams employing Buell’s latest system to drill down into wind, current and actual boat performance. As well as the sailors the system is increasingly appealing to regatta organisers in the pursuit of fair courses in complex race venues
Sailing events and Olympic class world championships.’ Marcus Baur represented
Germany in the 49er at two Olympic regattas, in London 2000 and Athens 2004, as well as winning the European Championships twice. He has worked closely with Buell Software for a number of years. ‘Sailing Team Germany were sponsored by the German software giant SAP from 2009 to 2016. During this time SAP and Sailing Team Germany partnered with Buell Software for the Olympics, with Ingo Buell coaching the team and providing his tidal analysis. ‘Hardly anyone in the world has
thought more deeply about the influence of sea currents on sailing races than Ingo Buell,’ says Baur. ‘As a physicist and programmer he completely demystified the problem and developed algorithms, software applications and easy-to-use apps that empower sailors to get to grips with the subtle, and sometimes paradoxical, influence of complex tides. Apart from being a great learning tool, it enables sailors and coaches to predict the impact of the current in relation to prevailing wind patterns. A priceless performance gain and a must-have tool in a sailor’s toolset. I wish I’d had access to that weapon during my time as an Olympic sailor.’ The core element of the tool is the unique routeing algorithm that
JESUS RENEDO/SAILING ENERGY
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