True wind conditions

• TWS ranged from 0.4 to 24.4 kn (avg 13.8 kn; middle 90% of the race was 7.0–18.6 kn).
• Direction backed/veered gradually over the race: roughly 217–220° through the first hour, drifting to 233–236° by the final 40 minutes — about an 18° right-hand trend over ~4.5 hours. Circular spread was moderate (21° std), consistent with a gradually shifting breeze rather than a hard oscillating shift.
• There was a light patch early (7.8 kn at 20:40 UTC) before building into the mid-teens by 20:53, and a brief lull to 7.0 kn around 22:40 UTC lasting only a few minutes before recovering to 12 kn.
• Data note: the apparent-wind-derived TWD reading during that 22:40 lull jumped briefly to 298° — true wind angle is noisier at very low boat/wind speed, so treat that single sample as an artifact rather than a real header change.

Tacks and gybes

• 12 tacks, avg duration 9.3 s, avg speed loss 42.9%, avg recovery 4.5 s to get back to speed. Duration ranged from a crisp 6 s (22:12) up to a slow 14 s (21:28).
• Entry/exit TWA was inconsistent: the tightest tacks (87–98° total swing, e.g. 21:43, 22:10, 22:14) came with speed loss in the 37–43% range, while the widest-swing tacks (109–153°, e.g. 21:23 at 153° and 21:28 at 113°) lost 40–51% and took longer to execute (10–14 s). Observation: wider, slower tacks correlated with higher speed loss in this race — likely explanation is late/rushed roll-tacks rather than a clean, pre-set turn.
• 2 gybes only, both light: 12.6% loss (4 s, 22:07) and 21.4% loss (12 s, 22:43 — but this one occurred in a very light patch, boat speed under 2 kn before the gybe, so the % loss is not comparable to a powered-up gybe).
• 8 additional large turns were auto-classified as mark roundings (150–179° swings) and one true rounding (262 m to a mark) — these are excluded from the tack/gybe analysis above per the detection notes, since they're driven by mark geometry rather than tacking technique.

Upwind performance

• Average beat boat speed was 82.7% of polar target (4,105 samples, avg TWS 13.5 kn).
• But average upwind TWA was 51.1°, well wide of the polar-optimal beat angle at that wind speed (38.3°) — about 13° too low.
• Actual VMG upwind averaged 3.22 kn vs. a polar target VMG of 4.58 kn at the same wind speed — only 70% of target VMG, notably worse than the 82.7% boat-speed figure.
• Likely explanation: the VMG shortfall was driven more by sailing angle than by raw boat speed — the boat was going reasonably fast for its angle, but the angle itself was too footed/low to convert that speed into height.

Power and boat handling

• Average heel while beating was 20.1° (vs. 9.8° reaching and 5.3° running) — a large step-up consistent with being in the powered-up mid-teens wind range for most of the beat legs.
• Rate of turn was also highest upwind (avg 2.22°/s vs. 1.42–1.94° off the wind), suggesting more active steering/course correction upwind — this could reflect wave action, gusts, or helm correction; the data can't distinguish which.
• Data insufficient: there's no traveler, vang, cunningham, or rudder-angle data logged, so whether the crew was actively depowering (easing sails, flattening) during the higher-wind segments can't be confirmed from this data. The combination of high heel and below-target VMG upwind is consistent with the boat being overpowered at times, but this is an inference, not a measurement.

Boat trim

• Heel and pitch differ substantially by point of sail (expected), but the dataset doesn't break trim down finer than beat/reach/run, so within-beat trim changes (e.g. before vs. after depowering) can't be isolated.
• Data insufficient: no side-by-side comparison of trim between similar upwind segments is available from this summary; a finer per-maneuver or per-leg trim breakdown would be needed to say whether trim specifically (as opposed to overall power) explains the VMG gap.

Comparison with other races

• Only one other race was sailed in comparable wind (Race 2, 2026-07-20 WoW, avg TWS 13.8 kn vs. this race's 13.5 kn beat average) — every other logged race was in notably lighter air (6–10 kn avg) and isn't a fair comparison.
• Vs. Race 2: this race sailed a wider average upwind TWA (51.1° vs. 43.2°) but a higher % of target boat speed (82.7% vs. 75.3%). Race 2 pointed closer to the polar-optimal angle but was comparatively slower for it — an interesting trade-off worth discussing at the debrief (footing for speed vs. pinching for height), though the data doesn't say which approach won more distance overall.
• Race 2 also had more tacks (15 vs. 12) with a shorter avg duration (7.8 s vs. 9.3 s) but a similar or slightly better avg speed loss (40.6% vs. 42.9%) — tack execution was broadly comparable between the two nights.

Coaching priorities

1. Upwind angle vs. target (high confidence). Actual TWA (51.1°) was ~13° wider than polar-optimal (38.3°) at this wind speed, and VMG came in at only 70% of target despite 83% target boat speed. Action: practice holding a tighter groove in 12–18 kn TWS and check the target TWA on the polar display against what's actually being steered.
2. Tack consistency (medium confidence). Speed loss ranged from 34% to 75% across 12 tacks, and the slower/wider-swing tacks lost the most speed. Action: drill roll-tacks specifically aiming to keep the total heading swing under ~100° and duration under 8 s, matching the race's own best examples (21:43, 22:10).
3. Upwind power management (low confidence — data-limited). High average heel (20°) alongside below-target VMG is consistent with being overpowered at times, but there's no traveler/vang/rudder data to confirm it. Action: if this pattern holds on the water, log or note traveler/vang position changes manually for a future race so this can be checked against the data.