' LA OROYA Software, 1993. ' ------------------------ ' Document for the Yachting programme, by Stephan Scholz ' The programme >>> Yachting <<< is public domain. ' ' C O M M E N T S : ' ================= ' ' This programme intends to show the relationship between wind speed ' and direction, sail-boom angle and yacht heading and speed, turning ' this into a playable simulator game. ' ' On loading, a screen showing a circular wind graph appears: ' The darker blue zone shows the maximum traveling speeds for modern ' yachts, according to the direction the wind is coming from. The ' light blue area shows speeds with raised spinnaker for rear winds. ' ' ' Improvements on the first version: ' ---------------------------------- ' ' - The rather messy printed numbers for the yacht speed have now ' been converted into a speedometer dial, and the heading is now given ' by a smooth mini-scrolling compass. The dashboard now boasts the name ' of the programme, and the pseudonym logo "La Oroya" - taken from a ' mountain-town in the Andes I had always wanted to visit but never ' got round to. ' ' - Some calculations have been taken out of the main loop and some ' numbers converted into variables - scrounging milliseconds... ' ' - Also, compiling it did seem to improve things a bit, thank heavens! ' ' - The background scrolling speed has been improved, making the whole ' programme perform more smoothly. The culprit was that I was copying ' the whole background instead of a third of the strip! My sincere ' apologies for any hassle caused. ' ' - The race is done in three separate laps. Before starting, you can ' point your yacht in the desired direction, i.e. depending on the wind ' angle, you can choose your course by clicking on the rudder chevrons ' "<" or ">". Press space to start the lap. You will have to keep your ' space bar down a few seconds, as the routine only reads the keyboard ' between waves, when the horizon is up. This part also lets you quit ' by pressing "Q". ' You will win if you've won two out of three laps, ' Wind direction changes a bit from lap to lap. ' ' Once you've started the radar-scanner indicates a green dot near the ' buoy you should be heading for. ' ' - An ocean sound, changing with speed, adds atmosphere... ' If you are stealing the other's wind this sound will change into a ' swishing sound. If your wind is being stolen, your speedometer will ' tell you, and the ocean sound becomes quieter. ' ' - The creacking noises are when you move your sail or raise or lower ' the spinnaker. The latter now takes a few seconds - 5 creaks! ' ' - Collisions are accompanied by a violent crashing sound, and you ' are spun off course violently! ' ' Future versions might have a damage control. ' ' Possible improvements : ' ----------------------- ' ' - Instead of having an automatic competitor getting sailing speeds ' from a wind angle table called AUTOS in the SAILDATA procedure, ' one could have a version where a second computer were linked up ' and a second operator controlled the other ship in the same fashion ' as Object 0 (the viewpoint - your ship, in effect) is controlled. ' ' - One could also set up a championship routine, perhaps with ' different models that behaved differently under different weather ' conditions, and hall of fame to enter one's name. ' ' ' Further comments: ' ----------------- ' ' A mathematical co-processor would probably be a grateful additive ' to use with this trigonometry and decimal-places ridden programme !!! ' ' An accellerator is also convenient, giving faster screen update and ' smoother movement, as the processor has a lot of work with all the ' calculations. I have tried to keep these to a minimum, using data ' tables as much as possible, and I haven't included a jib (the ' fore-sail), or the turning effect that can be achieved by letting ' out or bringing in only one of the two sails. A trigonometrical ' drift calculation for each sail is necessary, similar to the ' propulsion calculation (which would have to be done for each sail ' too), so you can guess what will happen without an accellerator! ' Hence also the lack of lateral drift. Normally, depending on your ' speed, your true course can drift upto 5 degrees leeward of your ' heading with winds forward of the beam. This sideways drift could ' be included, but would slow down the programme and make it harder ' to sail than it already is. ' ' So at present the YACHTING programme supposes that your course is your ' heading, and this is kept constant unless you move your rudder, i.e. ' you have a jib that someone is attending to, thus maintaining the ship ' balanced and on course. This way you are spared the never-ending rudder ' operations necessary to keep single-sailed craft on course, or balancing ' the jib and the mainsail all the time. ' ' ' INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO SAIL: ' ---------------------------- ' ' On the starting line, choose which direction to face when you start. ' Take care you are not heading squarely into the wind - you won't get ' any speed at all! Click on the rudder chevrons "<" and ">" to rotate. ' ' Your yacht will move forward if the wind catches the sail. In the ' main navigation instrument in the lower center, there is a light blue ' line indicator in the green ring, indicating where the wind is coming ' from, relative to your ship. If you turn your ship, this line will ' turn, moving round in the green ring as the wind angle changes with ' respect to your ship. This line is the apparent wind, which will move ' forwards as you gather speed, so you will have to adjust the sail boom ' accordingly, to maintain optimum sail angle with respect to the wind. ' ' Inside the green circle, is a drawing of your ship. You have a boom ' indicator which can be moved outwards on inwards by clicking on the ' chevrons "^" and "v". The boom will be light blue if optimum sail ' efficiency is achieved, although this is not possible for very rear ' winds. It will be green if the wind is pushing the sail - meaning less ' efficiency, as no laminar flow is being achieved. Laminar flow happens ' happens with a wind incidence of 10 to 25 degrees on the sail, as a ' suction force is ceated, similar to an aircraft wing. ' ' If the boom indicator is grey, however, it means the sail is ' flapping loosely in the wind, and you are getting no push at all. ' In this case you should draw in the boom, clicking on the red "v" ' to the right of the instrument, until the boom slowly moves in. ' It may take a while to start moving if it has been out far - all ' that loose rope has to be collected..! ' ' If you are headed straight into the wind, i.e. the blue wind line ' is near the nose of your ship, taking in the boom will be to no ' avail, and you will have to turn the yacht right or left, clicking ' on the red ">" or "<" below the instrument - the yellow line is your ' rudder. Turning will be very sluggish indeed if you have no speed, so ' DON'T turn into the wind without speed ! - i.e. for tacking - doing ' a zig-zag course for a route against the wind. ' ' Even if your boom indicates laminar flow, i.e. it is light blue, ' there is a certain optimum position within the 10-25 degree angle ' of incidence range, which is 22 degrees. Move the boom in or out ' just a little to get this best push! Your speed will tell you. ' Of course, depending on where the wind is coming from your optimum ' speed will vary. There are no random factors affecting wind, boom ' or steering. It's difficult enough without those! ' ' If your competitor is too fast for you you might like to reduce ' the A#*2.1 value to A#*1.7 in the SAILDATA procedure in the READ A# ' instruction just before the AUTOS data section. (These values give ' the speed for the automatic ship, based on the wind graph data table). ' ' Your own ship's speed table is different: Your speed depends on wind ' incidence angle on the sail - this table is SAILS data section, and ' is complemented by the SPINNAKER data section further on). Don't change ' these, as it will probably ruin your yacht's performance. Your ' adversary's ship and your own ship behave differently: ' Yours is a bit faster and sails closer to the wind, although your ' competitor accellerates and turns faster, and runs very well before ' the wind. ' You will find it very useful to get round the other boat on the ' windward side, steal the other's wind. Watch out you don't get on ' the leeward side - you'll lose your speed. ' ' If you are heading into the wind you can do so only at an angle. ' Watch your speed indicator, which is to the left of the main ' instrument. With a 12 knot wind your yacht (which is very ' efficient and fast and behaves somewhat like a catamaran even!), ' will sail forwards at about 8 knots with a real wind coming from ' the side (90 deg.) and 3 or 4 knots heading into the wind at angles ' of 40 or 45 degrees. ' ' The real wind angle cannot be "seen" from your yacht, only the ' apparent wind, which changes with your speed. Should you want to ' see the real wind on the wind instrument, there is a line you can ' use: Draw H(WW,3),H(WW,4) to H(WW,5),H(WW,6). Write this in, just ' below Draw H(AWA,3),H(AWA,4) to H(AWA,5),H(AWA,6) in the main loop. ' You may find it interesting to see how your ship's apparent wind ' behaves with respect to the real wind, depending on your speed. ' ' If you are sailing with rear winds, your boom should be let out as ' far as possible, clicking on the red "^", and you can achieve a speed ' of about 4 kts. without spinnaker. ' ' If you click on the little box inside the speed instrument, this will ' slowly raise or lower the spinnaker. The symbol in the box will tell ' you if it is stowed (v), raised (^) or being raised or lowered (*). ' The spinnaker gives you increased push for any real winds coming from ' anywhere behind the beam (90 to 180 degrees). If you raise the spinnaker ' with forward winds, this will bring you to a halt. With a spinnaker, the ' maximum yacht speed, just over 10 knots, will be achieved with a real ' wind at 135 degrees. If at 180 degrees, speed is about 6 knots. ' ' For the moment, the program has a fixed real wind speed of 12 knots ' but the wind direction is random. ' ' Watch out with hitting the buoys or the other ship! It will send you ' spinning violently off course! It may happen that the other one will ' hit you too, so watch out! Keep an eye on the radar-scanner. The blue ' dot tells you where the other ship is. You are the yellow dot. Even if ' you or the other boat leave the boundary of the scanner, a dot remains ' in the blue fringe on the margin to tell you in what direction that ' ship is. The red dots are the three buoys, and a little green dot ' near one of the buoys will indicate which buoy you should be heading ' for. ' ' Starting off, sail for the north buoy, which lies ahead and to the ' left of where you are, (the other ship will set off, so you can ' follow it - you are faster, and can overtake it). ' Sail round the north buoy, (don't collide with it), and as soon as ' you hear the bell, or you see the green dot on your scanner disappear ' from the north buoy, you can set course for the Southwest buoy, and ' then the East one, which is the "finish line". ' ' To keep track of the route, the programme has to detect if you've ' entered an area 5000 VLU's in diameter which touches the north buoy ' on the north side. The west buoy also has such an area to the south west. ' During the race, rounding the buoy without hitting it is easy enough. ' ' IMPORTANT: ' If you don't enter these areas, i.e. if you give the buoy too wide a ' berth, the programme can't detect that you have rounded the buoy, and ' won't finish the race - the other ship will continue sailing past the ' last buoy ad-infinitum... During the race it is easy enough to round ' the buoys close enough without danger of hitting them. ' ' The finish "line" is an area 5000 VLU's in diameter, touching the ' last buoy on the south east (This is the buoy you started the race from). ' You can enter the finishing area from any direction south of the buoy. ' The program detects who is first to enter this area and will tell ' you if you've won the lap - and the times you've bumped into something. ' ' ' Have fun! ' ' Stephan Scholz