Become a Virtual Regatta specialist

You can send your orders in 4 different modes plus the auto mode that will pick the one we find the best. Activate the "Expert Mode" in the Settings to access these modes.

• Wind: the angle between the boat and the wind is constant between 2 orders. In VR, the lock is closed. This is the preferred mode if you are offshore.
• Compass: the heading of the boat is constant between 2 orders.
  In VR, the lock is open. This should be used if you are offshore in light variable winds.
• Mixed: if your boat is sailing upwind or downwind, the order will be sent using the Wind mode, otherwise, the Compass mode is used.
• Waypoints: the boat will sail  from waypoint to waypoint using their coordinates. This is the preferred mode when close to shore.

The calculation of weather forecasts takes time!

We use the American forecasts from the model called the GFS 0.25°. They are calculated by the NOAA, the weather service of the United States.

They are, of course, the same forecasts that Virtual Regatta uses.

These forecasts are calculated 4 times a day and the outputs are identified by the time of the beginning of the calculation in GMT time, also called Z.

So we have the outputs of 00Z, 06Z, 12Z and 18Z.

For each calculation, the first 12 hours of forecast are available after 3h40 of calculation, that is 03h40Z for the 00Z model. This makes 4h40 in La Rochelle in winter time and 05h40 in summer time. Then, (+48) indicates that the first 48 forecasts are available and so on.

Here is a small summary table where you will find the update times of the weather forecasts.

Note that the granularity of the 18Z run updates, the one that comes in the evening, is finer. This is so that you can go to bed earlier...

WARNING: The NOAA is sometimes late and in this case the files are not updated. It doesn't matter because they are not updated in the game as well.
What matters is that we are synchronized with the game.

the NOAA delays can be due to the production of the model or its distribution.
You can check how the production is going by following this link https://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod/prodstat/index.html#TARGET

You can check how the DISTRIBUTION is going by following this link: https://nomads.ncep.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/filter_gfs_1p00.pl

Now, at what time to do the routings?

The best compromise seems to be (European Central Timezone) :

• winter time: at 05h15 or at your alarm clock, 11h15, 17h15 and 23h15.
• summer time : at 06h15 or at your alarm clock, 12h15, 18h15 and 00h15.

Depending on your VR options you can use a certain maximum number of orders.

• no option: 2 orders
• Full pack: 9 orders
• VIP: 15 orders

It is key to use these limited set of orders wisely.
To optimize the sending, we can skip orders if the previous one was close to the current one. The "Skip order tolerance" parameter aloows you to decide how close should be these orders to skip them.
In practice, if you want to send your orders for a long time, like at night, increase the tolerance.