Avoiding zones and polishing the first 48 hours

Expert

The essentials

Two switches in Settings > Routing, visible in Expert mode:

  • “Avoid VR and own zones” (on by default). On, the routing goes around Virtual Regatta (VR) zones and your zones that are switched on. Unticked, it ignores them all. It does not apply to the ice limit.
  • “Polish the first 48 hours only” (off by default). Polishing is the last step of the calculation: the route found by the isochrones is replayed minute by minute with fewer orders, in whole degrees. On, only the start of the route (48 hours) is reworked; off, the whole route is.

Going further

Avoiding zones. See avoiding zones in the routing for the detail: refusal of a target inside a zone, the order editor, the “first without, then with” zones method. A reminder of what touches this setting:

  • one switch handles VR zones and yours;
  • the order editor always checks zones, whatever the switch;
  • after a routing started with the option unticked, a message recalls “Zones are not avoided: the option “Avoid VR and own zones” is unchecked in the Routing menu.”

Polishing. The isochrone calculation gives a route made of many small segments. Polishing takes it back to get a small number of orders that you can send to VR:

  • it replays the route minute by minute with the boat’s polar, staying out of the avoided zones and away from the coast (according to the safety pixel);
  • it aims at the number of orders your account can program, plus one (the one that applies at once); this is a target, not a limit: if reaching it costs time, the route polished without constraint is kept when it arrives earlier, by at least one minute;
  • the polished route replaces the best route: the routing table, the order editor, the GPX export and the timeline boat follow it.

Why limit it to 48 hours? Polishing replays the whole route at every trial. On a long routing, limiting the work to the first 48 hours makes it faster; the rest of the route keeps the calculation’s line, sailed with the polar, so the arrival time shown stays the real time of that route. The orders sent to VR mostly concern the first hours anyway, since the weather will be updated by then and you will run another routing.

Off (the default), the polishing works over the whole duration of the routing.