1. Overview – Basic Plan
Pathfinder Sailing™ for iPhone helps you sail smarter by providing better on-the-water decision support and post-race performance feedback. The app connects with your existing B+G H5000, Hercules, and Triton sailing instruments via your boat’s wifi. Additional instruments will be supported in the future. Approximately 50 metrics are collected once per second by the app and stored in a local database on your phone. Race-time screens use this data to provide the following:
- input to your starts
- Course over Ground (COG) and COG Trend
- Speed over Ground (SOG)
After the race, the app syncs to the Pathfinder backend, running in the cloud and making post-race replay and performance analysis available on the Portal. From the Portal, via any web browser, you can replay your logged races and compare yourself to other opted-in boats in your fleet that use Pathfinder.
2. Getting Started
The Pathfinder app is available for download through the Apple App Store.
To get started, select the free 30-day trial or purchase a subscription and download the app.
At the mobile app login screen, select a username (email address) and password.
Bypass the Network Screen
Since the Basic plan uses your iPhone GPS, you will not connect to your boat’s instruments. When starting the mobile app, you may be taken to the Network page.
Select the ‘Back’ arrow to back out to the Settings page, and then select the Home icon to return to the Home screen.
4. Display Settings
You may want to change your display settings when using the app.
- Go to Settings, tap on ‘Accessibility,’ then ‘Display & Text Size,’ and toggle on ‘Increase Contrast.’ This can make a big difference when using your phone in bright sunlight.
- Go to the ‘Display and Brightness’ setting and change your Auto-lock setting to ‘Never.’ This ensures your app continues to run and log your race data without going into sleep mode.
5. Create Your Boat Profile
Before using the app on the water, you must go to the My.PathfinderSailing Portal here and create an account. Be sure to use the same login you used when you signed in to the mobile app.
6. Manage Boats
Log in to the Portal and click on ‘Manage Boats’ from the sidebar or click here. You can use either a browser from a computer (recommended due to the larger screen size) or your mobile device.
- to add your boat, click on the ‘Add Boat’ button,
- enter your boat’s name
- select your instrument manufacturer and mode
- add your boat length
- your GPS antenna offset
GPS offset is the exact distance from the bow of the boat to your GPS antenna. This information is needed to ensure accurate distance from the line measurement after pinging the start with the Pathfinder app.
7. Set Active Boat
Back to the mobile app, this screen allows you to select the boat you will sail before a race. The boat list is populated by boats you have added to your profile on the Portal.
If you wish to add or delete a boat, you can do so by selecting ‘Manage Boats’ from the app and going to the ‘Manage Boats’ page.
Before a race starts, you can change the active boat, manage (change an active polar), or delete a boat.
8. Set the Starting Line
On the race course, once the race committee has set the starting line, you can ping the precise location of both ends of the starting line directly from your phone on the ‘Set Start Line’ screen.
Ping Starting Line Ends
To ping either end, select the Port or Stbd End Ping screen, then press the ‘Ping Mark’ for the appropriate end of the line the moment the bow of the boat is even with the starting line. Once successfully pinged, you will see a green check mark next to the end of the ‘Set Start Line’ screen.
9. Race Timer Screen
The Race Timer allows you to select your Timer Start point to synchronize with Race Committee starting signals. Start by selecting the timer start point, for example 5 minutes, then click on the Start button when the race committee signal occurs. Once you have started the start sequence and you are within 5 minutes or less of your start, the app will automatically begin logging of the race. You will see the red LED turn on in the top of your screen.
With the Sync buttons, you can sync down to the next minute by pressing the Sync down button or sync up to the last minute as needed.
The screen provides an audible switch option if you want the audible countdown.
Once the sequence has started, you can switch to the Start screen and still track your time to start.
10. Start and Stop Logging
Logging automatically stores your boat’s location data and detailed instrument metrics in the app’s database once per second. There are two ways you can start logging:
- Select the ‘Start Logging’ command on the Home page to start logging. The LED in the top right of your racing screens will turn red to indicate active logging is occurring, and the “Start Logging’ option switches to a red “Stop Logging” option.
- Start the Timer. Whenever a race timer is at 5 minutes or less, logging begins automatically.
If you forget to stop logging on multiple race days, don’t worry, When you start your next race and the Timer is at 5 minutes or less, a new logging file will be started.
To stop logging, select the red ‘Stop Logging’ command. The red LED will turn gray to confirm you are no longer logging.
11. Start
Once you have set your starting line and started the Race Timer, the Start screen will provide your Time to Gun, Distance to the Line, Line Bias.
The Speed to Start Burnometer graphic tells you whether you are early or late for your start based on your boat’s polars. Your Speed to Start is located in the center of the Burnometer graphic. This is the speed you need to go to get to the line at the starting gun.
- If you are early, the indicator will be in the orange or red (too early) zone, indicating your Speed to Start is very slow
- If your Speed to Start is close to 100% of your upwind target, the indicator will be in the green.
- If you are late, the indicator will show in that orange zone, indicating your Speed to Start exceeds your boat’s polar target, and you can’t go fast enough to be early across the line.
Using the feature will take practice, and success depends on several factors, including tidal current, congestion and wind shadows in your starting area. This graphic should be used as a rough guide only until you have some experience using it. This version of the Burnometer graphic does not take current into account.
13. Course
The Course screen shows your COG (Course over Ground) and SOG (Speed over Ground) using your iPhone’s GPS The trend graph shows your COG trend. By default, the time duration is set to 10 minutes. You can change the trend duration in Settings > Trend Duration to 10, 30, or 60 minutes.
14. Apple Watch Companion App
The app is a companion app to the Pathfinder mobile app and provides a real-time stream of information about the boat’s performance, wind shifts, and tidal current coming from the boat’s instruments or through the iPhone GPS. The watch connects to your iPhone app via Bluetooth.
15. Syncing the Mobile App – Upload Data to Server
After racing, you should upload your race data to the Pathfinder Sailing cloud database from the Home screen. The race log is then cleared from your phone. Once synced, you are able to access your race replays from any browser by going to the web portat at my.pathfindersailing.com and logging in.
The Upload Data to Server button is deactivated while logging is turned on, so you will need to stop logging prior to syncing.
16. Settings
Most of these settings are self-explanatory. Some comments on those that require some explanation:
- Account confirms which Pathfinder account you are logged into.
- The Network page allows you to identify the Active Boat you will be sailing and to connect to the boat’s wifi. Click on the Edit button and enter the web server URL. It will usually be ws://192.168.8.0.2:2053. If it now, you will need to enter the correct URL. It is easy to find that on your instruments – click here to learn more.
- The Units settings allow you to switch preferences between boatlengths and meters, primarily for pre-starts.
- Wind and Drift Visible Duration. Select a time duration for the trend graphs for Wind and Tidal Current screens. Options include 10 minutes, 30 minutes, or 60 minutes of wind screen and current screen data.
- Manage Location Permission. If you select ‘Always in Use’, the app will collect GPS location data from the iPhone in addition to the GPS instrument data coming through the B&G instruments. This ensures location data is continuously collected even if the app is minimized. However, turning this on also decreases battery life significantly. You may want to switch this off if you are using the boat’s instrument GPS.
17. Screen List
This page allows you to turn on and off app screens and change the order of the screens.
18. Race Replays
To access replays of your logged races for your boat, go the the My Pathfinder portal and click on Race replays. Each replay is given the title of ‘Unknown’ by default. Click on the pencil icon next to the title to create a new descriptive name.
