I simply love anything made by Apple. I have acquired a white iPhone 3G, a Christmas present from my wife and daughter. It is simply brilliant in almost every way and I for one have never experienced the so called ‘iPhone Coma Mode’. I confess to not using it as a phone as such, so can’t comment on its quality in that regard, but for email, music, photos, applications and sheer ‘coolness’ it is fab. Battery life is a bit of a challenge and even without making or receiving calls it doesn’t last more than about 12 hours while out and about. Still, charging it through the Mac is easy so it’s not such a problem really.

Now, loving sailing and being an iPhone fan means I can’t stop downloading sailing, boating, navigation, weather, tide and other related applications…..and there are plenty of them. Some of them are useful, some are educational, some are fun and others are just plain daft.

We’ll look at three applications here – ‘SailSim’, ‘Knots, Splices & Ropework’ and ‘Windmeter’.

SailSim (£0.59)

This application allows you to configure the settings of your boat and then the wind speed and direction to see the impact on sail settings, heel angle, boat speed, centreboard position, etc, etc. If you have the iPhone 3GS (which I sadly don’t – next Christmas??) which has a built in compass then you can set the wind direction and by simply moving the iPhone it changes the sail setting for you. Pretty clever and quite fun. Have a look at the short video to see it in action.

In the Apple App Store there are some reviewers who complain that it isn’t actually a simulator, that it’s not worth £0.59 and that it’s very basic. As if they want the application to sail their boat for them. They are missing the point. There are two very good reasons to buy this application:

1. It is simply excellent to explain to novices what the impact of wind direction is on the sail set. How the higher the wind speed, the greater the leeway and the less sail area you need up. It allows you to change the mode to manual so the user can change the sail setting without changing wind direction and they’ll get a visual representation of the boat speed. As a basic teaching tool to explain the points of sailing and how it works in theory to my daughter (8), on dry land, so that she has a grasp of it before getting into a boat, it is absolutely worth 59 pence.
2. I spend a lot of time on conference calls, in meetings and travelling (the hell that is the corporate world!), so being able to while away the duller minutes playing with my sail settings and metaphorically transporting myself to the Solent is fantastic, and to be honest, I’d pay £5.90 (or 2 cups of London priced coffee) for the application.

You can buy SailSim from the App Store.

Knots, Splices and Ropework (£0.59)

This application could be just as useful for anyone who wants to learn how to tie knots, not just sailors. It is also a real gem. There are descriptions of all the knots you’ll need, including 154 diagrams to show you how to tie them, what they are for and it is an absolute must for any sailor, experienced or not.

The application has been criticised by those who need a fix of techy stuff, for being essentially a photocopy of the entire book written in 1917 by A. Hyatt Verrill, the American inventor and explorer and friend of Theodore Roosevelt. Frankly these critical reviewers are short-sighted and wrong (in my humble opinion).

Not only is it useful, but it is classic and I personally like the black and white hand drawings from a ‘pre-web paper-based book’ being married with the ‘gadget-techy-coolness’ of the iPhone.

At 59p it’s also worth the money.

You can buy Knots, Splices & Ropework from the App Store.

Windmeter (also £0.59)

How can an iPhone measure the speed of the wind? There are no moving parts! Well the makers of this software have obviously spent too many hours on conference calls with heavy breathers like I have. The sound of someone sighing, panting, breathing into the microphone is irritating while discussing the annual business plan numbers, but it’s quite useful when you can take that principle and apply it to wind speed. Basically, the faster the ‘sigh’ or ‘breathing’, the louder the sound, and it’s this that the makers of this application have harnessed for us sailors.

Turn the application on and you wonder why the application is upside down. Then you realise that you need the mic at the top to catch the wind and so you turn the device up on end and the application is no longer the wrong way up. Press the button and see the needle rise as the wind passes over the mic and press again once you have captured it and ‘Voila’, you have your wind speed reading.

I didn’t think this could be accurate. How can the microphone be so sensitive and accurate? If you don’t believe it either, look at this video and you’ll see the iPhone side by side with a raditional anemometer. Pretty accurate.

It may be accurate, and it may help you validate the local conditions ater checking on the ‘WindGuru’ app, but would you take it anywhere near your boat? Nope. Nor would I.

Having just spent 3 days sailing in a cold, wet, spray-laden, salty Solent in October, being tossed around in a fierce Solent chop, I wouldn’t take my iPhone anywhere near the deck. In any case we have wind speed and direction on our boat’s instrument panel so we don’t need to – thankfully!

So while this application is very clever, and accurate, it is better suited to kite flyers than sailors. Then again I suppose you could use it to measure the speed of the heavy breathing on those endless conference calls. Worth 59p? To be honest it’s such a small amount that it’s worth getting it just for the odd days when you really want to fly your kite.

You can buy Wind Meter from the App Store.

Related posts:

1. SailTimer – YASIA iPhone Sailing App
2. iPhone Sailing App – Aqualights
3. HarbourX – iPhone Application