Exchanging skills with technology

by Craig Leweck, Scuttlebutt Sailing News
The ability to look into the wind, and detect its nuances, is hugely impactful within our sport. Which side of the course has more wind? Is the wind direction oscillating or gradually shifting one direction? Where are the puffs on the course? Knowing the answers separate the best from the rest.

But what if you had equipment to answer these questions?

I don’t know if the Trijicon Ventus is going to change our sport forever, but it claims to be the world’s first advanced wind-mapping handheld device, able to measure three-dimensional wind velocities at multiple distances up to 500 yards.

To step back a moment, there was a time in our sport when starting a boat meant having a keen sense of where the line was, the ability to gauge the time and distance to the start line, and the boat skills to approach the line at full speed at the gun.

However, now you can do all that with expensive electronics which provide the information. No longer do you need to develop those skills… you just buy them.

While the Trijicon Ventus has been developed for long range shooters and hunters, hopefully somebody in leadership will review how it may impact the sport. There is no price announced yet, but speculations in various forums think this device might hit the $10,000 mark.

It becomes available in the second-half of 2020, so there’s still time. For more information, click here.