Expedition Racing Software

Flying D · February 07, 2014, 07:59:43 PM

Does anyone have any knowledge of Expedition sailing software? If so, can you provide a brief overview of its features?

Flying D · February 07, 2014, 08:15:13 PM

I finally found an overview on-line. Is anyone using this software? It's pricy but I am looking for something to use at Race Week at Newport this summer.

Bee · February 08, 2014, 07:53:16 AM

Form what I can tell Expedition appears to have many of the same features as iNavX. I use iNavX on Stinger mostly because I have an Apple iPad, iPhone, and MacBook. These devices connect to my Raymarine instruments through an iMux WIFI network. As a result they can be used simultaneously at any location on the boat. You should be able to find an iMux equivalent an then use any Microsoft device in the same way. Whatever computer system you use you will also want to connect at least one (or all) to onboard power. We have two cigarette lighter type plugs that do this through USB adaptors for any and all of the various Mac devices. In fact, since its WIFI any device that can communicate over WIFI should work.

I suspect you will really like this setup once you get it configured to your liking. It will be a considerably cheaper then almost any system designed only for marine applications. You will be able to produce tracks and other such graphs and output to let you analyze what your doing right and what your doing wrong. You can sail around the Icicle and Rum courses with exact bearings all the way around.

Good luck and enjoy.

Flying D · February 08, 2014, 12:44:57 PM

Bee, thanks for the input!

Bee · February 09, 2014, 09:00:51 PM

I just checked how much Expedition costs. In a word WOW!. The iNavX app may not be as good but with an iPad at $600 and iNavX at $50 the $1295 of Expedition seems a bit over the top. In fact, the $1295 would buy a nice Mac Book Air.

svShearwater · February 12, 2014, 06:19:45 AM

I'm not sure you can justify the cost of Expedition for inshore racing. Expedition's price tag is primarily due to its excellent ability to get GRIBS and combine the weather information with your boat polars to provide optimized routing. That routing algorithm is what makes Expedition worth the cost for offshore racing. It is also a good tool to generate your own polars. It is a very popular piece of software for a race like TransPac or Pacific Cup where there is a range of hundreds of miles that you might sail.

If you are just looking for weather data and buoy racing then iNavX and iRegatta is a very inexpensive way to do that. Even still, the weather data in GRIBS is usually too coarse to be very useful for inshore racing. It might tell you what sails to bring for the race, but it's not going to tell which side of the course will be windier.

iRegatta is pretty cool. Time to go to the start line, laylines, VMG, course to the next mark, a strip chart of wind direction, boat speed relative to polars, etc... It really gets useful if you have your instrument data connected to a WiFi MUX type device so that iRegatta is getting all of the instrument data. You can build your own polars too.

Weather4DPro is another interesting app. It is a good way to see GRIBS and with some effort you can get your boat polars in there and it will also provide optimized routing. Not as sophisticated as Expedition, nor as robust, but it is cheap, and convenient because all you need is a tablet.

Maybe I should have put this at the beginning. What information exactly are you wanting for Race Week?

For high resolution weather data that could be useful for inshore racing on longer courses PredictWind could be helpful. There is a subscription for the high res data (which also includes current data). A subscription isn't cheap, but for a short period (ie a Race Week) it is a lot less than Expedition.

Bee · February 12, 2014, 09:19:27 AM

How do the GRIB files from Expedition differ from those from x-traverse.com or the other website iNavX can get them from?

I think I will go sign up for that and see.

svShearwater · February 12, 2014, 11:55:42 AM

They are the same GRIBS and if all you looking for is a GRIB viewer then there are number apps and and simple software packages that can do that for free. But Expeditions forte is combining the gribs with polars for route optimization. There are very few options for that and Expedition is the Cadillac (Telsa?) version.

I think it is back to the original poster. What information exactly are they trying to get?

Bee · February 12, 2014, 03:18:43 PM

I signed up for the grib files from x-traverse through theiry. You are spot on. The problem is that the grib files are pretty much useless at the Bay level. Resolution is on the order of .5 degrees so there is typically only one wind indicator for the bay, only one temperature for the entire bay and not much else. On the other hand there is potentially some level of use for something like the HMR. However, from my perspective there are other apps --- weathertrack --- that do a much better job although it is not clear how accurate their interpolation scheme actually is.

svShearwater · February 12, 2014, 03:43:51 PM

I did use GRIBS and route optimization before HMR (mostly as practice for Pacific Cup, although this year there wasn't anything to it. The resolution is sufficient. I think I used a NOGAPS (or the new name that I forget - Navy product) that had higher res which is known to handle near shore winds better than the typical GFS output.

PredictWind could be a good source for Bay type resolution, it just isn't cheap.