ADVANTAGE VIRTUAL RACING EDITION
NEW NOVEMBER 2011: ADVANTAGE NOW SUPPORTS THE NEW VOLVO OCEAN RACE GAME 2011 (VORG11)
We have been designing top-ranked routing software for over a decade: SEE OUR REFERENCES
CHECK OUT OUR TACTICAL SOFTWARE AND CURRENT & WIND DATA FOR RACES WORLDWIDE
NEW: THERE IS A NEW VOLVO OCEAN RACE GAME, at http://volvooceanracegame.com/. This uses a different platform, varying wind continuously, point to point (just like the real world!), rather than artificial "wind squares." Like VR, VORG 2011 holds wind fixed in two 12-hour blocks, updating at 0000 and 1200 UTC each day. This prevents standard "weather-routing" programs from producing accurate routing results, since all such programs assume continuous wind variation in both space and time. The problem is greater with VR, due to the additional assumption of 1-degree "wind squares," but in either case standard routing software is pretty much useless.
Advantage was developed for standard, real-world routing, but has been modified to work with these virtual races at the user's option. Advantage has proven to be a valuable asset in VR armchair racing, but is even more valuable in the new VORG 2011 game: even short-range computations are much more difficult and the simple "free" tools available for the 2009 game will not work in the 2011 game.
For a completely realistic navigation experience, another series of virtual races is available at the VLM website http://virtual-loup-de-mer.org/ VLM games vary wind continuously in space and time, using GFS updates 4 times a day. VLM races are free, and you don't need to purchase "options" to be competitive. However, the graphics are more primitive and there are many fewer competitors (hundreds instead of tens of thousands). Advantage interfaces with the VLM website so that boat position, speed and heading from the website is used to move the boat over the Advantage charts. The interface is even more extensive with VR, reading all the VR website data and displaying it in Advantage.
All of these games offer a
great opportunity to learn how routing software works, in a realistic setting where you
can see the results and compare your choices to those made by competitors. And, with
Advantage, you will be using the same tools, techniques and information as
"real" ocean navigators.
HOW IT WORKS: you purchase a special edition of Advantage, limited to Virtual Race functions, for a small fraction of the price of our top "Level 3" program ($150 instead of $1,900). Your package comes complete with charts, a number of polar files, and all Advantage components except those used in actual onboard racing.
STANDARD ROUTING SOFTWARE WILL NOT WORK WITH "VIRTUAL REGATTA" AND VORG 2011 !!
The Virtual Regatta and VORG 2011 games treat wind data very differently from "real" racing software, and result in very different routes. But this special edition of Advantage has been modified to calculate boat motion (including optimal routing) in EXACTLY the same way as the game, which gives our users an incredible edge. Otherwise, the program works exactly the same as our unlimited editions.
Advantage also provides many more useful functions than the "free" tools developed for VR games: CLICK HERE FOR COMPARISON OF KEY FUNCTIONS And Advantage has many other functions which give you an edge in virtual racing and enrich the experience. It enables you to interpret polar files in various formats available for download on the web, and gives you the tools to build and refine a polar file from the boat speed values reported in the game, providing better and better accuracy as the game continues. It gives you tools to edit and combine wind grib files. It includes a simulation display to move the boat along over the chart in situations where you are not connected to the internet or, in the case of Volvo 2011, in which boat position is not automatically read from the website (Advantage does this for VR and VLM games). If you are interested in particular competitors, you can add them to the Advantage chart and the simulator will move them as long as well. Advantage comes with a set of world charts and more detailed charts for each leg, plus a unique “Chartmaker” utility which enables you to create charts from any graphic image. With Advantage charts and the mark-definition options, you can create much more precise courses than you can do directly in the game.
WHY IT WORKS: Routing software is essential because critical routing decisions are based on what the winds will be like 4-5 days ahead, and often a week or more, and hundreds, sometimes thousands, of miles ahead of your current position. You have to think globally, not locally. The wind information provided by Virtual Race games only goes out several days, but the winds used by these games at later times can be predicted by Advantage quite well, up to 7 days ahead, and at lesser accuracy as long as 16 days ahead. Knowing the predicted wind isn't enough, you have to know where your boat will be days later in order to apply that knowledge to routing. This requires you to take into account numerous possible course changes, as well as the performance characteristics of the boat at many combinations of wind speed and angle. If you can do this in your head, you are better than the professional navigators doing the Volvo Ocean Race. This is not to say that it takes judgment out of the game. Wind predictions are not perfect, and there are still decisions to be made, particularly when winds are light. But why work with a big handicap, when our software gives you the same tools as the pros and a real chance to win?
WHAT ELSE?: The Advantage Router is great for overall strategy, but only one element of the program. Other Advantage functions support moment to moment tactical decisions, such as computing the optimal series of tacks to reach an upwind or downwind waypoint, or defining a series of waypoints and computing precise headings, expected TWA, ETA's, etc. for each leg of a course. Advantage functions have evolved, and been tested and improved, over a decade for our "real" racing clients worldwide, from the Volvo Ocean Race to other major offshore competitions, including the Fastnet Race, the Newport-Bermuda Race and Sydney-Hobart, the Americas Cup and many others. And the Virtual Regatta functions were tested extensively during the virtual Volvo Ocean Race and Vendee Globe.
UNIQUE ROUTING FUNCTIONS
THE IMAGE BELOW illustrates a routing solution for the initial part of Leg 4 of the Volvo Ocean Race (Singapore to Qingdao). The red line shows the optimal (quickest) route from the starting point ("1", off Singapore) to an intermediate point ("3", off Taiwan). The other colored lines show comparison routes that help to put the optimal route in perspective. The times (in HR:MM:SS) for each route are shown in the 'Best Course Comparisons' form, color-coded to correspond to the route. Advantage is the only routing software that computes quantitative comparison routes. The definitions of shorelines are built into the charts supplied with the package, so you can perform realistic routings that don't try to take shortcuts over land. The optimal (red) solution in this example takes about 144 hours, some 12 hours faster than the blue route closer to shore, and more than 60 hours faster than the yellow route furthest offshore. The computation employed the same wind prediction files used by the Volvo Ocean Race Game (VORG), and realistic VOLVO70 polar performance data.
Once computed, routing solutions are redrawn if you zoom in or out, or switch to a different chart, and you can step along the solution at intermediate times to see progress along the optimal and comparison routes. In the example below, predicted boat positions at 1017 on 1/1/2009 are shown by the black dots, and distance from those positions to the destination (DTG) is shown in the right-hand column.
COSTS AND HOW TO ORDER
HOW TO PAY: Use the link below to send us an email. Let us know if Paypal works for you and we will email you a Paypal invoice. If not, tell us your location and we will instruct you as to the best method to make payment. Please include your name and the name of your "boat" and race. You can download Advantage from the below link and install it in few minutes (do not install one of our regular programs; you will be given a download URL for this special edition).
Download Advantage Virtual Race Edition Click Here for General Download/Install Instructions