NauticEd Unveils High-Tech Teaching Tool
PRESS RELEASE
Today, NauticEd again lived up to its tag line of being “The World’s Most Advanced Online Sailing Education” by unveiling it’s latest teaching tool – NED. NED is a very high tech interactive online sailing instructor whereby new and novice sailors can learn how the sails should be positioned for any wind direction.
The player can:
- Turn the boat and watch the speed of the boat change with different wind angles
- Increase or decrease the speed of the wind
- Trim the jib sail and the main sail and watch the boat speed change with trim
- Gybe the boat
- Tack the boat
- Learn the points of sail
- Watch the boat’s heel angle change with wind condition and angle
- Learn exactly how you should set the sail trim with the wind angle
The simulation is very realistic because the speed profile was extracted from a real speed polar plot diagram of a racer cruiser sailboat.
Grant Headifen, the Educational Director for NauticEd developed NED. “It was just time” he said “For too long now instructors have been forced to rely upon blackboards and crude models made of plywood, dowel rods, sting, eyehooks, handkerchiefs and a fan to explain points of sail and how to set the sails for a particular wind direction. Now, students can simply log on to the internet and play with the simulator to really get the feel of the wind and properly understand the dynamics. Instructors now can get the students out of the classroom and onto the water faster which is what every student wants. It’s a very exciting and useful free tool”.
Once NED has been mastered, NauticEd also provides Advanced NED, an interactive game whereby the student must sail a course and achieve the best time.
NED the Sailing Instructor
NauticEd decided to make the tools, NED and Advanced NED available for everyone for free. “It’s one way of showing off NauticEd’s dedication to bringing technology to the sailing education world. But, by making NED free we are also helping potential sailors get out of their arm chairs and onto the water. You can’t resist it, once you play with NED you’ll want to test it out on the water… and that benefits the entire sailing industry alike” Headifen added.
NauticEd even allows anyone to embed NED. Sailing schools and others who want potential customers to spend more time on their site can embed NED into their own website. NauticEd provides the html Embed code for free to anyone.
