2026 Captain’s Edition
Rig Tune & Target Speed Log PDF
Instrument Calibration, Settings Matrix & Your Own Polar
- 23 Pages / 188 Register Lines A4 and US Letter included.
- 845 Live Fields Interactive and 100% offline.
- 6 Calculation Models P1 through P6.
- Instant Digital Access Download links the moment you pay.
Nobody sells a boat speed that has never been checked against a measured run. A great many people sail to one.
A log reading three per cent low makes every target you ever chase three per cent wrong, and you will spend a season blaming the sails. A masthead unit twisted four degrees will convince you the boat points better on one tack for as long as you own it. Both are two afternoons of work to fix, and almost nobody does them.
So this record puts calibration in Part II, before a single performance page. What comes after is a settings matrix in your own wind bands, twenty observation runs, and a polar grid that starts empty and fills up over a season.
What you receive
A seven-part record, calibration first
- A 24-line reference page for whatever your designer, class association or sailmaker specified — and a blank line where nothing was, which is itself a finding
- A 12-entry calibration register with a column for the value that was set before you changed it
- A settings matrix in ten wind bands you define yourself — backstay, cap and lower turns, jib lead, halyard, traveller, each row with a reference you quote in the log
- 20 observation runs recording true wind, boat speed, VMG, heel and the setting reference in force
- A 72-cell polar grid — twelve angles by six wind bands, filled with speeds you have actually achieved
- 6 calculation models, each with its own working table, plus a 16-line session debrief
There is no polar in this document
A designer's polar is a promise made about a bare hull in a towing tank — before your sails, your bottom, your crew weight and your ground tackle. It is a useful sanity check and a terrible target.
The grid in Part IV starts empty. By the end of a season it holds the only figures you actually have to beat: the ones you have already hit, on your boat, with your crew. Model P5 compares today against that, not against somebody's brochure.
Two models are geometry. Four are your own measurements.
P3 (true wind from apparent) and P4 (velocity made good) hold for any vessel afloat — they are trigonometry, not performance claims. Everything else in the record is a figure you measured on your own boat or transcribed from your own documentation. No target speed, no polar, no tuning setting and no crossover point is published anywhere in these 23 pages.
The model that settles arguments
P6 tests a setting change back to back in matched conditions, with the order swapped on the second pair so a wind shift cannot sell you a setting that was never faster. Most settings differences are smaller than the noise. This is how you find out which ones are not — and it will cost you some cherished beliefs.
On a boat with no tuning guide, this becomes the tuning guide
Outside one-design classes, most boats have no published tune at all. The matrix in Part III fills that gap with something better than a generic guide: ten bands you defined, and what your rig is actually set to in each, referenced from every run in the log.
Who it is for
- Racing crews who suspect their instruments and have never proved it either way
- Owners of boats with no class tuning guide, building one from scratch
- Anyone who has bought a fast sail and cannot tell whether it made a difference
- Cruisers who want honest passage planning numbers rather than optimistic ones
How it relates to the Standing Rigging Record
The Standing Rigging Record holds the mast up and tracks its tension and age. This one records what the rig is set to and what the boat does as a result. Together with the Sail Inventory they are the complete performance history of everything above deck — the half of a boat that no single afternoon's inspection can reconstruct.
Technical specification
| Product ID | AML-RIG-2026-03 |
| Extent | 23 pages · 7 parts · 6 calculation models |
| Register lines | 188 across reference, calibration, settings, observation, polar and debrief |
| Interactivity | 845 live PDF form fields — 24 tick boxes and 821 entry fields |
| Formats included | A4 and US Letter, both fillable and print-ready, 23 pages each |
| Boats | Any sailing vessel — one-design, handicap or cruising, no boat-specific data |
| Units | Unit-neutral — knots or metric, you set them and record which |
| Offline | No app, no account, no connection required once downloaded |
What it is not
This document records, structures and compares figures that you supply. It publishes no target speed, no polar, no tuning setting and no crossover point, and it reaches no conclusion about any boat.
Sailing to a performance target is a matter of judgement about the conditions, the sea state and the safety of your crew. No number in a document can make that judgement for the person on the helm.
Instant download. Your links appear on screen the moment payment clears, and arrive by email within a minute. They do not expire.
2026 Captain's Edition · Revision 1.0 · AML-RIG-2026-03. Apex Marine Labs designs the organisational process behind good seamanship. Our documents record and organise; they do not replace a certified marine survey, a naval architect, or a qualified sailmaker.