For the better part of the hour before our start in the Chicago Mackinac race, we maneuvered around the starting area with a 200-pound weight at the top of the mast.

That weight was a young bow man who was dispatched aloft in an attempt to get the wind instruments working. His efforts were in vain. 

The electronic wind direction and velocity sensors and the computer calculations derived from them to display true and apparent wind angles had performed like the digital wonders they were since launch day. That they chose minutes before the start of the biggest race of the season to crash was cruel irony.

Or maybe bad karma. In trying to figure out what might have brought it on, the best I could come up with was that more than once in this column I have crowned the Windex, that simple wind arrow found at the masthead of almost every sailboat in the watery world (nearly two million sold since it first appeared 60 years ago), as the best sailing instrument invented since the compass. 

In retrospect, there may have been a touch of hyperbole in that bold pronouncement. But in any case, I was going to have to prove it true or eat my words. The Windex was the only wind instrument we would have for the next 300-plus miles of sailing.

How did that work out? 

I can report that the Windex did everything it is supposed to do—it pointed at the apparent wind. Actually, that’s all it can do. (I said it was simple.)

This was helpful, but a piece of information essential for downwind steering was lacking—the true wind angle.  

Extrapolating the true wind angle (TWA) from the apparent wind angle (AWA) was an exercise that, besides inducing stiff necks caused by keeping heads tilted to read the wind vane 65 feet above the deck, brought back embarrassing memories of my high school algebra class. I should have spent more time trying to figure out the equations chalked on the blackboard than drawing pictures of sailboats in my notebook. 

Because true wind speed and boat speed have to be factored in, an equation to calculate the true wind angle might look something like this: AWA+TWS+BS=TWA. 

That’s a fake mathematical equation, of course, but it does contain all of the items needed for a solution. The Windex gave us the AWA and we knew the BS because the boat speed instrument still worked. For the TWS, I decided to consult an expert who invented a method of finding true wind speed more than 200 years ago, Francis Beaufort. 

I didn’t mention this to the crew. It would not have inspired confidence to be told the skipper was making critical race decisions based on a concept concocted in the 19th century. And if I had mentioned the Beaufort Scale, some of the younger crew members might have thought I was talking about a bathroom appliance.

The Beaufort Wind Scale determines wind velocity based on the appearance of sea conditions. So while others gazed at the Windex, I studied the water in search of clues to wind speed according to Beaufort.

For much of the race, I thought I observed what Beaufort described as “small waves becoming longer with fairly frequent white horses.” That meant we were sailing in Beaufort’s Force 4,  a “moderate breeze.” 

That force translates to 11-16 knots, a pretty wide range for precise wind angle calculations. So I tried various ways to refine it, mostly counting white horses. When I saw a herd of them, I figured we had jumped into Force 5 territory, Beaufort’s “fresh breeze” identified by “many white horses.”

For obvious reasons, the Beaufort Scale doesn’t work well at night when the white horses are hard to see, so it wasn’t any help when passing squalls blasted us with the strongest wind of the race. Not that any help was required. We didn’t need Beaufort or even perfectly functioning wind instruments to tell us to get the damn spinnaker down (now!), reef the main and set the J4. If I had to guess at the Beaufort wind speed during the squalls, I’d say it was at the “severe gale” level, 41-47 knots.

We didn’t, as the sports cliche goes, get to the podium in this race. I’m not saying that was because the wind instruments didn’t work, but I’m keeping that excuse handy in case anyone presses me on our also-ran finish.

As for lessons learned, one is (apologies to old salts) that the Beaufort Wind Scale is a historical curiosity that isn’t much help today, except for adding color to heavy weather sailing yarns. (Those fearsome Mac race squalls had to be at least Force 9!)

Another is that seat-of-the-pants sailing is overrated. Face it, mates, we need computers for almost everything we do, and that surely includes sailing, at least a far as mortal sailors are concerned.

That group does not include the late, great Buddy Melges, who said the best source of feedback for boat performance was a boat’s observed heel angle as compared to the horizon. If Buddy said it, you had to believe it.

Not so with Dennis Conner. I didn’t take his claim to seat-of-the-pants ability seriously when he told members of the press during his America’s Cup heyday that he kept his hair cut short in back so he could detect wind strength and direction by the feeling of the air on his neck. No kidding, I heard him say it with a straight face.

Concerning the Windex, I still say it’s the best, but I have to add a modifier—it’s the best wind instrument dollar for dollar. You can buy one for 35 bucks, a fraction of 1% of the cost of an electronic wind instrument set-up that isn’t as reliable as the
humble Windex.