Name: Sailing Watch Pro - tactics, waypoints & forecasts
Rating: 5 (10 reviews)
Author: NickMaude

This app turns your Garmin watch into a sailboat racing instrument — building thousands of dollars of sailing instruments into the watch you already own.

View live and forcasted wind/temperature data inside the watch app, then ping both ends of the start line, view the favored end, watch your live distance-to-line with an OVER EARLY (OCS) warning, and run a countdown you can sync down to the race committee's signals. At the gun, the watch jumps to an racing page that calls your lifts and headers, displays current VMG, shows your tack and estimated wind direction, and — once you pick a windward mark — tells you when you've hit the layline. View the entire race (GPS path, start line, marks) in the app, along with race statistics.  

FEATURES
- Start line ping: mark the committee-boat (RC) and pin ends as you sail past them. Endpoints are remembered between sessions.
- Distance-to-line: live perpendicular distance with an OVER EARLY (OCS) warning once your pre-start side is known. A speed-adaptive filter smooths GPS jitter without lagging on the approach.
- Race countdown: start a configurable sequence (default 5:00), sync down to the whole minute, or add a minute. Vibration + tone cues at 1:00, 0:30, 0:20, 0:10, 5-4-3-2-1 and the gun.
- Upwind shift tracker: GPS-only LIFT / HEADER / EVEN calls with your tack, heading and estimated wind, plus a TACK cue on a sustained header. Suspends automatically off the wind and resumes on the next beat.
- Laylines: choose a windward mark and get port/starboard laylines with LAYLINE / TACK and OVERSTOOD alerts, using your measured tacking angle.
- Waypoints: save up to 50+ marks by sailing to them, or enter them by coordinates in the app settings. Navigate to any of them with live distance, bearing and a north-up arrow.
- Weather: current conditions and an hourly forecast from your watch's built-in weather data.
- Speed: big current speed in knots plus max speed for the race.
- GPS route viewing: records a Sailing activity so your track and statistics and appear in the app and in Garmin Connect after racing.

ON-SCREEN CONTROLS

Short labels are drawn around the bezel next to each physical button, so you don't have to memorize the mapping mid-race.

SETTINGS (in the Garmin Connect app)

- Start-sequence length in minutes (1-30).
- Up to 50 preset waypoints entered by latitude / longitude.
- toggle live race tracking and in-app recordings 
- Toggle layline display for live tracking
- upwind/downwing angle max (deg) 
      - the maximum degrees for the app to consider sailing upwind and downwind (default is 70 and 120), only to dispay VMG instead of SOG on the racing page when sailing upwind or downwind.
 

NOTE: The wind reading is an estimate for shift and layline guidance (seeded by real-time weather data from the closest weather station), refined from your tacks — not a calibrated wind instrument. This app is a training and racing aid, not a certified navigation or safety instrument. Always follow Racing Rules of Sailing, and your class rules while racing with this app.