Understanding Laylines with Garmin’s SailAssist

Garmin's SailAssist™ technology introduces laylines—visual guides overlaid on navigation charts—to help sailors optimize upwind or downwind tactics, whether racing or cruising.

WHAT ARE LAYLINES?

Laylines are graphical lines overlaid on the chart that indicate a sailor’s tacking or jibing angles. A green line always goes out to the port side, and a red line goes to the starboard side.

Laylines will help chart a path to a destination with fewer tacks or jibes. This is helpful because tacking or jibing causes the boat to lose speed. Laylines also help you avoid obstacles that show up on the chart and help you anticipate direction changes. Laylines are referenced as a way to enable safer sailing.

USING LAYLINES TO NAVIGATE

To use laylines to reach your destination upwind — called “reaching a mark” — you would set a route or navigate to your destination, and the laylines will tell you when you need to tack to reach it. The laylines also automatically adjust as you sail since they are locked on your destination when you set your navigation. Using laylines while sailing upwind helps avoid additional tacks.

Laylines are also useful to determine when to tack or jibe to steer clear of obstacles. In the example shown in the following screen, when you tack, you would be sailing on the red line. You’d want to keep your heading along the green line until the red line is clear of the red mark on the chart, and then you can tack and know you should be clear of the obstruction.

Source: www.garmin.com