Quick Start: Race Start Guidance
- Garmin Marine
- Aug 6, 2025
- 2 min read
At the start of a sailing race, it can be crowded and stressful. There may be many other boats to keep track of to avoid collisions, and you need to position and time your boat in the best way possible to get a good start.
At the same time, you need to keep track of the countdown timer to cross the starting line at the right time and at the highest possible speed. This is where race start guidance can help.
Race start guidance keeps track of all the details and timers, enabling you to focus on sailing the boat and avoiding a collision.
HOW TO SET UP SAIL RACE GUIDANCE
First, ping the starting line.
To let the chartplotter know where the starting line is, you need to ping the two marks representing the starting line. The easiest way to do this is to sail up to each mark and then ping them, similar to dropping a waypoint on a GPS.
Set your target boat speed and target true wind angle when sailing upwind.
If a polar data table has been installed on the chartplotter, this data will be used instead as it’s more accurate.
Start the race timer that counts down the time to the start.
HOW TO READ SAIL RACE GUIDANCE GRAPHICS
The starting line is presented as a white line connecting the two marks you pinged during setup.
The red and green dotted lines are how far away you should be when there is a minute left to the start.
The heading line coming off the bow of the boat on your chartplotter indicates where you will cross the starting line when sailing at your target boat speed and target wind angle.
The heading line turns red when you will cross the line too early (in the example shown, it will do that 3 seconds too early as indicated by the “time to burn” data point).
The heading line turns white if you are too late or if you are perfectly timed for the start.
START LINE BIAS
“Start line bias” is an indication of where your boat should be at the start line before the race begins. This feature complements the existing start line guidance features by helping the skipper decide which end of the start line could give them an advantage. The biased end is indicated on screen by a “Flag Graphic” and has an angle and distance data field in the start line guidance function. The larger the bias values, the more biased the end of the start line is.
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