R&D — From test tubes to tell-tales: building an electronic burgee

 

R&D — From test tubes to tell-tales: building an electronic burgee

There’s a myth that R&D only happens in white coats, surrounded by fume cupboards and the faint smell of “who left the hotplate on?”. In our world, research and development is just as likely to happen in a buoyancy aid, crouched in the bottom of a dinghy, wondering whether that “slight breeze” is actually a wind shift or just your hat trying to make a break for it.

Because here’s the thing: sailing is basically applied physics with occasional splashing. And once you’ve spent a lifetime building experiments, teaching students to measure the unmeasurable, and persuading sensors to behave themselves, it’s only a matter of time before you look at a masthead burgee and think: Yes… but what if it had data?

The problem: the masthead knows… but the helm doesn’t

A traditional burgee and wind indicator are brilliant—simple, reliable, and they don’t need charging. The only snag is that the truly useful information is happening at the top of the mast, while the people making the decisions are down below doing impressions of a human washing line.

On rivers (hello Thames), wind can be wildly different even a few metres up. Trees, banks, moored boats, bridges—everything interferes. So the burgee might be telling the truth, but it’s telling it to the clouds.

The R&D idea: an electronic burgee you can actually see

So the concept is this:

• A combined weather vane + anemometer at the masthead

• Measurements relayed down the mast (wire or wireless)

• A screen at the foot of the mast showing:

  • Wind direction (relative to the boat’s heading)

  • Wind speed (and ideally gusts)

  • A “trend” indicator (strengthening / easing)

In other words: the masthead’s gossip comes down to deck level, where it can be acted on without a crew member performing an interpretive dance while staring upwards.

Why this matters (especially for learning and coaching)

This isn’t just gadget-lust (although I admit gadgets have a strong pull, like biscuits). An electronic burgee could genuinely help with:

• Training: showing new helms how wind direction relates to boat trim and course

• Tacking and gybing: timing manoeuvres when the wind is behaving oddly along the river

• Sail setup: helping the crew see what changes in downhaul, kicker/gnav, outhaul actually do

• Safety: spotting gusts building before they smack you like a wet duvet

It turns sailing into something you can observe, measure, and learn from, rather than “feel vaguely and argue about afterwards”.

Practical design thoughts (before we invent a new type of disappointment)

If we’re doing this properly, it needs to survive real sailing life, which includes: water, shocks, UV, vibration, and that special kind of accidental abuse known as “launching”.

Key R&D questions:

• Power: small battery? solar trickle? or run a thin cable down the mast?

• Data link: wired (reliable) vs wireless (neat but fussy around masts, water, and interference)

• Ruggedness: waterproofing, salt resistance (for coastal), and impact survival

• Display: sunlight readable, simple icons, big numbers, minimal menus

• Calibration: direction needs a reference (boat heading / mast alignment) so it doesn’t lie politely

The dream is something that’s useful in 3 seconds, not something that requires a PhD and a laptop on a spinnaker bag.

The bigger point: R&D is a mindset, not a department

This is why R&D leaks out of science and into sailing. Once you start asking “how could this be better?” you can’t switch it off. The lab and the boat are both environments where small improvements make a big difference—and where the real world happily punishes sloppy thinking.

So yes, we’re looking at building an electronic burgee. Not because we need more screens in our lives… but because if we can make wind behaviour clearer, training quicker, and sailing safer (and maybe reduce the amount of shouting during a tack), then it’s exactly the kind of R&D that’s worth doing.

And if it all goes wrong? Well… we can always fall back on the traditional system: lick a finger, hold it up, and pretend that was “data”.