Sailing Tools

SailingTools A Garmin watch IQ app designed for sailing Four views: Stats - Shows elapsed distance, elapsed time, average speed, max speed, and battery percentage. Main - Shows time, current heading (both as number and as arrow on edge of screen), speed, position. Target(s) - Shows time, speed, and target (i.e., waypoint) information, including relative bearing (both as number and as arrow on edge of screen), bearing, and distance. Can show Estimated Time Enroute (ETE) instead of bearing (BTW), and Velocity Made Course (VMC) instead of speed (SOG). Relative bearing is red when to port and green when to starboard. Timer - Race timer Multiple targets can be loaded. Screens are rotated using the up/down arrow keys. Double-pressing (within 1 second) the run button on any screen sets a new target using your current position. Single-pressing the run button on the target view opens menu. Choices are to stop following that target, save the target, toggle ETE/BTW, and toggle SOG/VMC. Holding the up button opens the main menu. Choices are to load a saved target, load the default 5 minute timer, or load the custom timer. Pressing the back button opens the exit menu. Choices are to Save and Exit or Discard and Exit. All menus are designed with Back being the default option (in case you accidentally bump the buttons during an active race). Targets are saved to slots. Only 15 slots are available at this time due to Garmin limitations. Activity recording starts automatically when the unit gets a (marginal) location fix. Speed and heading can be smoothed. I recommend experimenting with different smoothing values and using this feature with care. Timer - pressing the run button will start it. Pressing the run button while counting down will round to closest minute. After the start, pressing the run button will stop the timer and display another timer counting up from 0 below the finish time. If you press the run button again, it will set a new the finish time and restart the smaller timer. Reloading the timer from the main menu will reset it. The default timer is 5 minutes. A custom timer can be set in the app settings. If the location stops being updated or becomes poor quality, the display will grey slightly and show a warning text in red. If the battery gets below 10% (configurable in settings), "LOW BATTERY" will be overlaid on every screen. If the battery gets below 3% (configurable in settings), the app will save and exit. Editing or manually inputting targets (waypoints) is done by editing the SailingTools app settings through the Garmin Connect IQ app on your phone. The format is "name;latitude;longitude" (without the quotes). Here is an example: "MKE North Gap;43.044235;-87.880455". You can use any of the formats: d.decmial, d m.decimal, or d m s. Do not use double spaces, since this will cause parsing the values to either fail or (worse!) be wrong. Settings: Speed units: Knots (kt) [default], miles per hour (mph), kilometers per hour (kph). Distance units: Nautical miles (nm) [default], miles (mi), kilometers (km). Preferred Lat/Long Format: d.decimal (degrees only with decimal), d m.decimal (degrees and minutes with decimal) [default], d m s (degrees minutes seconds). Preferred target ETE or BTW: Set bearing to waypoint (BTW) [default] or estimated time enroute (ETE) for the target view. Preferred target SOG or VMC: Set speed (SOG) [default] or velocity made course (VMC) for the target view. Smoothing Num: How many recent positions to use to smooth speed and bearing. Set to 0 [default] to disable smoothing. Battery Low Indicator: Batter percentage to display warning. Battery Low Shutdown: Battery percentage to save and close. Custom Timer Minutes: Default is 3. Please let me know if there are issues with the layout, or for requests to support a specific watch. Disclaimer: Do not use this app for primary navigational purposes! If you find this app useful, no payment... instead, invite me to come sailing with you!

v 1.3.3: Reverted v 1.3.2 workaround. It didn't fix the Venu 3 activity stat bug. I believe this is a Garmin firmware bug (I've submitted a bug report). To avoid the problem related to this, do not swipe away from the app to the watch face. v 1.3.2: Added workaround to fix problem of activity stats not updating after deactivating/reactivating app on watches that have that feature, like the Venu 3. v 1.3.1: Added support for new watches. v 1.3.0: Loads of updates in this release... (Please let me know if you have any issues / bugs, so I can fix them.) New stats page, with elapsed distance, elapsed time, average speed, max speed, and battery percentage. Target view can now optionally display Estimated Time Enroute instead of Bearing to Waypoint and Velocity Made Course instead of Speed Over Ground. Also, relative bearing now shows red when to port and green when to starboard. Heading and speed can now optionally be smoothed based on a configurable setting. This can help heading, bearing, ETE, VMC, SOG, and VMC be more stable. Speed units and distance units are now configurable (knots/mph/kph and nm/mi/km), as well as latitude / longitude display format (d.decimals/d m.decimals/d m s). Timer now includes secondary timer that starts when you stop the race timer. This is so you can time when your competitors finish after you. Battery low indictor displays on all screens based on a configurable threshold. App autosaves and exits when batter level falls below a different configurable threshold. Added support for new watches. v 1.2.6: Added support for new watches. v 1.2.5: Added support for new watches. v 1.2.4: Added support for additional watches, including 280, 360, 416, and 454 round watch faces. v 1.2.3: Added support for additional watches. v 1.2.2: Added support for additional watches, including 260x260 round face watches, such as the Fenix 6 Pro. Changed timer menu to just load the timer, not start it. Pressing the run button now starts it. If it's already started, pressing the run button rounds the timer to the nearest minute. Fixed an issue with data displayed in the main view and the target views (not including the arrow) being lagged by one screen update. v 1.2.1: Added support for additional watches, including 280x280 round face watches, such as the Fenix 6x Pro. v 1.2: Added support for additional watches, including 390x390 round face watches, such as the Venu. Other minor updates. v 1.1: Added ability to customize timer length in addition to the hard coded 5 minute timer. v 0.9: Added support for most 218x218 and 240x240 round face watches. Added ability to round timer to nearest minute. Increased target distance display precision to 2 decimals.