Mastering Data To Win

The modern racing yacht is awash with onboard instruments and electronics giving enormous amounts of data. But few people fully understand how to get the most out of all the information at their fingertips, let alone make it useful for the team to enable them to win races. 

But ace navigators, Mark Chisnell and Gilberto Pastorella, do – both have worked with professional sailing programmes all over the world – from America’s Cup to Maxi, ORC / IRC and one-design fleets. 

In Mastering Data to Win they take the reader through the process: from understanding the concepts, ensuring accuracy, using the data to win races and then post-race analysis to find performance gains. 

By mastering your instruments you can make the right calls every time and know for certain when to tack, which shift to look out for and how the tide can work with or against you. With colour diagrams and photographs throughout, this instructional guide turns information into excellence.  

Accessible to those new to racing, it also has a depth of information that will transform the performance of even professional sailors.  

“Mastering data will improve your team’s performance, particularly your starts, and lies at the heart of your strategy and tactics. As a racing professional and tactician I have become increasingly dependent on that data and those who help to manage it … This book is fundamental reading not only for any aspiring navigator but, I would suggest, for all members of the crew … Good navigators need to be very well prepared, well organised and good under pressure – I would suggest that reading this book is a pretty good place to start that preparation!” - Ian Walker, double Olympic silver medallist & Volvo Ocean Race winner

Gilberto Pastorella is an applied mathematician, business and data consultant for multinational companies as well as being a professional sailor and navigator. He sails in the Swan 50 and ORC circuits and is a data analyst for a TP52 team.