Interview with Pro Sailor and Navigator Geoffrey Ewenson
Geoffrey Ewenson is an American navigator, tactician and pro sailor. He has been successful in multiple different classes ranging from Viper 640’s, C&C 30 One Design’s, Tp52’s, Ker 40’s and many more. We asked him a few questions about his experience with SAILMON.
-How long have you been using SAILMON products for? Or how long has the equipment been installed?
I have been using SAILMON for about 3 years now.
-Has using SAILMON improved your sailing experience? If so how?
I have always had a good time sailing no matter what, but the whole system seems to work very well for what we are doing. We own 2 boats and we put SAILMON on board the first one from the beginning. I was very impressed straight away with the simplicity of the system. It gives all the information that I have been used to with other systems, but in a little bit of a more streamlined way and the simplicity of the user interface has been great.
-In your eyes, how do our processors and displays compare to others available in the market?
I have not found any drawbacks of using the processor. I think that the processor in conjunction with the displays and the user interface makes it better than other products that I have used on the user market.
I am not a pro navigator, although I do pro sailing and I do navigate, but it is not the only thing that I do, but there is no issue for what I as a tactician want to get out of the system. And again, I come back to the user interface. This and the ease of calibration really allow us to do more calibrating than I have done on almost any other programme that I have worked with.
Years ago I worked at a company that did marine electronics here in Annapolis, owned by Evan Evans. He was very well respected throughout the world in the racing community and at the time he would get flown all over the world to do installs for B&G and Ockam products. I took that job on, so I could learn to calibrate B&G and Ockam instruments, which made me more marketable in the big boat sailing scene. So I know how to calibrate B&G’s. The user interface isn’t hard, now that I know how to do it, but it is a process that most big boat sailors are hesitant to use.
With SAILMON however, I can literally hand the box to anybody I have shown the SAILMON interface to and they do not even think twice about running a calibration for us while we are sailing. For example, I just did the Fast 40 Americans. We spent one day on calibrating the wind in a B&G system, but the wind solution wasn’t perfect for the event. It was sort of close enough that I was happy to work with it. On a SAILMON system we do it every single day we go out, because it is so easy. It only takes 10 minutes of pre race sailing time to get it within around in my eyes 99%.
We all know that the more calibrating you do, the better the instruments get over time. If the user interface is as good as SAILMON’s, you might do more calibrating during the regular course of your sailing.
-Would you recommend SAILMON to others?
Yes I do, through use I have become a fan and I would definitely recommend it.