Comparison

Sail Tactician vs Wind Coach

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Sail Tactician

This app transforms your Apple Watch and iPhone into advanced sailing instruments. It provides live data, records every sail, and offers post-sail analysis to help you improve your performance on the water.

Highlights
  • Live sailing instruments on watch and phone
  • Records every sail with track and speed
  • Post-sail analysis and replay
  • Race start countdown and mark pinning
  • Customizable boat profiles
  • Coached workouts for sailing maneuvers
Features
Read full description

Whether you race every weekend or sail for the joy of it, Sail Tactician turns your Apple Watch and iPhone into sailing instruments: live numbers on the water, every sail recorded, and a clear look afterwards at what went well and where to find speed. INSTRUMENTS ON YOUR WRIST AND YOUR PHONE Speed, heading, course and distance at a glance, sized to read on a moving boat. A live compass with your no-sail zone drawn from your own boat's angles. The app tracks the wind as you sail and tells you when you're lifted or headed. Build your own screens, full-width stacks or grids up to 8-up. Sail with the watch alone, the phone alone, or mount the phone and run it from the watch. EVERY SAIL RECORDED Press Start and the whole outing is saved: your track, speed, heading and heart rate, with heel and trim when the phone is mounted. Black Box shows nothing but the clock and still records in full. Every session is kept on every tier. SEE HOW IT WENT Every sail lands on a map, colored by speed. Replay it, see your speed over time, a polar diagram of how fast you sail at each angle, port vs starboard, upwind vs downwind, and every tack and gybe timed. The Coach shows what went well and where you lost time, one finding at a time. Trim or clip a session; the original is never touched. The watch shows the same analysis cards. FOR RACERS Start strong: ping the pin and committee boat for distance to line, time to line, time to burn and the favored end. The countdown speaks every minute from ten and every second from 30, with a long tone at the gun. On the course, VMG with a target heading and tack and gybe calls. Pin each mark with one press as you round it, on the watch, the Ultra's Action button or the phone, and the app works out the course after the race. Lock a screen to stay class-compliant. Share a race with the sailors you raced against and compare boat-on-boat on iPhone. FOR DAY SAILS AND CRUISES Choose Cruise and just press Start: no countdown, no line. See sunset, the forecast, and GPS and battery readiness before you leave, and your distance, top speed and season totals when you're back. TRAIN WITH A COACH Pick a workout and the coach calls it a word at a time (TACK, GOOD, HEAD UP), spoken from the watch or the phone, with a tap on the wrist. It counts your reps and scores each one against your own usual turn. Tap any drill to learn the maneuver. Eleven presets or your own. Training is marked beta. KNOW YOUR BOAT Over fifty classes built in, including ILCA 7 (Laser), Optimist, Melges 24, J/70, Etchells, MC Scow and Nacra 17, each with its own upwind and downwind angles, or define your own. Save your boats with sail number, hull length and rigging notes. Mounted, the phone reads live heel and trim. FREE TO SAIL, PRO TO GO DEEPER Free to download and sail with: countdown timer, cruise mode, Black Box, compass, live speed and heading, pinning marks, your first five recorded sessions and five imported races with full analysis, tacking drills, and import and export. Pro is one subscription, monthly or yearly, unlocking start-line tactics, VMG and wind shifts, every drill, race sharing and comparison, and your full history. FOLLOWS YOU EVERYWHERE Sessions sync privately between your devices over iCloud. Sign in with Apple is optional. Speeds in knots, MPH or km/h; distances in nautical miles, miles or kilometers. Export STX, GPX, CSV, KML or TCX. Import STX, and in beta FIT, GPX, CSV, TCX, Vakaros VKX and NMEA 0183. Capsize and knockdown detection requires the iPhone mounted to the boat. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

Wind Coach

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Wind Coach connects to your boat's wind instruments via WiFi, giving you real-time wind analytics that help you make smarter decisions on the racecourse. LIVE WIND DISPLAY Stream true and apparent wind data from your YachtDevice YDWG gateway or B&G MFD over WiFi/TCP. See real-time speed and direction graphs with smoothing, trend indicators, and wind shift alerts. RACE-GRADE ANALYTICS Wind Coach computes the same metrics used by professional sailing coaches: - Detrended CSD: measures how shifty conditions are - Phase Persistence: how long shifts last before reversing - Phase Duration L/R: time spent in left vs right phase - Shift Trend: degrees per hour of persistent veer or back - Oscillation Predictability: how periodic the shifts are - Dominant Period: the rhythm of wind oscillations in minutes B&G MFD FILE DOWNLOADS Browse and download wind data files from your B&G Zeus chartplotter over WiFi/FTP. M2X ANALYTICS INTEGRATION Sign in with your M2X Analytics account to automatically sync wind data. Works offline - data queues while you race and uploads when you're back on internet. NETWORK SCANNER Auto-discover NMEA instruments on your WiFi network. Finds YachtDevice gateways and B&G MFDs automatically. Built by sailors, for sailors. Wind Coach is part of the M2X Analytics platform.

Screenshots

Sail Tactician4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Wind Coach at none against Sail Tactician's 2. Sail Tactician's advantage is device support. On price, update cadence and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Sail Tactician sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Wind Coach asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Sail Tactician ships an update weekly, Wind Coach every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on October 30, 2026 and October 25, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 7 level
Sail Tactician versus Wind Coach: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSail TacticianWind Coach
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (1 ratings) — better—
Number of ratings1 — better—
Update frequencyWeeklyEvery 5 days — better
AdsNo—
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFreemium—
DevicesiPhone, Apple Watch — better—
Requires iOS17.617.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size32 MB3 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperGraham HutchinsonWilliam McBride

In-app purchases

2 purchases

Sail Tactician

Subscriptions2
  • Pro$4.991 Month
  • Sail Tactician Pro$29.991 Year
None

Wind Coach

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Sail Tactician free?
Sail Tactician is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Wind Coach free?
Wind Coach is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which is updated more often, Sail Tactician or Wind Coach?
Sail Tactician ships an update weekly, and Wind Coach every 5 days. Most recently, Sail Tactician was updated on October 30, 2026 and Wind Coach on October 25, 2026.

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