Data Mining + Sailing = Awesome

Jean-Pierre Djicks posted an article yesterday on Big Data: Achieve the Impossible in Real-Time. I actually had a sneak peek at it a couple of weeks ago at the BI Forum...one of the reasons I voted his session as my favorite.

He started out with this slide, as he does in his blog post:



He then went on to talk about how the BMW ORACLE racing team used these metrics to increase performance.

Those gains were incremental and data driven, and they accumulated over years—until the USA could sail at three times the wind speed

source

Another great line from that article:

'The crew of the USA was the best group of sailors in the world, but they were used to working with sails,' says Burns, 'Then we put them under a wing. Our chief designer, Mike Drummond, told them an airline pilot doesn’t look out the window when he’s flying the plane; he looks at his instruments, and you guys have to do the same thing.'

In other words, use the Force Luke. Or not. Whatever.

Take a look at both articles when you get a chance, well worth your time.