OK so all good sailors have a wind hawk. I didn't even have a burgee so I asked Santa to help out. Now I'm the owner of a nice shiny new wind hawk... anyone care to tell me what I do with it (apart from stick it on the end of the mast!)

What does it mean?

I've googled and found very little - I have a suspicion the whole sailing community does the same as me: asks Santa for one, the elves go away and beaver away (laughing to themselves no doubt) and bingo... we all have one and no-one knows how to use it!! Please prove me wrong!

I mainly use a burgee - though the effect is similar to a Hawk. I also fix short lengths of cassette tape to the shrouds for the same purpose. On light wind days they can often give different stories with the sails telling yet another.

Not sure what type of Hawk you have but I will assume that it is the one with an elastic strap that fits on the front of the mast.
First tip - drink two bottles of wine in order to supply yourself with 2 corks. The above type of hawk is just waiting to be knocked off and they dont float. But it will if you use a skewer or knitting needle to poke a hole through the corks (length wise) and thread on them onto the stem of the hawk. Then fit Hawk to boat.

Hawk and or burgee I find useful to see where the wind is coming from and how it is varying particularly before the start of a race and later when I have just rounded a mark looking ahead to the next leg.

I assume you have tell tales on the jib. I tend to use these more than a Hawk on the first beat though the Hawk is useful to check whether the boat seems to be performing better on one tack or the other (should be the same relative angle to the centre line of the boat).
Possibly most useful on light/ medium wind days to try and find where the find is actually coming from - though if it really light & shifty it might end up going round and round which is not very helpful.
Hawk realy useful on a reach as a reference point to set the sails (particularly the main)if you are not sure.

Thanks Graeme,

Just as a side note its a mast top hawk not a yey level one - the genoa will not work with an eye level one...

OK so yes I have tell tales on the genny, and follow the principles in the heron info sheet (they should fly parallel on either side of sail).

So when I'm stationary the flag / hawk points in the direction of the wind. When I'm moving it points in the direction of 'apparent wind' - what I don't actually know is what that has to do with anything! There's going to be something absolutely basic that I'm missing here.... The one website I found that talked about apparent wind and what it meant for sailing must have been talking transatlantic because it needed computer software to do calculations... wasn't planning on taking the computer out with me!

Like the cassette tape idea! I used chandler sold tapes before but they get shredded to pieces when the wind kicks up in the dinghy park.

I use all 3 indicators - hawk, tell tales on jib and on shrouds to guage sail set.
Burgee/ hawk particularly useful on those days when the tell tails stick to the sail.
Hawk also useful pre start to look at wind and try and see if there are regular shifts whilst I,m sitting around trying to work out where I might be best placed on the start line.

Graham