Thorpe Bay Yacht Club

Tel: 01702 587 563

We want to be like the professional sailing races that we see on Television with the animated analytics and graphics. Well it is now very simple to have that information and be shown with the rest of the fleet.

Thanks to Daren Fitchew the Sprints have already been using it and you can review races on the Race Tracking link on the left sidebar. Sunday 2nd had everybody racing with a tracker app. Have a look, full tutorials are on the RaceQs Website

The process is reasonably automated all you require is a smartphone (and many people now have old ones) with the RaceQS app installed which is then uploaded once you have completed. Once you review your race, you will see every other boat that was around. Using your main phone isn’t a problem, you just have to make sure it is in a waterproof (or two) containers (we have been buying cases in bulk for £2). In future we could have live tracking by people putting a data sim card in the phones, Daren has already identified how this can be done cheaply.

Come and join us or plan to use it next year, we will send you a reminder. Click on the Raceqs Logos to go to the official site. Press continue reading for greater detail  on how to use it.

So if you have any queries or problems talk to Daren Fitchew or myself first as we may have already come across it.

To get it working for you

• Go to RaceQs Website and signup as a user.
• Once signed up you can make people favourites so you can see what they are doing.
• Enter a Boat Name into the boats section, this allows you to say more about the boat and pick what it looks like. If you don’t do this it will be added from the tracking app but with less information.
• Go to the App Store (Google Play or iStore) and install the RaceQs App.
• Prior to going sailing enter the App, enter the Boat Name and put your account details in from above.
• Just before going sailing press the Start Tracking screen button in the app, it will show tracking, then seal the phone up in your waterproof boat location.
• Go racing.
• When you come back press the Stop Tracking button again which will stop the tracking and give you the option to save and upload. Although it may not upload until you get it connected to the club or your home wifi.
• Open and log into the website as your user and you will be able to see your track and everybody else that was in the area.
• You can also use GPS trackers that produce a .GPX file and uploads them after from the website once signed in.
• If you phone has the right sensors, you turn on the option in RaceQS and the phone is fixed level in your boat, it can also show how much the boats was heel, pitch and yaw.

Daren has setup our club with a Regatta page. Prior to the event it shows you how long you have to wait to actually go racing. After the race Daren marks the start line, race marks and enters start times. Generally those that go through the line following a start time will be attributed to that fleet, although a boat can be reclassified after. Please also note Daren puts a weird finish line near the beach, this is because the software assumes a different finish from the start and once it is crossed the analytics turn off, as we don’t want this to happen on the first lap the analytics won’t turn off until you head off to the beach or the Sandhopper moorings.

RaceQs works great for fleets, so we would encourage the Sandhoppers to use it, as it shows who is ahead, however it won’t show how somebody is placed in Handicap. Handicap can be entered in the boat information and it may adjust for that, the problem being getting everybody to do it correctly.

What can you see when click on the Race Link from our Regatta page.

• One the bottom left of the main display there are several buttons to see the fleet from different Camera Angles. I suggest you initially start with Auto as this displays a mix of views, however it does do the initial zoom to the race area (which can be a little slow otherwise). Other views are Course View and Fleet view which are overhead and an aeroplane angle, Match view, Front/Helm View and Follow view which concentrate more in up to two select boats (Selection is from the Vs area I will outline).
• To the left there is a > arrow which initially pulls a list out of the fleet (show fleet rankings). From here you can exclude boats from the display but it also shows the distance between boats. The distance between boats is not perfect and going downwind sometimes is in reverse.
• At the bottom of the Fleet Rankings pullout Tab there are several other buttons. The first is to move Marks if they are incorrect, the other has an icon of 2 boats and vs. If you select this vs option, show Dashboard Controls you can then select one or two specific boats to produce analytics. They will also be highlight Red and Green on the main display. Extra buttons at the bottom allow you to turn on Boat Track lines, a line showing distance between the two boats, Wind Indicators, Groove Analysis, Tack and Gybe points and an SOG/VMG information.
• Wind Indicator are on by default and automatically adjust.
• Tack and Gybe points can be clicked on to display statistics about the change of direction. This is sometime easier to do by pausing the replay first.
• The SOG/VMG display also shows a blue line and 90 degree triangle to show the wind and no go zone.

The time line on the main display also tries to indicate Tacks, Gybes and Race Marks.

This is all done with very little effort

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