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Race Committee & Race Management

Try out a course design system

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Michael Moradzadeh
Certifications:
  • Club Race Officer
Hi friends!
I have built, and recently advanced the design of, a tool for aiding in the design of race courses. It's highly visual, and it provides an analysis of your courses taking into account wind, currents, and the boats' polars extracted from ORR, ORC, or Expedition.

When the designs are complete, they can be exported to drop into your sailing instructions, and they can be shared with the world in an interactive display like this one.

On race day, the PRO can use the automatically downloaded weather to assess which courses have the desired wind angles and time on course for the fleet.

The system is described at https://regattalog.com.  I'm looking for a few folks to try it out and comment (we will be using it here for Rolex Big Boats again, so it is ready to use). I'm particularly interested in your take on usability and features included.

Message me or send me an email at admin@regattalog.com if you are interested, and we can set you up with an account.  

Thanks!

Michael
Created: Today 00:53

Comments

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Beau Vrolyk
Forum Moderator
Nationality: United States
Michael -- This is a very interesting approach to support the Race Committee. Thank you for putting it forward! -- Beau
Created: Today 00:55
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John Quirk
Nationality: New Zealand
Certifications:
  • National Judge
  • Judge In Training
Looks nifty thanks Michael - will pass along to the Bodies here in the Philippines
Created: Today 02:13
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Angelo Guarino
Forum Moderator
Nationality: United States
Certifications:
  • Regional Judge
Thanks for sharing Michael. 

There is a cool (though still quite glitchy) little app that gives some of this info from the sailor's side called Beer Can Racing.  

I use it to give me my wind angles before the start in point-to-point races .. which helps me prepare the crew for points-of-sail, douse/hoist sides, etc. 

The reason I point you to this is that what's good for the goose is good for the gander.   Maybe a sailor-view of a subset would be nice showing their boat's info to help boats prepare and plan their race. 

Ang
Created: Today 11:35
Michael Moradzadeh
Certifications:
  • Club Race Officer
Hi Ang.  That's a really good point.  I do provide a breakdown of the wind angles, but I think this can be done in a more sailor-friendly way!
Created: Today 13:00
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Angelo Guarino
Forum Moderator
Nationality: United States
Certifications:
  • Regional Judge
For instance .. this is how a typical southerly on a Wed Night might look (with a borderline Code 0 vs full-spin dilemma on the 2nd leg).   A more concise and screen area condensed view layout would be nice.   

The app lets you choose the TWD interactively. 

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image.png 315 KB
Created: Today 13:18
Michael Moradzadeh
Certifications:
  • Club Race Officer
Okay, I see what they did.  I have a pretty similar output from a data standpoint.  One advantage is it's customized to the boat and uses live (if available) weather extended out in time. It would not be too tough to reformat this data.

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Created: Today 14:04
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Angelo Guarino
Forum Moderator
Nationality: United States
Certifications:
  • Regional Judge

Michael, yea ... thats a great format for longer range planing .. but having a very simple table with the following is key 


Set TWD (mag)
Leg#  Mrk1 Mrk2 Bearing TWA(p/s)  Dist

That could easily fit width wise on a phone. 

When setting the marks, if they are govt marks hyperlinking to details regards bells/flash height etc .. avail as a pop-up will keep the list clean. 

Created: Today 15:31
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Beau Vrolyk
Forum Moderator
Nationality: United States
Michael and Angelo -- As a part-time navigator aboard various boats, I find this work astonishingly useful. I use a tablet, so screen size isn't as important for me, but being phone-friendly is certainly helpful for a lot of folks.

This may address a need that isn't obvious. E.g., aboard the 70' long MERLIN, the hike from the back of the boat to where the foredeck gang lives is long and disruptive. Last year, the foredeck boss and I agreed on moving the discussion of what sail to use on the next leg to text to avoid a lot of shouting, etc. This could obviate the need to a greater extent. A quiet boat is a FASTER boat, which you know.

Also, crucially important when racing a boat as fast as MERLIN is the time on the leg. For example, is it really worth it to do a peel if you're only going to have the big chute up for 2.5 minutes? The more obvious this is to everyone, the better. Please keep going!!
Created: Today 15:22
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