I just wanted to add a few points on RaceQs as well as some advice for which devices are suitable as a dedicated sailing device and the cheapest way to do it.
As a dedicated sail racing app the features that stand out for me are:
- See Speed over ground and velocity made good to the next mark, so you can see if you were on the right tack
See the laylines overlaid on the course (which alters in response to the average tacking angles)
The playback understands what a tack and gybe are so shows an icon you can click to see your seconds to tack or gybe and time to recover your speed
Shows meters ahead/behind even on opposite tacks
Depending on your device and correct mounting in a stable flat position it can show angle of heel
Again depending on your device it can relay the data back to a website which shows the race in progress (unfortunately currently with a 5 minute delay).
The playback can overlay estimated wind shadows and lee-bow zones.
Adjust the tide and wind speed and angle on each leg (never felt the need to use this myself)
Select any two boats and see detailed comparisons in real time (this is the best feature in my view and I use it all the time)
For sailors using realtime streaming (uses 0.5md of data per hour) its possible relay the racing back to shore.
Something which particularly appeals to me is that there is No organiser, No race committee, No Admin, oh and it's completely FREE to use. Just sailing in an area at the time of the race will be enough to bring you into the "race". Anyone can view their race and simply drop marks where they see boats turning. These marks will then be seen by others sailing at the same time and can also be moved by anyone. Adding a start and finish line which anyone can do is enough to open up the analytics page and leader board.
So why would you want to use it? You know those sailors in the bar who patiently listen while you try and explain a complex situation who are then expected to make a few encouraging comments or advise what you might do differently next time? For me its the ultimate patient sailing companion, it has perfect(ish) recall of all the race details at any point in time and can replay these without you needing to buy it pints of beer or having to listen to it's own tales of woe
. There really is a lot to be gained from re-living the successes and learning from the failures. I have found concentrating on a few pivotal moves rather then watching the whole race is best and for this reason I tend to use it at home on a laptop or PC where the playback is more detailed than when trying to replay the race on the rather limited phone app.
Advice on the device to use
The RaceQs app runs on iphones (iOS) or Android phones only. Just download the app from the app store or android play store, put your phone in a waterproof bag and you are ready to go.
I'm not averse to using my shiny iphone, in a case of course, and mounted in the cocktail cabinet on the underside of the deck. Even if the cabinet filled with water the waterproof case should still save the day. But there is some attraction in having a dedicated device if it can be done cheaply.
I did some experiments using cheap phones and comparing with more expensive phones....
Available from Argos were:
Vodafone First 7 (3.5" screen model)(£19.99)
and
Alcatel Pixi 4 (4" screen model) (£29.99)
Both said there was a mandatory £10 pay as you go top-up required however the SIM card was in the box and it was optional whether I linked this to the phone network both phones ran the RaceQs app without the SIM card in.
What I discovered is that the cheaper Vodafone First (19.99) had trouble establishing a GPS lock. This improved when I activated the SIM because the phone uses Assisted-GPS which uses the phone towers to initially triangulate your position. However even with the SIM card activated this phone let me down twice and I would really only trust it if I spent time before racing to ensure I had a GPS lock and started the trackin manually rather than on the timer.
To compare accuracy of the cheap phones against an iphone 6 I did a test with three phones recording while driving around town, the £19 Vodafone First 7 still had trouble getting an initial GPS position fix. On the recorded tracks it was overshooting at bends by 15m or more. I found the reason for this and it translates into a strong recommendation that you use a phone which can receive GPS
and has Accelerometer sensors which are missing from this phone.
The GPS position is taken every two seconds with between 3m-5m accuracy. During the intervening 2 seconds the accelerometer records movement in much more detail (10 times per second) and is able to significantly improve the accuracy of the GPS position between readings. The other reasons you may want a phone with accelerometer sensors is that provided your phone is mounted flat and steady it will record your angle of heel. The raceQs app also calculates a rating which it says indicates how well the boat has been maintained "in the groove". I suspect the accelerometer sensor increases the accuracy of this but I'm not 100% sure.
I had none of these issues with another cheap phone (also from Argos) the Alcatel Pixi 4 which was just £10 more at £29.99 so I would recommend this phone rather than the cheaper Vodafone first.
So you have a choice between using your current smartphone, buying a cheap Pay as you go phone or maybe you have an old spare smartphone. If you just want to check what features your phone allows then head over to
http://www.gsmarena.com and type the phone model into the search box to see and compare specs for any phone, look for "GSM" and "Accelerometer".
I also tested out the realtime race position streaming which of course requires a sim card with data allowance. The benefit of streaming is that it allows land based spectators to see your position in the race (with a 5 minute delay). If you currently shy away from using data due to the usual recurring £20-£30 a monthly costs there is some good news. The app claims, backed by my real like test, are that it only uses 0.5mb of data per hour during live streaming, this is tiny and so if you restrict the use of the phone just to your sailing activities a small amount of data will last a very long time. On the Three network, at 1p per mb, a £5 topup should last for at least a year. I had ordered one of these Three sim cards which are free from three online but as neither of these phones were on the Three network I decided to unlock them. One was locked to Vodafone and the other Virgin, I got an unlock code from ebay for 99p which worked fine.
Incidentally, Three mobile seem to have the best data prices and will send a free sim card and any "top-up" you buy will, as far as I can see, last forever or for about 500 hours sailing whichever comes first as long as you make a text, call or use some data at least every 6 month; watch out if you don't sail over the winter season and forget to use the phone it could wipe you credit. Also be careful when you top up, you will be offered "add ons" which include larger amounts of data for the same money but these only last for 30 days; its just the regular top up you want, a small amount of data with the longest possible time to use it. In my research, Three mobile was the best mainstream network provider for a dedicated RaceQ phone. Other network providers tend to charge anything from 5p per mb to 25p a day which is still very cheap as long as you don't use data for anything except running RaceQs. If you want to use this feature you'll obviously need to ensure that the phone signal reaches into your sailing area before deciding which providers sim to use; the phone signal does tend to extend several miles off the coast.
Some miscellaneous points:
RaceQs is an analysis and discussion tool there is no way it could be used to decide who won a race or be part of a protest meeting.
Although its not necessary to have an active sim card in the phone this will improve the speed of locking onto the GPS position which can take up to a few minutes to establish otherwise.
I try not to get caught up in fiddling with the phone at the same time as getting my boat ready so I preset the start time before I leave home, and place in the cocktail cabinet well in advance.
Set the start time to a few minutes before the race so you get the pre-race jostle on the line. It doesn't matter if the race is delayed the start time can be set by you or any one of the sailors when someone logs on. If you are the first to logon and no one has yet dropped the marks don't be afraid to put them in yourself, they are easy for anyone else to move if they want.
The default setting is that the tracker will switch off if you exceed 20knts on the basis that it thinks you are probably driving home having forgotten to switch off the tracking; I have changed my setup to allow up to 30knts before switching off (optimistic eh?)
I suggest that if you decide to use the cocktail cabinet there is a small benefit if we standardise on using the
starboard hull to house the phone. If you have the accelerometer make sure the phone can make use of these by mounting level and forward pointing.
As Paul said, one can use any external GPS tracker which can export a GPX track, I don't believe these generally have accelerometers so precision between the GPS fix intervals may not be as good and of course you won't monitor the heeling angle. You also wont have the option of realtime uploads.
As I mentioned anyone can setup the marks by just looking at the trails of everyone there is no admin logon. Until there are some marks and a start finish line its not possible to view the timings of tacks.
There is currently a small bug where if your course consists of laps round the cans (which ours always do) the first time you pass though the start finish line some of the analytics count this as the race being completed. For this reason I currently draw a start line and place a finish line where sailors will pass thru it on the way back to shore but that no one crosses during the race. I have reported this and hopefully it will be fixed.
You can even request a "regatta page" for your club, I have done one for TBYC Autumn series. Once setup, you can link to the regatta page from the club website as an easy way to link to the live racing or the replays. I can confirm this process was easy, just type in all the racing dates and scheduled start times. There are no charges or follow up sales involved. Apparently they make money from advertising so intend keeping the whole thing free.
The raceQs.com website has many videos and tutorials for anyone interested in looking into this further. Covering installing the app, setting up the course, using the analytic features, setting up a club regatta page.
With the Nationals at Thorpe Bay next year and nearly all sailors here already using this I hope there will be a large fleet of RaceQs users by them. I'm happy to answer any questions I can.
Daren Fitchew
Sprint1642
that can do this optimisation for you. Have a look on Google Play store search for Battery Saver. Although it maybe just a case of showing active apps and pressing the close all button. If however, it is just a well used battery then Samsung users are lucky that you can get new batteries off Amazon and if you have two they are easily interchangeable.
As you may know time always needs adjustment (due to the earth slowing down) and the GPS satellites can't just be directly adjusted. So Leap Seconds are added which brings the time to the corrected UTC, this currently is 18 seconds. A regular message is sent from the satellites saying what the adjustment is (every 12.5 minutes). This is all done in the GPS chip so completely invisible and the time you see is UTC. My old phone (Samsung Y) currently isn't making this adjustment and I am searching for ways to fix it (I have some more Samsung Y's so will see if it is a standard unit problem). This makes me look like I am through the start line 18 seconds early but unfortunately hasn't made me win any races. This is easily correctable by using a free GPS Track Editor software which allows time slipping of all recorded data, I therefore upload my Raceqs data as usual, then download from the website .gpx, time slip and then load it back up. If I was late to the line, I probably wouldn't bother