Electronics
What if I tell you that the future is now?
by Cesar Travado
Here another perspective regarding the use of electronic devices, by Cesar Travado, excellent Snipe sailor, former European Champions (2006 in Pori, Finland). Now Cesar lives in the US and he is still sailing and following the Snipe Class, helping SCIRA Spain. You can agree or not, but his opinions are always very interesting and never obvious.
Previous articles on this subject:
During the last few years, the technology has improved massively, devices are smaller and smaller every year and accuracy is getting closer to 1cm in GPS positions.
The discussion about electronic equipment permitted on board has became more and more present in every race or rules panel meeting.
There are a few brands on the market but, apparently, Vakaros is taking the market with an outstanding job of promotion, marketing and services provided.
This device is extremely light and offers a lot of features very useful for sailors such as boat speed, angles, distance to the line, countdown, OCS warning, etc…
A friend of mine once told me: Do not rule what you can not control but control what you can.
Sailors are taking advantage of the size of some devices and they are wearing them without others noticing, what makes that illegal according to the Class Rules and subject to further action from the Protest Committee but the only way to avoid this is to search each sailor, police state, on the ramp before launching the boats to go to the race area. Is that what we want? I would say no.
We need to be honest and admit that people cheat and they will continue doing so every time they have an opportunity and for this reason it is better not to rule what we can not control…but, as I said before, control what you can.
The price of the Vakaros device is around $1,200; expensive, yes, but you do not need to own one. Vakaros offers a rent a device service per boat for an event.
Also, the features of the device can be disabled to meet what each Class considers necessary for the device to be displayed on screen.
My personal experience:
Last month, we hosted a Melges24 regatta and the use of Vakaros was mandatory for all competitors. Some of them already had one while others used the rent option.
At the moment of the registration / measurement, each competitor brought the device (owned or rented) to the Race Office and a Vakaros volunteer set it up, scanned each device, made sure the software is up-to-date, and linked it with each boat’s registration. During this process is when the features are on/off and the competitor can not change that.
The cost for the “rent a device” service was $100 for each competitor. Is that expensive? I do not think so.
Coming back to the Snipe Class, it offers a lot of advantages, but I would highlight:
- Timer is synchronized so competitors do not need to have a watch or push any button. As soon as the RC displays the Warning Signal, the device starts the count down.
- OCS calls are on display, so competitors know if they are called of not. The screen turns to a big OCS. This will reduce the amount of General Recalls to zero since the RC has a list of boats called OCS on his/her tablet, so no General Recall is required even when not all the boats have returned to start properly.
- Scoring: The app can score each race immediately right after a boat crosses the finish line, so no more waiting times for the Race Office to import the results from a piece of paper to the scoring software and then publish.
For the Snipe Class, we can control what it is displayed and rule accordingly in each Notice of Race (All the info about the use of Vakaros should be in the Notice of Race, for the competitors to know in advance and be prepared) and require Vakaros volunteer to set up each device to only display:
- Timer
- Compass
- OCS warning
With previous experiences in Worlds and Europeans, with registrations close to 90 – 100 boats, I really think that the use of Vakaros is a great improvement in Race Management. Competitors are there for racing, not for long waiting on the water for a valid start. Stop fighting the future, bring the future to our side.
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This article represents a personal opinion, which may not coincide with the official opinion or view of the Class or other sailors. We deem it useful to discuss (naturally avoiding offensive content) various topics relating to our Class, to allow for an open and democratic discussion, as has always been the case on SnipeToday for more than a decade.
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