Races
Each race consists of the following data categories
Time or status like DNS, DNF, etc.
whatever the users prefers.
Global start of the race (1st start),
time offsets for each class to define starting groups.
Some more protocol data to satisfy all the informations requested by the ISAF rules.
Additional parameters for the given scoring types, e.g course length, windspeed etc.
Especially used for ORCint, ORC-Club and Catstick scoring types!
Time of Starts and Protocol
The time of starts split in two portions:
The time of the 1st start of the race is called global start time of the race. The starting time for the following starts are time-offsets to the global start time.
You can review and enter all the start times here. It is explained in the race settings dialog. Please read the instructions there.
For the calculation of elapsed times the offset time of each group is added to the global time of the 1st start. The group starting at the time of the 1st start consequently receives an offset time equal 00:00:00.
The protocol comprises some more race dependend information which is requested by the ISAF rules of sailing.
Some data is calculated automatically from the finishing times (e.g. time of first and last yacht) and listed for your information.
Some more data (e.g. course length) is provided as input field; please note: this course length is entered just for general information on the printout and is not used for any succeding calculation. It must not be mixed up and is not connected with the course specification data.
"Race" Dialog
This dialog is one of two options to register the finishing times of the yachts:
- automatic registration with PC-time:
The switch autom.PC-time must be selected.
Now you can register the actual PC-time by double click on a yacht as the yacht's
finishing time. You can get the same result by just selecting the yacht and pressing the
Enter-key.
- entering the time by keyboard:
The finishing times can be entered manually via the keyboard. In this case you have to
enter the yacht's identification (sailing nr.) and the finishing time. This way you can
enter times which were registered elsewhere.
Finally you can change the times by this way later on.
- Assign a scoring status like DNS, DNF, DSQ
To assign a status to a yacht, you should first select the yacht und then click on the
status button. This is possible even after registering a finishing time (e. g.: DSQ after
a protest).
The yacht's finishing time is used to determine the yacht's elapsed time to finally find the ranking of the yacht as follows
The yachts finishing time may be the time of the day, or in case of night or long-distance (switch off the "one day race" option!) races the time and date of the point of finishing.
Yacht's Scoring Status
All scoring options like disqualification, redress, etc. described in the ISAF's rules of sailing are called "status".
A scoring status might be set in addition to the finishing time.
In general, if there is a status set, the finishing time is not required nor taken into account,
except for the status ZFP, SCP, RDG.
These particular status need a regular finishing time to find the original ranking, which is then corrected to find the final ranking.
"Race Real Time Input" Dialog
This dialog is the alternative option to register the finishing times of the yachts. It provides advanced functionalities to allow to register the finishing times in real time, i.e. at the finishing line.
Pressing <enter> will register the system time in the actual row of the grid.
In the status column the key <space> or <shift>+<space> switches the status back and forth, respectively.
You can either register the time for given regular yacht entries,
or
you register the finishers manually by typing in their identification (e.g. sailno, etc) by hand, and register the time by pressing <enter>.
In this sense you can also type in multiple IDs in advance and add the times to them as the pass the finishing line, or vice versa.
Such type of manual input needs to be assigned to the regular yachts anytime later, before the result is to be calculated: The assignment options are displayed on the right hand side of the dialog.
Particular scoring options, e.g. with RDG, etc. are displayed also on the right hand side of the dialog, but only for those results that belong to regular yachts.
Furthermore by double-clicking on a regular yacht, a dialog with the details of scoring will show up.
The dialog will provide the best usability if you maximize it. In the center of the dialog you find a splitter bar, which allows to adjust the portion between left and right hand side.
Course Specifications
Each scoring type that requires additional parameters needs a "Course Specification".
Depending on the scoring type the additional parameters might be only the overall course length, e.g. for a time-on-distance scoring method.
ORCint and ORC-Club provide much more scoring options thus offering a much greater choice of scoring options to the user.
In every course specification dialog you will need to select the class and the race first for which the course specification shall be entered.
The dialogs itself are interactive and will automatically adjust their input fields to match the requirements of the scoring type and the particular choices as they are entered on the dialog.
IMS Course Specification
The course specification is defined by a combination of the following options:
Select the type of handicap to be used.
You can choose between:
precalculated (7-number) handicap sets
(e.g. "Circular Random", all of which you directly read on the certificate sheet),
or
"Variable Course" handicaps, which are are calculated to exactly match to your course
(the course needs to be defined leg by leg for the "Variable Course"!)
or
simplified (1-, 2-number) handicaps
("Simple Offshore", "Simple Inshore",
this simplified handicaps yield a calculation similar to the ORC-Club scoring type).
You can choose between:
time on distance performance curve (PCS),
this is also known as "implied wind systems" (IW).
The calculation finds for each yacht the windspeed which the yacht has had, if she was
sailed optimally.
The yacht with the virtually highest windspeed is the winner.
A scratch boat is finally used to transform the individual windspeeds back into
corrected times.
Consequently, this calculation method avoids the requirement of a fixed windspeed for
which the handicap should be picked out.)
CorrectedTime = ElapsedTime - (TAF - TAFscratchBoat) * CourseLength
or
time on distance fix windspeed
(this requires the input of a fixed windspeed,
in case of a seven-number handicap this is either 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, or 20 kts, which
defines the column out of which the handicap is to be picked out.)
CorrectedTime = ElapsedTime - (TAF - TAFscratchBoat) * CourseLength
or
time on time
This way requires also the input of a fixed windspeed, however the courselength is not
required since the handicap is transfomed to a time-on-time multiplicator;
anyhow, if this method is combined with the Variable Course, then the course still
needs to be defined, to calculate the handicap itself.
CorrectedTime = ElapsedTime * 600 / TAF
- The fields windspeed, scratch boat, course length will appear interactively as they are
required by the choices above.
The windspeed needs to match any column defined in the certificate, i.e. it must be 6,
8, 10, 12, 14, 16, or 20 kts.
Please note that the selection of the scratch boat does not influence the order of the
rankings. It is used to transform the calculated windspeed to a corrected time.
There are two options, standard or real scratch boat; the first assumes the handicaps
of the scratch boat to be [650, 510, 426, 370, 330, 300, 258], while the real scratch
boat is the yacht with the fastest GP handicap that is found in the complete yachts list.
The course length must be entered in nautical miles. In case of a Variable Course the
courselength will be defined implicitely by the sum over all legs.
- The Variable Course requires a course definition leg by leg.
Each leg consists of
length in nautical miles
leg direction (degrees, 0° = towards north)
wind direction (degrees, 0° = wind from north)
current wind direction (optional)
current wind speed (optional, kts)
As a help, you can alternatively define the position of the tons of the course by their
GPS coordinates, and have the legs data calculated by pressing the button <calculate
legs>,
or the other way around, for a given sequence of legs you can find the GPS coordinates
of the tons by pressing the button <calculate GPS>.
If you want to use the GPS function independendly of IMS courses, please call the "GPS
Dansk Handicap (DH) Course Specification
In the dialog DH Course-Specification the type of scoring is selected for each class and each race individually.
Dansk Handicap offers you two scoring options:
- time on distance or
- time on time.
If time on distance is selected you will have to enter the courselength (naut. miles) additionally. It is defined implicitely by the sum over all legs.
ORC-Club course specification
The type of scoring is selected in the dialog ORC-Club Course-Specification for each class and each race individually. ORC-Club offers three scoring options:
- time on time or
- time on distance or
- time on distance - performance line (PLS)
If any time on distance is selected you will have to enter the courselength (naut. miles) additionally. It is defined implicitely by the sum over all legs.
Catstick course specification
The evaluation is based on 3 windspeed ranges: LW = less than 3,5 m/s, MW = between 3,5 and 8 m/s, SW = more than 8 m/s. In the dialog Catstick Spezification you have to enter all the times when the windspeed changed from one range to another; e.g. from LW to MW. There is one line for each moment of change. E. g.: MW 14:22 , LW 14:41 , SW 15:08 , MW 15:25 etc.
GPS Menu
The GPS menu is an utility to calculate leg length and directions in a set of GPS positions or vice versa.
GPS coordinates are entered bei a pair of numbers, latitude N|S dd°mm.mmm', longitude E|W ddd°mm.mmm'.
It allows
- to scale the course by a factor to adjust the course length,
- to rotate the course, e.g. to align a leg with the actual wind direction
- to save or load course data, e.g. to prepare a particular type of course and to have it immediatelly available on the water.
