Timing Clock – Dinghy Pursuit Races

At Burghfield we use an old ipad linked to a digital display and auto hooter which is either mounted on the club house or on a committee boat. It has a three or six minute count down to the start for an oppie (datum) and then continues running up to 90 or 100 or however long the pursuit is. You need to know at what time past datum your class starts but the system lets out a hoot every 30 seconds over the period that most people start. Seems to work reliably and I think it is now even linked into the GPS trackers that we use on each boat so at the end of the race everyone can go see where they finished by simply watching the GPS tracking

Originally posted by 423zero I suppose you could do something with a large screen (old TV) link it to a laptop will show time and when a boat is due to start it could show Topper/whatever.

That won't be waterproof.

How about trying to source one of the individual cells used for "big screens" at outdoor events?

Might have 240v power problems.

Edited by Brass - 18 Nov 21 at 6:03am

The point that I should have made earlier is that the displayed numbers serve the purpose of class flags. In a conventional sequence you know where you are by the flag display. Your watch tells you what second the signal will happen, but the flags tell you which signal the next one will be. I suppose it would be feasible for a club to use numerical signal flags, and change the number every minute but the boards are easier for most folk. In our club SIs we don't mandate that the number display is accurately timed, just that its displayed from around 20secs before the matching start to about 10 secs after.

Something like this? http://www.kitst.co.uk/kitst-clocks.html They can be configured to count up from 0:00:00 if that is what you want. NB These are "weather resistant" but NOT waterproof.

Edited by GML - 17 Nov 21 at 1:39pm

We've got a computer system ties to a bank of four lights which I guess could be manipulated, we've only ever run one pursuit race at hythe and I missed it, so not sure wether the programme that comes with the system does it, but I do tend to agree with Grumpyfeline it kind of is your responsibility to set your own watch..