Multiple-Starts Sequence

Thanks, Brass. I'm sure you are right, and if I were the permanent race officer I'd be automating as you suggest like a shot.

But the fact is that our ROs are different every week, most of them do the duty just twice a year, and many are no longer regular racers or even visitors to the club, so any system we introduce has to be completely fool-proof. The thought of them needing to find (it would go walkabout) an android tablet, switch it on and operate an unfamiliar app makes my heart sink, let alone what might become of a go-pro; we had a club-wide search for a printer cable a few weeks ago, which someone had 'tidied up'.

A repeat-countdown timer with auto-hoot is nonetheless something that might just work here, provided it is built-in and has just a couple of very well labelled buttons. We need to look into it.

Originally posted by jeffers This is the reason why we still use our old and creaky custom box at Hunts. The lake it a bit small for the course to cope with 3 starts on a 5-4-1-Go (as fleet 1 would be coming through the line at fleet 3 were starting). 3-2-1-Go is probably a little short too if you are intermixing the starts. With 6-3-G0 you get 3 minutes between starts (meaning any stragglers from fleet1 are gone before fleet 2 is lining up). It works well and is why we still use it. The only thing that I wish the would do it have a 1 minute warning (and drop the prep as with 5-4-1-Go) but this would currently need to be a manual process to we cannot easily do it.

So you'd ideally like a 6-3-1-go-1-go-1-go sequence, Jeffers? Maybe just a hoot but no flag-shifting at the '1'?

Ah, see what you mean, Jeffers.

Originally posted by Medway Maniac Ah, see what you mean, Jeffers. By 3-2-1-go, I meant we were having 3 minutes between starts, but with a flag-shift and horn every minute in the same sequence we use for 5-4-1-go. It seems that many people using a 6-3-go rolling sequence such as you, do not bother dropping the prep till the end of the sequence.  I guess that's what you do if you're just using the P flag? Are your club SI's available on-line?

marke

We use a custom combined auto lights box and horn system.  Its been running for about 15 years with no failures apart from needing to replace its small configuration screen a few years ago.  Press one button at the start of the sequence and it displays the various lights and sounds the horns for up to five starts.  It also has lights for signalling OCS and general recall (and shorten course)

I have seen a few other clubs that have combined lights/horns systems, but after sailing at many clubs who used flags or buckets for signalling (which is often daunting for new OODs), I'm sort of surprised that more clubs don't invest in something similar.  I don't know how much ours cost - but I'm sure it was less than a grand from a local electronics contractor - £65 a year a bargain.

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