The start, which is half the race
With sixty boats on the line, the one who starts in dirty air never gets back. The replay shows who was in the front row and who bailed out looking for clear air.
Optimist
Parents on the beach, watching three white dots
The biggest fleet and the hardest to see from shore. An Optimist is small, sails a long way out, and they all carry the same white sail: without a map, nobody can tell which one is theirs.
The class
The class almost everyone starts in, up to the age of 15. Fleets are big — forty, sixty, a hundred boats on one start line — and that changes where the race is won: on the line and on the first beat.
- Length
- 2.30 m
- Crew
- 1
- Rig
- One sail
- Age
- Up to 15 years old
- Race length
- Short courses, close inshore
What the replay shows
Where yours is
Parents open the link from the beach and see their sail on the map, with its number. It is the first thing everyone asks for, and the reason a whole fleet ends up wanting a device.
No names, on purpose
These are children. Public results carry the sail number and no names; the club does see them in its own dashboard. It is not a setting somebody has to remember to tick: it is how it is built.
Fitting it
A small device strapped inside the hull, with buoyancy and bailer where they belong. It does not get in a ten-year-old’s way and does not change how the boat sails.
We have not tracked a Optimist race yet. The device is the same and does not depend on the boat, so it works just as well; what changes is what is worth looking at afterwards. If your club sails the class, we will set the first one up with you.
Your club’s next race
Devices are handed out before launching and collected on the way back in: nothing changes about how you run the race. If you would rather see it before deciding, write to us and we will set it up on one of your own races.
Other classes