Race-Trax (V5.0.1) pre-release / beta testing at the 8 mtr Centennial World Championships, hosted by the Royal Northern and Clyde Yacht Club in conjunction with IEMA (International Eight Metre Associaton) on the beautiful West Coast of Scotland. 16th - 21st July

Our thanks are due to both the Club and the competing yachts men and women for enabling the in depth final phase testing of the Race-Trax UHF suite during this prestigeous event.

Why here ? Because this is where Nav-Trax (the big brother to Race-Trax) was conceptualised and developed. And this is where Nav-Trax is in daily use with the Royal Navy on its various Weapons and Noise Ranges.

Why now ? Because Race-Trax (ver 5.0.1) is ready to be tested and the Eight Metre yachts have always been considered as elite, very fast, very beautiful and very expensive. Taking all the above on board it made sense to approach the Event Organisers and... things moved on from there !

Metre boats such as the 8, 6 and 12's are not one designs. They are built to a formula that puts design and construction, as well as sailor skill, to the test. As such, they can have different dimensions for beam, length, displacement and sail area. They were used mainly for racing and short cruises. The best known Metre yachts are the Twelves that were used for the oldest trophy in yachting history, the America´s Cup.

The boats that sailed in the 1900 Olympic Games were built to the English rule. At that time there were French and German rules as well which obviously caused some conflicts of interest and in 1906 the International Yacht Racing Association (now the International Sailing Federation ISAF) met in London, and, under the presidency of King George V, the Prince of Wales, delegates came from France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Denmark and Sweden. After prolonged deliberations there was unanimous approval of a uniform Rating Rule for all of Europe.

This rule was:
(L + B + 1/2G + 3d + 1/3 Sq. root of S-F) divided by 2.
m B = Beam in linear units
m L = Length in linear units
m G = Girth in linear units
m d = Girth difference in linear units
m S = Sail area in square units
m F = Freeboard in linear units

Naturally, this 'rule' was very complicated to adhere to and oversee / verify so, in 1919, the rule was amended to:

(L + 1/4G + 2d + sq. root of S-F) divided by 2.5

The New Rule bore little relation to the Old Rule. The New Rule being practically a pure length and sail-area Rule with heavy tax on sail area. The old rule had 3 components, length, body and sail, and bore lightly on the latter. Only 1/3 of the square root of the Sail Area was counted in the Old Rule, while the whole sail area is included in the New Rule. An 8 Metre designed for the New Rule would have a hollower section midships, about a foot more draft and a little less displacement. She would be more weatherly and better to windward in stronger breezes. She would thus require less sail area, but would not provide as much head room below. There were of course strict rules on all the interior design too.

The designer of the Metre boats had a choice: go for large sail area and short waterline length, hoping to win races in light air, or the inverse, and hope for stronger winds. Then of course we have the factor of the sailors skill, for as all sailors know, the wind will never do as you expect.
The Eight Metre Class enjoyed a long run as an Olympic Class before World War II. They raced in every Olympic yachting event from 1908 until 1936 with a highly complicated and controversial grand finale

in 1936 when the Swedish yacht Ilderim, commissioned by the Swedish banker and industrialist Marcus Wallenberg jr. was disqualified. Although Wallenberg won the races and his Ilderim proved to be the best yacht, he could not bring home the gold medal and was disqualified after viewing of a film made from a zeppelin that flew over the race course. Italy gained the gold medal and the Germania III owned by Baron Krupp von Bohlen shifted one place forward giving Germany the so much desired bronze medal.

Enough of the 8metre rule, interesting as it is, and back to the event ...

At the 8mtr Centennial World Championships it is hoped to test and trial many of the individual components or modules that go into the manufacture of a finished ERDALL equipped Race-Trax tracking system BUT to do so specifically with regard to the new UHF / free-to-air method of data transfer / telemetry.

Test will focus on four main areas (although there will be many other smaller ongoing trials) throughout the event :

Telemetry device / Range
Update rates
Battery life / Operational longevity
Web site update

Telemetry device / Range : generally, the Race-Trax suite operates with Sat. Comm., GPRS or UHF (free-to-air) telemetry devices. Each one has its pros and its cons.

Sat.Comms : Offers almost unlimited platform number capability and world wide coverage, linking the ERDALL tracker module directly to the world-wide-web but does so, at the expense of running costs and update rates. Sat. Comms equipped ERDALL tracker units are great for offshore event coverage where 30 to 60 minute (or longer) update intervals are acceptable.

GPRS : Offers almost unlimited platform number capability and virtually world wide coverage (generally up to 5 miles offshore), linking the ERDALL tracker module directly to the world-wide-web but does so, at the expense of running costs. Suitably equipped ERDALL tracker units (quad band EDGE units are utilised as standard) will operate pretty much anywhere there´s a GPRS signal. GPRS equipped ERDALL tracker units are great for coastal events where, ti reduce data transfer costs, 15 to 60 second (or longer) update intervals are acceptable.

UHF / Free-to-air : Race-Trax ERDALL units are equipped to operate within the 458MHz, 868MHz, 900MHz and 2.4GHz frequency bands. Each band is free-to-use in specific areas of the world and offers the possibility of `free´ data transfer between the mobile tracker units and the Race-Trax base station. Plus points here include no usage (air-time) costs, increased accuracies (up to 2cm!), point-to point data transfer (no web-induced data transfer lag), possibility to re-request `missed´ data and ability to increase data rates to 20Hz (20 times per second - although in reality 2Hz is, quite often, more than enough !)  thereby providing real-time race-track timing control, O.C.S. detection, and LIVE! Rankings etc. The downside with this method of data transfer is the set-up required, the limited number of mobile platforms that can be tracked (typically, between 10 and 50) and the reduced ranges (typically 1Km to 15Km). In addition, a clear line-of-sight is generally required between the mobile platforms (yachts and dinghies) and the Race-Trax Base Station (or Network Controller). In fact, it is with the UHF / free-to-air data transfer method that Race-Trax really comes into its own, offering unrivalled accuracy, update rates and LIVE! dat, on-the-fly configuration and real-time control information.

In addition to the above, device-type selection affects range (which is also wholly dependent upon both antenna size and height above sea-level) and device power consumption (which, naturally, affects battery life).

Finally, and probably, most importantly for the ERDALL tracker, after operational capability, tracker unit size and weight varies considerably with required frequency band of operation and power output due to the varied power supply requirements of these various devices.

The Race-Trax product development team are always caught up in a `battle´ to provide operational capability (range, battery life etc)  BUT to do so within the most stringent weight and size constraints, not to mention staying within ever-changing European and International rules and regulations.

Update Rates : Race-Trax is capable of operating at update rates between once per 24hours and 20 times per second. Currently, at 20Hz, only 3 or 4 ERDALL equipped mobile platforms may be tracked simultaneously in the UHF frequency (free-to-air) frequency band. This is primarily because of current over-the-air data transfer rates at UHF frequencies and the fact the network protocol useds a TDM approach. It is intended to trial various update rates at the 8mtr Worlds at various points throughout the week.

Battery Life : ...varies considerably with required : telemetry / data transfer module (range of operation etc), update rate (once per 24hours to 20 times per second) and accuracy (the ubiquitous 3-5mtr to 2cm) period of operation (4hrs to 4 weeks).

Each ERDALL equipped mobile platform is fitted with one (or more) battery packs. Whilst adding a battery pack or increasing the capacity of a battery pack is useful in extending operational life it has the side effect of increasing both weight and required enclosure size. It is intended to trial various battery pack types and capacities at the 8mtr Worlds at various points throughout the week.

Web-Site data transfer : Typically, Race-Trax sets itself up in the Race / Event Organiser´s offices or in the Race-Trax 'bus' and, therefore, has `unlimited´ access to both power and the web (via, a locally supplied, broadband connection). At the 8mtr Worlds this will not be possible; as such the development team propose to trial post-event updates - never trialed before) and, possibly (time permitting), LIVE! GPRS data connections at various points throughout the week.

These trials will be undertaken with the Race-Trax `Race-Viewer´. The RaceViewer is purely an internal product integration tool enabling the Race-Trax development and deployment team to test 3rd party software and (specifically) RaceViewer / WebPlayer integration with the Race-Trax product suite via TCP/IP, UDP and FTP protocols. For the above, reasons, it is NOT anticipated, at this time, to make such data available for general release, however, should this trial be completed satisfactorily and at an early enough stage then such data may be made available during one of the pre-dinner drinks parties.

Please Note : Race-Trax LITE may be freely downloaded from the web-site and offers a fully featured, stand alone, Replay Suite offering all the enhanced Replay features of Race-Trax PRO without the complexity of the Real-Time Event Management front-end in one small, neat, easy to use package. Race-Trax LITE automatically configures itself to any downloaded Event / Race Data made available to it and is an invaluable Post-Event and Tactical Analysis tool.