If the essence of match racing is intense head-to-head competition between skilled and talented sailors in fast boats on short courses, then the Rolex OCR Women’s Match Racing delivered in every respect,  from the first flight to the last; and all captured by Race-Trax.

The schedule was challenging with potentially 166 matches in 51 flights to get through in 6 days it went to the wire with every match sailed. And every result counted. 24 teams from 17 nations competed for places in Bronze, Silver and Gold fleets from the first Round Robin before either progressing through the stages to the final or confirming their Standings through fleet Sail Off’s.

With results rolling in every few minutes and Flights starting on the final windward rounding of the last match of the previous Flight Principle Race Officer Ron Drucker, and his team, did a great job of keeping to schedule.

The story of the event has to be the final between Lucy Macgregor GBR and Anna Tunnicliffe USA. The British team had not lost a match throughout the regatta and kept up their 100% record by going 2-0 up in the first to 3 final. But, the American team showed a never say die attitude and fought back to take the next two matches and level at 2-2.

In the final match Macgregor got off to a strong start and reached the final mark 18 metres ahead of her opponent. On the Signal boat result sheets were being filled in and final standings allocated but Race-Trax showed Tunnicliffe gaining rapidly and within 300m she had gained an overlap. With 300 meters to go it was neck and neck with Macgregor just in command until Tunnicliffe gybed away and caught a wave powering her ahead of Macgregor who then gybed behind enabling Tunnicliffe to take the match and the Gold Medal.

As you would expect the whole drama was captured with precision accuracy by Race-Trax and is available for download, or you can watch the whole final match in 2 minutes here.

But it is not only the competitors, coaches and fans who benefit from Race-Trax as expressed by Ron Drucker PRO for the Rolex OCR Women’s Match Racing

The Race-Trax system was extremely useful. With trackers on the marks I knew exact distances and, vitally, if the marks or Signal Boat were moving. The system also allowed my team to be better prepared for close mark roundings and finishes. Having Race-Trax on board was very, very helpful.

Click here to go to the Downloads section but first if you are not registered then please register now. 

Race-Trax is delighted to be working with the Women’s International Match Race Association (WIMRA) and the US Sailing Center Sheboygan to provide tracking for the Women’s Match Racing at the Rolex Miami OCR from 24th to 30th January 2010.

The racing, which will take place in the beautiful waters of Biscayne Bay, Miami, will consist of an opening round robin, a knockout series, and a sail-off for boats not advancing to the knockout series. With 36 applications from 17 nations for the 24 available places it is certain to be a very exciting competition.

Race-Trax will be based on the Committee boat providing assistance to race management with instant detailed data for fast, fact based decision making as well as valuable information for the competitors for post race analysis.

Please keep a look out for regular updates from the event.

While the action on the water may have slowed down for the winter season the pace of development has certainly not slowed down for the Race-Trax development team.

Product improvement is a continual process and the Race-Trax team are committed to ensuring that our system remains the most accurate, flexible and beneficial sail race tracking system available.

For example this year has seen the development of a dedicated Match Racing module in partnership with the World Match Racing Tour. At the last event, The Argo Gold Cup in Bermuda,  the action was streamed to the internet and followed LIVE! by viewers who had downloaded the Race-Viewer software.
Each match in a flight was tracked individually with mark rounding, distance and time-to-next mark and boat speed all displayed LIVE! with semi-3D images of the boats. Also, uniquely, the software displayed penalties so viewers were able to follow a complete virtual representation of the racing as it happened from anywhere in the world.

Such was the demand for the live data that initially not everyone who tried to log on was able to, so the team at Race-Trax worked overnight to increase the number of connections and make sure that the Race files were available for download.

To solve this problem and with users also requesting more information, for example a LIVE! race blog, we are undertaking a major upgrade to our Race-Server. This will enable many more simultaneous connections while at the same time increasing the amount of race information that can be sent to Race-Viewer. In addition extensive work is ongoing to Race-Viewer to include some excellent customer requests and to make the software even easier to download, install and use.

With so many improvements in the pipeline and to prevent confusion between versions we have decided to temporarily remove the Race-Viewer download from this site.

If you have a current version of Race-Viewer please send an email direct to  marketing @ race-trax.com or contact us and we will let you know as soon as the latest version is available.

The Argo Gold Cup held at the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club, Hamilton Bermuda was the latest event on the World Match Racing Tour to use the Race-Trax Match Racing solution. All the action was streamed live to the internet where spectators who had downloaded the Race-Trax Race-Viewer software could watch the racing as it happened.

With the focus very much on developing and enhancing the spectator experience trackers were placed on the match fleet of IOD's, course marks and committee boat. The data from the racing is collected second by second as it happens and streamed via the internet to Race-Trax Race-Server. Spectators who have downloaded the Race-Viewer software then log onto Race-Server to follow the racing LIVE!. 

Each match in a flight can be tracked individually with mark roundings, distance and time to next mark and boat speed - all displayed side by side for each boat using the unique Dual Trax display. Also, uniquely the software allows penalties to be displayed ensuring that both spectators and officials are kept up to date with the action on the water as it happens! Viewers can switch between the matches simply by clicking the corresponding match flags at the top of the screen.

The screen shot shows Race-Viewer Dual Trax displaying the first match in the Quarter Finals, Walker vs Monnin on the start line. Monnin is 2.3m from the line traveling at  5.2 knots 3 seconds after the gun and there are no penalties.

There was such a large demand for the live data that initially not everyone who tried to log on was able to. The team at Race-Trax worked overnight to increase the number of connections and make sure that the Race files were available for download.

"What a problem to have" commented Mike Anderson-Brown Commercial Director Race-Trax "You prepare for these events and have expectations of what is needed but obviously the popularity of the World Tour and the attraction of The Agro Cold Cup together meant we needed to increase our server capacity far beyond our initial estimate. I am delighted that so many people wanted to follow the action live."

Delivering data and providing live information from the race course is what Race-Trax is all about. Whether it be for the benefit of Race Management, broadcasters, spectators or competitors Race-Trax delivers; as proved at Skandia Sail for Gold 2009 the biggest Olympic and Paralympic classes regatta that Great Britain has seen.

The competition, which was the grand finale of the ISAF World Cup series, took place at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy, the host venue for the sailing events at London 2012.

This was the third consecutive year at the regatta for Race-Trax and was certainly the most challenging and complex of any regatta to date. Needless to say the Race-Trax team were right up there with the best of the sailors in terms of the effort and dedication that went into producing a first class result on medal race day.

Following on from the great sailing conditions earlier in the week the plan was to track the Laser, Star, Finn, 49er and Laser Radial medal races. But the first casualty in sailing, as in war, is the plan.

Showing great flexibility the Race-Trax team ensured that every fleet was fully prepared with no delay should they be called out. However despite all best efforts the Finn and Star classes were eventually abandoned and the Lasers were fully tracked out to the course area and back, twice, with racing postponed both times.

Finally it fell to the 49er’s and Laser Radials to produce the only racing of the day on the A course. Both races were tracked second by second with the race data being fed back to the Committee boat, then to the shore via Race-Link before being forwarded on for viewing LIVE! using Race-Viewer.

A second feed went direct to the event's 3D graphics provider for modelling and broadcast by the BBC. Because of the power of the Race-Trax system, the gap between recording the data on the water and delivering it to the users was under 2 seconds enabling live commentary in conjunction with live pictures from the course.

We are really looking forward to the next event where we will continue with our mission to help turn sailing into a spectator sport.

A 3 minute video version of the 49er Medal Race can be viewed here