255grizzly
New member
Hi- As a proponent of "solo, solo" racing, I wanted to put a plug in for raceqs.com (no, I have zero relation to them, but if they want to send me a hat or something, I'd take it). With the app and the related website -- which has good training videos/podcasts as well; raceqs marketing team: a hat is all I ask
-- you can measure yourself to see how well you are doing in terms of steering, heel, speed, and tacks and gybes. You can even create your own regattas and, in essence, race against yourself! That's my favorite part.
To use it, you download the app (free) then record your race on your phone. You can program the app to start recording at a preset time - easy! After the race, you upload the track wirelessly, create the regatta waypoints, and then analyze the results on their regatta replayer (also free). It takes a bit to figure how to use the online interface, but once you get used to things, it's very cool and intuitive.
The race replay analyzes your tacks and gybes in great detail -- angle tacked, degrees overseer, total tacking time, time to recover, time lost, etc. It also measures angle of heel (be sure to leave the phone flat on a horizontal surface.) And it rates how much you sailed in or out of the groove via something called the "RQ Index" - who knows what that measures exactly, but they say 70-85 is good for an amateur and 85+ is good for pro's.
It's a really cool tool. Plus, if you lose a race from a tactical point of view, you can at least keep racing against yourself to see how well you do on all the metrics. (Maybe sailboat races in the future should have a "quality of sailing" ranking or related sub-rankings -- that would be a great way to provide sailors with focus on what they need to improve.)
It'd be great to see other SSS'ers using this in future regattas (maybe they have and I don't know about it.) But even if not, it's a great tool for the singlehander. Plug over.
-- you can measure yourself to see how well you are doing in terms of steering, heel, speed, and tacks and gybes. You can even create your own regattas and, in essence, race against yourself! That's my favorite part.To use it, you download the app (free) then record your race on your phone. You can program the app to start recording at a preset time - easy! After the race, you upload the track wirelessly, create the regatta waypoints, and then analyze the results on their regatta replayer (also free). It takes a bit to figure how to use the online interface, but once you get used to things, it's very cool and intuitive.
The race replay analyzes your tacks and gybes in great detail -- angle tacked, degrees overseer, total tacking time, time to recover, time lost, etc. It also measures angle of heel (be sure to leave the phone flat on a horizontal surface.) And it rates how much you sailed in or out of the groove via something called the "RQ Index" - who knows what that measures exactly, but they say 70-85 is good for an amateur and 85+ is good for pro's.
It's a really cool tool. Plus, if you lose a race from a tactical point of view, you can at least keep racing against yourself to see how well you do on all the metrics. (Maybe sailboat races in the future should have a "quality of sailing" ranking or related sub-rankings -- that would be a great way to provide sailors with focus on what they need to improve.)
It'd be great to see other SSS'ers using this in future regattas (maybe they have and I don't know about it.) But even if not, it's a great tool for the singlehander. Plug over.