So my winter project is to write a new start system for my club's race box. The club has had a computerised system for years, but recently it has failed quite a few times. Old age has plently to do with it - the software used means it has to be Windows XP (or older) and the computer must have serial ports (remember those?) to drive the relays for the hooter and lights (more on those in a sec). The system has been very useful - as well as making automated start sounds, it also records a finish time when you click a button, although it doesn't have a way to record the boat/sail number.
So I have started to write a replacement software system. I went with Python (as it can run on different computers) and USB relays (as serial ports are rare now). I am putting it up on GitHub in case it is useful to other clubs - you can see it here and there is an overview of what it currently does here. It is free to use or copy (there goes my billionaire lifestyle aspirations ๐ ).
Feel free to comment on it to me if you have any thoughts. But my thought for today is about using lights for race starts.
The current system does use three different colours of lights on the outside of the race box to help sailors know what part of the start sequence is happening. Now I am going to confess here that in all my time at the club (15 years?), I hadn't used them or even noticed them - I just went with the hoots. But I know other club sailors say they are great. So I am planning to add lights to the new system as an option.
But I wanted to add lights that are useful to me - selfish, I know ๐ For the sake of simplicity I also wanted to write a system for just one light, not three. Now I have been known to forget my sailing watch at times and try to guess when the start is by watching other boats, so this is what might work for me when that happens: at 1 minute to the start, an LED light comes on (on the racebox or committee boat) and stays on. At ten seconds to go, that light starts flashing so I know to point my boat at the start line. At the start, the light turns off. It is the simplest option I could think of.
That would be helpful for me - but do you agree? Would you use start lights if they worked like this?
Hi Ian - for opens, my club do it with a committee boat and flags+hooter as per the rules. But for club racing it is done from the race box - I think the idea is to make it easy especially for the less experienced race teams. The lights are used instead of flags and most of us sailors are happy with the arrangement, so no pedants so far ๐
The old race box computer allows the race officer to put in a time for the first start and then just watch the line, which has made it easier over the years. So much so that when it fails to work, it is quite an issue! To be fair it has been incredibly reliable for a very long time. It is currently working again, but I am writing a new system in case it doesn't!
I am just mulling over the lights bit at the moment though...
surely the sound signal is just to draw the racers attention to the visual signals.
I always " go" on the sound but might someone pedantic mention the lack of signals?
Not that Solo racers are ever pedantic๐