We've been testing Sailwave here for our 2003 Winter Series
alongside our existing series scoring software.
The series consists of 5 Olympic type courses mostly about 14 nm
long, a passage race of 21nm and a short ocean race of about 47nm.
Most boats enter more than one fleet (in our case a fleet is a
handicap division such as IRC or IMS) but we currently have a tally
of 98 series entrants in Sailwave.
Here a few of the points that have been brought up. Note that these
come across as negative but, on the whole, we've found it both easy
and quick to use.
Scoring system - discussed previously as we use High Point
In published results, we don't have an option to drop certain
columns in the series summary. For example, the default rating
displayed is a bit confusing on a Performance Handicap series where
every race has a different handicap. The fleet column isn't really
needed in our case either.
A couple of columns can't be renamed: Ewin and Rwin. We actually
call Rwin "BCH" which is Back Calculated Handicap.
For race specific ratings, after entering one, it immediately goes
back to the default view of Recorded Results. When you have 20
boats, this gets a bit irritating. I understand why it has been
done that way but it would be useful to make this feature optional
somehow.
We actually set up our fleets and classes in a relatively strange
way. This is a big boat thing where a fleet is a division and a
class is a design. You igrnore the class and score based on fleets
which are handicap rules (eg IRC fleet/AMS fleet). Given this, we
would find a multiple sort very useful. So sorting by fleet and
then by sail number or yacht would be good.
An observation only - when importing, if you have a DNC in the
finish time, it treats it like 24:00:00. There is an import
field "Code" that DNCs have to go into. This is slightly different
from the sail number wizard so got caught out first time but
understand now.
Other than those minor points, everyone has found it easy to use,
especially the importing previous series features. Most of our work
now revolves round handicaps which is as it should be. The
publishing features are great. I'm trying to persuade the race
Officers to put race reports in the publishing notes field but that
might be a bridge too far.
As a small aside, Sailwave indicated a bug in our existing software
when we spotted a discrepancy. It was a rounding issue which
Sailwave correctly handles to the nearest second. The other system
did not round and there was a change in placing as a result. So, a
big well done there.
I'll report anything else we find as the series progresses. I'll
actually be back in the UK on holidays so it will be somebody else's
problem but I'm sure they'll tell me anyway.
Regards
Mike Gill
Ocean Racing Club of Victoria
www.orcv.org.au