Steve,
Sailwave has a mechanism to import finish time data from a CSV file however that is generated and ‘transported’ to the PC with Sailwave installed. I know the facility in Sailwave that you refer to, but without further development by Colin to work in real-time with an interface to a transponder system which will associate a transponder id with competitor and take the time when that transponder cuts the electronic finish line, and it does not work at present. The facility to work with real time finishes in Sailwave is I believe not really practical for use when actually finishing boats.
I am aware of several systems that manage start sequences and record finish times electronically, as well as a a system that uses transponders for tracking boats on the race course (claimed accuracy can be as good as 20mm). However I am not aware that this system has been used to ‘record’ finish times or even finish order definitively.
The latter system the RYA used last year for the Medal Race in the Sail for Gold event at Weymouth and the information was available during the race on the Internet. It is expensive! The link to information is http://www.ryaevents.org.uk/sailforgold/ where there are details of how to replay the information. In fact go to this link http://www.traxu.com/, which is the company that set up the system for the Sail for Gold event using equipment & facilities developed by a Norwegian company Pro Sail (http://www.prosail.no/).
PROlog (developed by a member of Datchet Water Sailing Club - no web site but a PDF file describing the software can be found here http://www.datchet.force9.co.uk/clubsailing/prologarticle.pdf)
This is a visual basic application that can act as the start sequence timer - and it can use voice synthesis to speak to the race team - and record the time a boat finishes when a button is pressed. The list of times can be prepared into a format suitable for electronic import into Sailwave. This software is basically available free.
RaceDay (http://www.soton.ac.uk/~jets/raceday/)
This software can do the same as PROlog but it costs. It has one advantage over PROlog in that it can provide the results for the race in progress. It also exports in a format suitable for import into Sailwave which then produces the series results.
Computerised Yacht Race Controller (http://www.clyc.org/YRC%20Instructions.htm)
Just found this information.
There are a couple of other systems of which I am aware but I cannot find the information at present.
Perhaps those actually racing should do the race management on a rotational basis 
I always use traditional manual finish time recording process, pen & paper, as well, even when I have electronic tools available. I also always use 24-hour clock times.
I look forward to others input.
Kind regards,
Huw Pearce
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-----Original Message-----
From: sailwave@yahoogroups.com [mailto:sailwave@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of Steve Fletcher
Sent: 16 March 2007 08:36
To:
sailwave@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [sailwave] Transponders & Sailwave
We are a small river sailing club based on the Brisbane River,
Australia. All of our sailing courses can be monitored from the
riverbank and we currently have volunteer finishers who record boat
details and individual finishing times for subsequent point scoring
using Sailwave.
We would like to replace those volunteer finishers (who are getting
old and infirm) with an automated system. One of our members
believes that there is a transponder- based or other radio frequency
based system available. It appears there is this feature in Sailwave.
Does anyone have any details of such systems and some product supply
contacts?
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