TackTracker Navigation Rally License

Navigation Rally - also known as Predicted Log Trials.

For power boaters, The TackTracker Navigation Rally module is a licensed extension to TackTracker (PC only) for running Navigation Rallies. A Navigation Rally is a test of charting and boat handling skills as well as being great fun for all competitors. Now with TackTracker, running a Nav Rally is no longer a volunteer intensive operation and everyone can join in and participate. At many places, TackTracker has helped the club re-invigorate the sport and get more members involved.

Preparing for a Nav Rally is now so much quicker and easier, it is viable to run a rally at little notice and incorporate a rally as part of a cruise day outing.

Nav Rally Setup

To run a Navigation Rally with TackTracker:

• Create your rally event ahead of time in TackTracker, specifying the course as a starting location followed by a series of bearings and distances to travel.
• Add "Gates" or virtual checkpoints. Boats receive penalties for each second they are early or late through a gate. You can add as many or few gates as you wish. Typically 6-10 gates are used.
• Complete the schedule, listing each competitor, their nominated speed and start time

The course setup dialog looks like this:

The schedule dialog looks like this:

With the rally definition in place, you can publish the course to your competitors, excluding the location of the gates (which should be kept secret).

Nav Rally Operation

On the day of the rally, each competitor is provided with a QStarz GPS logger configured for a 1 second tracking interval, and competes as normal. It is no longer necessary for competitors to carry numbered boards or such like as visual spotters are no longer needed.

At the conclusion of the rally, competitors return their loggers to the organizers, who upload the track into TackTracker. On uploading, TackTracker automatically computes the competitor's score awarding penalty points for each second early or late through each gate.

At the post-rally function, there is no longer a long wait for the results and the replay can be shown on a big screen for entertainment. Afterwards, the rally may be published to the TackTracker Cloud for competitors and friends to review online.

As well, you can generate a report of the rally results for printing or distribution. The report can also be copied and pasted into Excel.

Notes

TackTracker computes all times to millisecond resolution and gate times are interpolated between logged points for accurate scoring. Penalty points are awarded for each full second early or late - fractional seconds do not contribute to the score. TackTracker also allows you to configure the fixed penalties awarded for missing the start or missing a gate.