Playing Races

TackTracker has two race players, the online web player you see at tacktracker.com/cloud, and the PC player. The two players have a lot in common and both can be used to watch live races and replay past races.
This guide specifically focusses on the PC player.

The PC player is more than a race player. With an appropriate license, the PC player can also:

• Load tracks from a GPS logger device
• Create races and save them to a race library on the PC.
• Publish races online to the TackTracker Cloud
• Generate a wide variety of race reports
• Create competitor schedules documenting competitors details including fleet (or class of boat) and handicap.
• Define a navigation rally course and calculate a score for each competitor.

A Quick Tour of the PC player

Lets spend a moment to learn the different parts of the PC player:

Tool Buttons: Launch a tool for creating, managing and viewing races. The buttons you see here will vary according to the licence you have installed. To see your licence information, click the About button.

Race Name: Shows the loaded race name. Click the ‘X’ to unload the race.

Info & Sign In: Three buttons, Guide, About and Sign-In:

• Guide: Show this TackTracker Guide
• About: Show the splash screen that appears when launching TackTracker. Look here for licensing and version information.
• Sign-In: Sign in for publishing or viewing hidden races.

Full-screen mode: Click to toggle a full-screen mode that maximises the map area. Great for displaying TackTracker on a TV in the club house.

Top Tab Set: This area has tabs for browsing and loading races.

• The Cloud Races tab lets you browse races published on the TackTracker Cloud and load them onto your PC player.
• The Library tab, visible if you have a Logged Tracking, Club Regatta or Navigation Rally licence, shows races in your private race library on your PC.

Bottom Tab Set: This area has tabs showing information about the currently loaded race.

Note

You can resize the top and bottom tab sets by dragging the horizontal or vertical divider bar with your mouse.

• Select: Lists each competitor along with current placing and other useful information. By default, this list is sorted by place, forming a dynamic leader board. However, you can also click a column header to sort by other information, such as Name.

  One boat will be selected and highlighted with a blue bar. This is known as the the current boat and it is the one shown on the timeline below the map and also in the current stats table. Click on the desired row in the Select table to select a different boat.

• Legs: Vital stats for each leg of the race. By default, shows the just the leg that the current boat is on.

• Tacks: Shows stats for each tack in the current leg of the race, such as distance travelled, speed and bearing.
• Charts: Plot speed, VMG and other information for the current leg.
• Reports: (Requires a Race Reports, Club Regatta or Navigation Rally licence.) Generate a wide range of race reports for the loaded race.

Map: The largest area of the player, displays a map of the race area, showing marks and the position of each boat at the player time marked by the Timeline.

Current Stats: A dashboard of key stats such as Speed, VMG and Distance travelled for the current boat at the player time.

Timeline: An interactive control that shows the progress of the current boat through the race. You can drag the boat along the timeline with your mouse. The current player time is shown at the bottom right of the screen.

Player controls: These are the controls for selecting the desired player options, playing and pausing the race and zooming in and out.

Loading a Race from the TackTracker Cloud

You can view races that have been published online to the TackTracker Cloud from the Cloud Races tab in the top tab set:

The content of the Cloud Races tab will be familiar if you have visited the TackTracker Cloud. This is where races are published by TackTracker users around the world.

There are two tabs: Regattas and Homes.

• Regattas show a related collection of races, such as a for a regatta.
• Homes shows individual home pages for clubs and associations around the world. Individual races are often published to a home page.

Navigate to a race of interest and click the View button to load the race into the player.

Race Access

Most races are public and can be viewed by anyone. However, some races are only visible to specific TackTracker Cloud accounts nomitated by the race publisher. If you wish to watch such a race, you will need to first sign in to your TackTracker Cloud account using the Sign in button at the top right of the player.

You can register for a free account with the + New User button on the TackTracker Cloud.

Player controls

With your race loaded, you can now experiment with the player controls to view the race. To get started, click the red Play button to start the player. Click again to pause. By default, playback is at 4 times real time. You can adjust playback speed with the Throttle control.

Keyboard shortcuts

These keyboard shortcuts are available for common operations:

• Spacebar: toggle play and pause
• Period '.': step forward one track point
• Comma ',': step back one track point
• '+' and '-': zoom in and out

The blue buttons move the current boat forward and back by increasingly large amounts: by track point, tack and leg.

At the bottom right is a clock showinging current player date and time. This time will increment as you play the race.

Above the clock is a race timer that shows elapsed time for the current race from the start time.

Timeline

Above the player controls is the Timeline. This shows the position of the current boat in the race. (Use the Select tab to choose a different current boat.) The vertical lines in the timeline indicate the points at which the boat rounds the marks of the course. The lighter grey areas at each end indicate the period before the start and after the finish.

As the race plays, you can see the boat move along the timeline.

You can click on the timeline to move the boat to any position in the race. Alternatively, hold down your mouse button and drag the boat along the timeline with your mouse.

Notice the race timer at the right end of the timeline and how it changes as the boat moves along the timeline. The race timer shows the elapsed time since the race start.

The Map

TackTracker devotes the largest area of the screen to the map and this is where the majority of your attention will be spent. The map shows the marks of the course and the position of each boat at each point in time.
In addition, tails drawn behind each boat show where they have been, and indicate how the wind is shifting.

To interact with the map:

• Drag the map over the screen by holding down a mouse button and moving the mouse.
• Zoom in and out using the + and - buttons, or drag the Zoom slider.

Ruler

TackTracker has a built in ruler to measure distances between any two points.
To use the ruler, click on the starting point, taking care not to move the mouse whilst you click. This will activate the ruler. Then move the mouse to the desired location. You will see a line drawn from the mouse position to the starting point and at the top of the screen the current distance and bearing will be displayed. Click again to dismiss the ruler.

Player Options

At the bottom left are several controls used to customise the race play

Tail

TackTracker draws a "tail" behind each boat to show its track. You can choose to have the tail short or long.
A long track can be very useful for showing how the wind was shifting.

Text

Use this control to select the text identifying each boat. Choose from "Name" or "Details".
You can also choose to show current stats for each boat, such as Speed, VMG or Bearing. VMG can be calculated against the course rhumb line, or the current wind direction.

Toggle Buttons

Toggle buttons are on when colored and off when gray.

• Track:: Track the current boat, keeping it near the centre of the display.

• Auto: Automatically pan and zoom during the race replay. This feature is designed for unattended replays - such as on a large screen at the bar.

  • Rotate so the line of the first beat is directly up the screen. (You can turn this off in the Race Editor Options tab.)
  • Zoom in on the start line at the start.
  • Track the top third of the fleet and zoom accordingly
  • Zoom in and linger at mark roundings
  • Slow down around marks and at the start and finish.

  You can adjust the Auto mode replay speeds in the Settings dialog.

• Map: Show the street map display

• Sat: Display an aerial view instead of a map.
• Sync: Synchronise tracks so that all boats appear to start the current leg at the same time. This handy simulation helps you compare leg performances of different boats such as the race leader with other competitors.

Map Rotation and Wind direction

At the top right corner of the track player are two indicators:

1. A compass rose showing the view orientation. The large arrow points North, which by default will be straight up.
2. An estimated wind direction. (This will not appear if the wind direction could not be determined.)

Rotating the Map

You can rotate the map as follows:

• Click on the compass rose with the Left mouse button and hold the button down.
• Drag the mouse in an arc around the circle. As you drag the mouse, the North arrow will rotate to the mouse location and the map will rotate accordingly.
• Release the mouse button when the desired rotation is achieved.

Tip

Racing sailors often want the map rotated so that the wind is heading directly down the screen.

Adjusting the Wind Direction

TackTracker estimates the prevailing wind direction and displays it underneath the compass rose.
You can override TackTracker's estimate and build your own wind profile for the event.

Adjusting the wind direction is important if you wish to use TackTracker's VMG to Wind measurements. Also, upwind legs, a line is drawn perpendicular to the wind direction across the current boat in the fleet.
You can use this line as a guide to determine who is in front and behind the current boat across the course, but this is only useful if the wind direction is accurate.

You have two options for entering wind data into TackTracker:

1. Manually enter wind directions in the Track plot window
2. Enter data sourced externally. (See importing Wind Data)

To manually enter a wind direction, click on the wind indicator and wind controls will appear in the plot window. As with the compass rose, you can adjust the wind direction by clicking on the wind icon and rotating it with the mouse.
Alternatively, you can type the bearing degrees in the text box.

When you are happy with your wind change, click Apply. Your new wind direction will take effect from the current time onwards in the timeline.

You can change the direction multiple times during the race to build a profile.
Each change is recorded in the History box.

You can click on the items in the History to navigate to that point in time. You can also delete the wind change if desired.

Competitor Selection

The Select tab in the bottom tab set lists all competitors in the race along with their assigned color.
When you select a competitor, the row will be highlighted in blue, and the selected competitor will appear in the timeline and current stats. Additionally, a white halo will be drawn around the competitor's boat on the map, so you can easily find it.

You can show and hide competitors by clicking on the colored square at the left end of the row.
The color will change to a light grey and the boat will only appear as a shadow on the map.
Click again to restore display. You can also check or uncheck the Select All box at the top to hide or show all boats at once.

By default the list will be sorted by place, forming a dynamic leader board, which updates as the race progresses.
You can also sort by other columns such as Name by clicking on the column header.

Compare

The Compare feature lets you compare the currently selected competitor's performance against the current race leader.
When you check Compare, a second row appears in the current stats table below the map.
This lets you compare the instantaneous speeds, distances and bearings of the current competitor vs. the leader.

Select table columns

Note

You can may need to drag the vertical divider to the right to see all columns

Column	Description
Fleet	The fleet to which this competitor belongs. Only appears if fleets are defined for this race.
Name	Name of boat, which identifies the boat on the map
Details	Additional details about the competitor, such as crew, class, sail number etc. Can also be shown on the map.
Pl	Scratch place
Adj Pl	Place adjusted for handicap. Only appears if at least one boat in the race has a handicap defined.
Dist to First	Current distance from this competitor to the first boat in the race.
Dist to Finish	Current distance from this competitor to the finish.
To Win	The percentage improvement in time necessary for this boat to win the race.

Legs table

The Legs table in the bottom tab set provides a leg by leg summary of each boat's performance. Key stats for a leg include time taken, distance traveled and average speed. This is a great place to start to compare performances.

To use the Legs table effectively, sort by a column of interest.
For example, to find the boat that travelled the least distance for a leg, click the Dist column to sort by distance. Click again to reverse the sort order.

By default the Legs table shows results for the current leg. You can uncheck the Current Leg Only checkbox to see all legs in the table at once.
In this mode, it is most useful to sort by Leg. The Course entry gives results for the entire course, so you can compare times, distances and speeds travelled over the full course.

Legs table columns

Column	Description
Leg	The leg of the race. Defined as "Before Race", "Leg01", "Leg02", ..., "Post Race"
Trackee	The competitor, identified by Name-Details
Dist	Distance travelled for the leg. Units are indicated, e.g. (m). You can select the desired units in the Settings dialog.
Time	Time taken for the leg, in h:m:s
Adj Time	Time taken for the leg after handicap adjustment is applied. Only shown if handicaps are defined.
Port Deviation	Average deviation in degrees from the course rhumb line whilst on port tack
Starboard Deviation	Average deviation in degrees from the course rhumb line whilst on starboard tack
VMG	Velocity Made Good for the leg, ie speed * distance travelled / leg length
Knots	Average speed for the leg. May be "Km/h" or "Mph" depending on selected speed units in Settings.
Min Knots	Minimum speed recorded on the leg.
Max Knots	Maximum speed recorded on the leg.

Tacks table

The Tacks table in the bottom tab set provides a tack by tack summary of a selected boat's performance.
In fact, TackTracker gets its name from its ability to "track each tack" and compare performances on different tacks.

The Tacks table will show the tacks in the current leg for the selected boat. You can change the selected boat using the dropdown at the top.

The columns in the Tacks table are similar to the Legs table, but the rows apply for each tack, whether Port or Starboard. (If you find that the tacks are not correctly detected, you may need to adjust the estimated wind direction - see Adjusting the Wind Direction.)

Some columns need additional explanation:

Deviation

The Deviation column shows the angle between the course rhumb line and the average bearing for the tack, whether Port or Starboard. This is a measurement for height upwind. The absolute value on it's own is not of particular value, but it is interesting to compare deviation over the course of the leg or with other nearby competitors.

VMG Wind

The velocity made good against the current wind direction. Is it better to pinch and go slower or foot off and go faster?

VMG Course

The velocity made good against the rhumb line of the course.

Charts

The charts plot speed, distance, deviation and VMG for each boat to give you a visual presentation of the data.

Select a desired chart from the dropdown list. You can display up to two charts at one time.

Normally the horizontal chart axis spans the current leg. If the chart is too compressed in this form, you may check Stretch box to spread the horizontal axis out.

The vertical bar indicates the current time.
If you start the player, or drag the boat in the timeline, you will see the vertical bar move correspondingly. Likewise, you can also drag the vertical bar with your mouse and see the timeline and boats move in the map to correspond with the position of the bar.

As well as comparing average speeds, the charts are helpful for analysing manouvers such as tacks.
You will see a speed dip during the tack. Of interest is to compare the width of the dip, which indicates the time in which speed is reduced and how long it takes to resume full speed.