Forum: The Racing Rules of Sailing

Web based whiteboard tool for RRS reviews

David Hubbard
Nationality: United States
Certifications:
  • Club Race Officer
I wrote my 'Sail-Board' tool back during the pandemic to aid with sharing RRS situations remotely.  It is web browser based, so sharing your screen with any of the web conferencing systems, like Zoom, will work.

See: http://racetac.com/sailboard.htm

It is free. No sign up or anything.

Features:
  • You can add up to 4 boats, and you can clone each boat as many times as needed to show different positions.
  • You can add marks, either single or gate type, or a 'Line' like a start or finish.
  • You can show 'zone' rings around marks. These approximate 3 'boat lengths' as shown on the screen.
  • You can add a wind arrow and a currents arrow.
  • Boats can show what tack they are on, either manually, or automatically in relation to the wind.
  • You can overlay it with a grid.
  • You can animate it, and the boats will 'sail' through the clone positions.
  • You can save a setup, which is downloaded like any download, and then upload it later to show the saved situation.

I find it useful for reviewing rules with our racers.
I am the Fleet Captain for the Port Jefferson Yacht Club, and also a CRO.

Enjoy! If you find it useful let me know.  I am open to ideas and suggestions.

Dave

Created: 22-Nov-03 17:25

Comments

P
Angelo Guarino
Nationality: United States
Certifications:
  • Regional Judge
  • Fleet Measurer
0
Thank you for sharing your tool with our forum members!
Created: 22-Nov-03 17:39
David Nieman
Nationality: South Africa
0
Thank you
Unfortunately the Sailboard page wont open?

No wait... there it is! working. thanks.
Created: 22-Nov-04 06:52
Martin Smethers
Nationality: United Kingdom
Certifications:
  • National Judge
  • National Race Officer
0
David, just had a look at this and it looks great. Only one small addition I would like to see if possible and that is the inclusion of a Committee boat, please. Can be the same as the dinghies but without sails and perhaps greyed inside.
Created: 22-Nov-04 12:07
P
Angelo Guarino
Nationality: United States
Certifications:
  • Regional Judge
  • Fleet Measurer
0
On Martin’s suggestion, if the RC boat could have a text box attribute where users could enter “R”, “J”, “U” or “O” (or any letter or number) that’d be pretty sweet
Created: 22-Nov-04 13:27
David Hubbard
Nationality: United States
Certifications:
  • Club Race Officer
0
Some good suggestions, thanks!

For the RC Boat, initially I think one end of a 'Line' (Which is intended to be a start/finish) will be a committee boat.

And if I am adding an ability to label a committee boat, might as well also allow labeling of other things.

One I've been thinking about is a 'Gate'.  There are regular gates you sail between, but also 'Offset' gates. Adding a label ability would let you label them 'OG' or whatever you wanted.

Created: 22-Nov-04 14:51
Martin Smethers
Nationality: United Kingdom
Certifications:
  • National Judge
  • National Race Officer
0
Thanks for being so positive about this David. All sounds good but obviously depends on the time you have to do it. Look forward to seeing the final results.
Created: 22-Nov-04 14:54
David Hubbard
Nationality: United States
Certifications:
  • Club Race Officer
0
Martin, now that my boat is tucked in for the off-season up here, I get back to my software stuff for the winter!

Created: 22-Nov-04 16:51
Landy Atkinson
Nationality: United States
0
The ability to add a text field to include facts, background or a question would make this easier to use as a training / teaching tool. Making and saving animation with some text to use for teaching rules would be awesome!
Created: 22-Nov-06 12:04
Staffan Rosenlöf
Nationality: Finland
Certifications:
  • Umpire In Training
  • Regional Race Officer
  • National Judge
1
Thank you for sharing !
Created: 22-Nov-06 18:12
David Hubbard
Nationality: United States
Certifications:
  • Club Race Officer
0
I just updated my tool to support some of the suggestions I got here:
- Custom labels on marks (and Gates and Lines).
- Committee Boat shape at the end of a 'Line' type mark.
- Text boxes.  Moveable.
See the help instructions below the main screen. All the above are saved if you save the setup and can be restored.

Enjoy, and as always, suggestions and feedback welcome.
Dave

Created: 22-Nov-08 01:59
Martin Smethers
Nationality: United Kingdom
Certifications:
  • National Judge
  • National Race Officer
0
Thanks David, super job
Created: 22-Nov-08 13:09
Landy Atkinson
Nationality: United States
0
Wow!  Thanks for the very fast action on suggestions.  I'll give it a try soon.
Created: 22-Nov-08 14:47
Landy Atkinson
Nationality: United States
0
These new features work great!  Try cutting the following and saving it in a .txt file, then importing to see how it works.  Is there a way to add the filename to Load in the URL?

!*SailBoard*!
1
b,0,A,428,393,true,-40,A,false
cl,0,A1,343,289,true,-40,A,false
cl,0,A2,275,162,true,0,A,false
cl,0,A3,320,46,true,20,A,true
b,1,B,350,399,true,-40,A,false
cl,1,B1,251,286,true,-20,A,false
cl,1,B2,219,175,true,0,A,false
cl,1,B3,236,55,true,30,A,true
b,2,C,200,200,false,0,P,true
b,3,D,250,250,false,0,P,true
m,1,L,196,100,831,103,true,false,null,null
m,2,M,197,100,400,150,true,true,null,null
m,3,M,350,200,450,200,false,false,null,null
m,4,M,400,250,500,250,false,false,null,null
T,963,14,Finish of Race 1
T,969,77,B claims A did not respond quickly&nl;enough to her luff and therefore&nl;was not given room to finish without&nl;touching the pin.
W,50,50,180,true
C,50,150,0,false

Created: 22-Nov-08 15:31
David Hubbard
Nationality: United States
Certifications:
  • Club Race Officer
0
Landy,

Browsers web pages are not allowed to open a file without user interaction.  A security feature.  So you have to go through the open dialog.  Ah well.

I have been thinking about integrating it a little more with my Regattas system which is still in the works.  Then I could have an option to save it in my database, in which case I could load it from there also and I could allow putting it in a link.

That Regatta Management System is still in the works.  Another off-season project!

Dave

Created: 22-Nov-08 17:07
Catalan Benaros
Nationality: Argentina
0
SO GOOD !!!!
THANKS DAVID !!!!
Created: 22-Nov-09 09:51
P
Angelo Guarino
Nationality: United States
Certifications:
  • Regional Judge
  • Fleet Measurer
1
David, again I want to thank you for sharing your tools with the RRoS community. Your tool is really shaping up!  Having a usable, free, no-install (app/software/etc), any platform solution will be a huge benefit to the sailing/judging community, especially for remote hearings. 

I’m focusing on using the touch-functions on my iPad. I’ve got some experience in designing UI’s so here is my 2 cents. 

Unlike using the mouse-cursor where position and click are certain, there is uncertainty of both position and when the “touch” happens. Therefore, using “touch-timing” has a hunt-n-peck aspect to it which can become frustrating to the user. 

IMO, it’d be better to limit the variation of touch controls to 2 .. 

1) tap: to bring up a control dialog which includes current options (delete, clone, other-future-options)
2) tap-n-hold: as you have now to move the item. 

This will remove the touch-accidents and thus increase user confidence. 

Ang
Created: 22-Nov-09 14:23
David Hubbard
Nationality: United States
Certifications:
  • Club Race Officer
0
Angelo,

I agree.  First cut 'got it out the door'.  But playing on my own devices certainly shows the issue on tablets and mobile devices.

Stay tuned!  It is becoming more popular.  In fact 'Sailing World' just put out a video about 'Ducking' where the presenter used my tool.

Dave

Created: 22-Nov-09 14:47
P
John Allan
Nationality: Australia
Certifications:
  • National Judge
  • Regional Race Officer
0
Hi David,

Great looking app.

Don't let it get over complicated with all the bells and whistles.

Is there any way an instance can be shared among multiple online users?
Created: 22-Nov-13 13:05
P
Angelo Guarino
Nationality: United States
Certifications:
  • Regional Judge
  • Fleet Measurer
0
John, if you are collaborating in an interface like Zoom, the person who is screen-sharing can give control of their keyboard/mouse to another user.  Doing this, one can pass-off the controls to others.  

Is that what you were thinking ?
Created: 22-Nov-13 14:02
P
John Allan
Nationality: Australia
Certifications:
  • National Judge
  • Regional Race Officer
0
Yes, thanks Ang.

Despite 2 years of COVID, I'm very much a novice with Zoom etc.

Is it easy to do?

Do Teams, Google Meet and other apps have that functionality?

Obviously I'm thinking about on line hearings, where I've always had misgivings about a party gaining an (inadvertent) advantage through greate  technological literacy.

But i like the simplicity of Davids app.  I think its better than the US Sailing one in this regard.
Created: 22-Nov-13 22:30
P
Angelo Guarino
Nationality: United States
Certifications:
  • Regional Judge
  • Fleet Measurer
0
John, I think all the “meeting” apps have a “share my screen” option (some frame it as changing who the “presenter” is). Depending on the app, some require the “organizer” to approve screen sharing for the session or specific users … others don’t require such formal approval. 

It’s usually a button in the interface right along with the video and audio buttons. 

Ang

PS: I answered the changing presenter question above, but we are talking about handing off control. Some apps have the person “request control”, with the “owner” needed to accept the take-over.  Other apps the owner in control hands off control from a list of attendees. 
Created: 22-Nov-13 23:21
David Hubbard
Nationality: United States
Certifications:
  • Club Race Officer
0
Pretty much all the conferencing apps allow screen sharing and control.  I didn't bother with the complex issues of doing it in the application because of that.  I have used 4 of the systems.

Many, like Zoom, are also free, with some limitations on length of the meeting, number of members, etc...We use Zoom for all our Yacht Club board meetings for example.

You can pay usually for various advanced levels of use up to full enterprise scale.

And of course you can save the Sail-Board setup to a file and email it or otherwise share it to folks who can load it themselves.

Dave

Created: 22-Nov-14 01:43
Muby Metagora
Nationality: Indonesia
0
Nice one. Thanks for sharing
Created: 22-Nov-30 03:46
[You must be signed in to add a comment]
Cookies help us deliver our services. By using our services, you agree to our use of cookies. Learn more