This function enables to follow and analyse the competitors’ strategy :
- Automatic reception of the positions,
- Full competitor’s data while approaching the mouse (mean speed and haeding, boat’s name…),
- Replay of the competitor’s tracks,
- Routing one or several competitors…
It also provides the ranking for the IRC or HN races.
Thanks to its multiples functions, this tool is useful for anyone :
- For offshore racing skippers to improve their strategy against their competitors,
- For the on shore teams to follow the race and focus ontheir boat,
- For the IRC crews to calculate the rankings,
- For the race directors (see Claire Renou testimony)
Claire Renou testimony, Solitaire du Figaro Eric Bompard Cachemire 2012 race direction
One of the main task of race management on shore is to follow day to day the competitors track on the course.
To do so, we are given data to visualise the whole fleet at any time 24h a day.
First of all, the boats are all equiped with a positioning system that is sending a file including position and speed for each boat evey x minutes. This file is integrated in the ADRENA software, so we can visualise the whole fleet positions on a chart as well as the evolution of each competitor during the race.
We share the same data with the skippers.
Like them, we download weather prediction files so we can anticipate their route by launching routing calculation and estimate an ETA to prepare at the best their arrival at stopover city.
And more the ADRENA chart including the boat positioning enable to check that all competitor follow the race course passing all the buoys and to visualise, if speed goes down or if heading is erratic, whether they are encountering a problem…
During Solitaire du Figaro Eric Bompard Cachemire 2021, we had few case like this where boats were not sailing the « right » course or that their speed was suspecting a problem on board.
To conclude, this system also enables, in case of abandon, to follow the competitor until its safe harbour and in the worst case, that is to say (capsize, major medical problem…) to help them for research and rescue of boat and skipper.
Hopefully, during Solitaire du Figaro Eric Bompard 2012, we didn’t have to deal with these extreme problems (only few abandons and one medical problem) so the tracking has mainly been done on managing the race and anticipate the arrivals.