L over One is flying...

A well organised Official Notice Board makes life easier for both you and sailors. This article is about positioning documents on your SailEvent virtual ONB with particular attention to changes to sailing instructions. 

Let’s start with a quick recap on the board’s Information section. It can contain some or all of –

• Documents, such as the Notice of Race and Sailing Instructions, that are often, though not necessarily, drafted by the organisers.;
• Links to other web pages – perhaps a weather station, a Welcome video, an invite to join a WhatsApp chat. The opportunities are boundless.
• A set of hearings-related forms – protest form, request for redress, time limits, etc.

They are all listed sequentially on the board; each opened with just one tap or click. 

Getting that sequence right is key. Each item in the list has a Display Order – a single character 0-9 or A-Z. Items are listed in display order sequence (numbers before letters). If more than one item has the same display order, they are listed in alphabetical order within their display order. Blank display orders (the default) come last.

So what does this mean for your ONB?

You probably want the most important documents to appear first, that’s usually the Notice of Race and the Sailing Instructions, so give them display orders, say, 1 and 2 respectively. Or A and B, the choice is yours.

Next up, amendments to the SIs. We recommend that you publish them as documents in their own right, not as Notices to Competitors but see below.

Give them all display order 3 (or C) and then, and this is important, name them consistently with their number as part of their name. For example Amendment to SIs No. 1, Amendment to SIs No. 2 and so on, or Change to the Sailing Instructions 01, Change to the Sailing Instructions 02, etc. 

What we are aiming for is something like this

However, when you publish a change to the SIs, you need to inform the competitors. A good way to do that is to take the option of automatically issuing a Notice to Competitors. The notice appears on the ONB and competitors are informed by text or email. But you still need the hoot and the flags!

Hearings forms all have display order H  so they naturally appear in about the middle with plenty of room before and after, above and below, for your own stuff. 

It’s easy to adjust display orders and item names so experiment and juggle things around to get the best look. In your SailEvent club app, it’s >Notice Boards from the menu then the docs and links tab.