Announcing Event Archiving

Now is the time to declutter!

As the northern hemisphere sailing season begins to wind down, many will be looking to declutter their records of past events but still keep them on file.

That’s where event archiving comes in. Think of it as deleting an event but with the option of resurrecting it later.

What’s more archiving removes personally identifiable information including helm and crew contact details and emergency contacts. That makes it easy to comply with privacy legislation such as the GDPR.

Archived events don’t normally appear in the list on the events page but you can see them via the selector switch . 

When you can see them, you can restore them with just one click.

Enjoy your new uncluttered desktop!

AI Decision Support for Protest Committees

The SailEvent Hearings app is an established and effective tool for managing protests and requests for redress. 

The app:

• Accepts online hearing request forms
• Publishes hearing schedules 
• Notifies the parties
• Documents decisions
• Makes sure that everything is posted correctly on the Official Notice Board. 

But can it do more? Can it help with the decision making process itself? 

That’s where Artificial Intelligence comes in. It’s way too early to trust AI with all decision making but initial results are striking. Take these recent incidents:

CASE 1

Facts found

1234 and 789 were both on port tack approaching the gybe mark. 1234 had an inside overlap on 789 at the zone. 1234 was 2 boat lengths from the mark still on port tack when 789 gybed inside her and 1234 capsized but no injury or physical damage. No turns were taken

Committee’s decision 

789 DSQ but redress for 1234 denied.

AI decision

789 is disqualified (DSQ) for breaking Rule 18.2(a)(1). 1234 is exonerated under Rule 43.1(b) for any potential breach of Rule 10.

CASE 2

Facts found

Prior to the start 274 and 262 were in the pre-start process. Both were on starboard tack with 262 to windward of 274. 262 tacked to port, followed by 274. 262 tacked back to starboard and 3 seconds later 274 started tacking to avoid 262. 262 had to alter course to windward to avoid contact with 274. No contact occurred, no boat took a penalty.

Committee’s decision 

274 is DSQ

AI decision

Protest upheld. 274 broke Rule 10 and Rule 13. 274 is disqualified (DSQ).

CASE 3 

Facts found

GBR1357 was on a beat to the final mark, a black inflatable. On reaching the expected location of the mark it was not to be seen. After looking for some time, and not wishing to miss the next race, GBR1357 retired. A boat well behind GBR1357 on the course found the mark drifting on the tide near the finish line, rounded it and was given a finish. The race officer was aware that the mark was out of position but took no action.

Committee’s decision 

GBR1357 RDGa

AI decision

Redress is given. GBR1357 is scored points equal to the average of her points in all other races in the series (RRS 64.2), and the race is not abandoned.

Impressed? We are, so we’ve implemented an option in the Hearings app to put Facts Found to an AI assistant to see what it says. If you like the answer, then use it, if not then you are still in control. 

This is an experiment to test the water. How good are AI decisions? How will protest committees react? 

There is potential here for decision making to be smarter and more consistent leading to calmer and fairer hearings. And that is good for sailors and volunteers alike.

When the opportunity arises, please give this aspect of AI a try and let us know your views. 

SailEvent at the 505 Worlds

The 2026 505 World Championships took place last week at Hayling Island Sailing Club. Sailing conditions were perfect, race management was top class, competition among the 90 entries from 10 countries was fierce and GER9251 won. Herzlichen Glückwunsch!

Why am I telling you this? Because this was SailEvent’s first world championship. We’ve done Europeans before but not a Worlds. 

SailEvent handled all the behind-the-scenes stuff from taking entries via a custom entry form to scheduling, documenting and publishing the single protest on the final day. All the while maintaining the ONB, keeping competitors informed and providing race management information. 

And the best thing about it from our point of view? Nobody mentioned the software! SailEvent did its job unobtrusively and effectively in the background as any good service should.

HISC Sailing Supervisor Theo Galyer said, "Having worked alongside SailEvent to help shape its functionality, it’s a genuine pleasure to use. Its simplicity, speed and efficiency make a real difference when operating under pressure."

You can read all about the event here

A New SailEvent App for PROs

It’s championship time in the Northern Hemisphere. And where there’s a championship there’s usually a Principle Race Officer making sure the event goes well. 

Enter the SailEvent PRO App.

Positioned between the main SailEvent club app and the race team app, PRO provides a set of functions for management in the run up to and during an event: 

• Immediate access to the entry list and notice board.
• Pin items to the notice board.
• Publish Notices to Competitors.
• Review and modify sailing sessions.
• See what’s happening today in terms of who’s signed afloat and who’s ashore. (But only if you use eTally; if you rely on old-school rubber bands, sorry, can’t help you.)
• Set protest time limits.

The link to the app is in >Settings >Apps, help is in >Help and we’d really appreciate your feedback on this one. Do we have the mix of functionality right – anything missing, anything not needed, tweaks required? 

Looking forward to hearing from you. 

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.

Protest!! Announcing SailEvent Hearing Management

Sailing is a self-policing sport and the long arm of the RRS law is the protest form. It’s often said that in club racing nobody reads the Sailing Instructions and nobody protests but, as you climb the ladder via open meetings and championships to the top, so the number of protests increases reaching, at times, dizzying heights.

But, at whatever level, sailors have the right to protest, or request redress, when they believe they have been wronged. The process starts with requesting a hearing and continues until a decision is published and, when warranted, scores are updated.

That’s where SailEvent Hearing Management comes in. It takes hearing requests through the flow from form submission, via initial vetting, scheduling hearings and notifying parties, to recording and publishing decisions. All online and all with the minimum hassle.

Starting with the Racing Rules of Sailing Part 5, Hearing Management adds Rule 42 and combines them with SailEvent data for maximum effectiveness. 

Here are just some of the features 

• Online protest and request for redress forms readily available on the virtual ONB.
• Initial vetting to filter out, for instance, results queries and invalid requests.
• Hearings scheduled to time and place, published on the ONB and all parties informed by text or email.
• Decision recording and publication.
• Scoring update checklist.

RRS Part 5 underwent a complete rewrite for the 2025-2028 edition. Its implementation in SailEvent has been thoroughly tested during 2025 with events up to European Championship level. However the Racing Rules of Sailing are always subject to interpretation in the light of experience and even personal preference. Consequently the SailEvent development team is open to all suggestions for improvement and fine tuning so, please, try this exciting new feature and let us have your feedback.

Kicking off 2026 with a new version of the Race Team app

Our first post of 2026 and there are exciting developments in store for SailEvent. We are kicking off with a new version of the Race Team app.

First a quick recap. As its name suggests, the app is an aid for Race Officers and their colleagues to use on the day. It tells them who to expect on the start line and whether they are safely ashore. The app can publish the course, keep track of patrol boats and manage the day in terms of times and races run. It works equally well on phones, tablets and computers.

The update includes minor changes such as rationalising the tab order and cosmetic improvements, but the major new features are:

Fleet Summary

The app now opens with counts of sailors by fleet so you can see straightaway how many to expect on the start line.

After racing, you can see at a glance if all are safely ashore.

 

Safety Check

It’s now even quicker to see exactly who, hopefully no one, is unaccounted for. Choose Safety from the Select (was Sort) drop-down.

Tap a name to bring up their details, most likely including their mobile. On a phone, tap their number to give them a call...

“Hello Jim, where are you? “

“Nearly home”

“ (inaudible) “

...and stand down the RIBs.

New eTally Icons

Feedback suggested they could be clearer so now we have

A round symbol means the sailor eTallied him or herself. Round = they go round the course? Square means marked off by the race team. I’ll leave you to devise with your own cue!

 

The new RT app is available now. Instructions for use are in app, get started via the >Help menu and, as soon as the Northern Hemisphere weather allows, please give it a go and let us have your feedback.

A Sailwave Hack for Christmas

That’s ‘hack’ in the sense of something ingenious, if unorthodox, that you do on your own computer to achieve some benign end, NOT a nefarious and malicious action by a baddie. 

And this benign hack doesn’t actually affect Sailwave itself. And it’s more for the Spring, when Northern Hemisphere sailing gets going, than Christmas. 

But otherwise there’s nothing wrong with that title at all. 

This story concerns the SailEvent Import App for Sailwave. The app runs on your computer alongside Sailwave and lets you load entry lists directly from SailEvent into a Sailwave series, then keep them synchronised, all without any intermediate files. It works well.

From the outset, the app was intended to run as a Sailwave plugin but, understanding that Sailwave could not implement that immediately, we provided a front-end to identify the target Sailwave file.

Nevertheless we contacted Mr Sailwave, who we know well, with a view to implementing it as a proper plugin. This is where we, or to be precise I your correspondent, shot ourselves in the corporate foot by pointing out that, as plugins are a fertile ground for Sailwave extensions, why not add identifiable apps  to the plugin menu automatically. Mr Sailwave agreed. It hasn’t happened yet so our app remains unplugged but it will do soon, won’t it, Jon?!

Meanwhile here’s the hack to add the SailEvent Import App as a Sailwave plugin. It revolves around replacing an existing plugin that you don’t use – let’s go for Send Competitors to RRS.org. Proceed as follows.

1. Install the latest version of the Import App from SailEvent’s >Set Up >Integrations page.

2. Locate SEImport.exe in your computer’s file system. This is not as easy as you might think! If a basic file search doesn’t find it, try this:

2.1 Open the Import App in Windows.

2.2 Open Windows Task Manager and find SE Import on its Processes tab.

2.3 Right click it and choose Open file location.

3. When you’ve found it, copy SEImport.exe and Newtonsoft.Json.dll into your Sailwave installation folder. That’s usually at C:\Program Files (x86)\Sailwave.

4. Now the hack – rename SWRRS.exe to, say, realswrrs.exe, then rename SEImport.exe to SWRRS.exe.

5. Open a new Sailwave series, select Send Competitors to RRS.org from the Plugins menu, and the Import App opens ready for you to connect the Sailwave series to its corresponding SailEvent event 

To remove the hack either undo the renaming or reinstall Sailwave.

   🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄   

Season’s greetings from the SailEvent team and we look forward to working with you in 2026.

What do you mean, it's not in class?

This post is a light-hearted rant about sailing’s lax terminology. 

Starting with “sailing”! Is it pottering or is it racing? For our purposes, it is that activity governed by the Racing Rules of Sailing excluding Appendices B, C, D and F. Obvious when you think about it!

More significantly, what’s a “class”? Is it a) a group of similar boats racing together, b) a type of boat such as a Solo or an Optimist, or c) an organisation representing a type of boat? All three are used from time to time. 

And what, in the sailing world, is the name for that which others might call a competition. Candidates include series, regatta, meeting, open, championship and so on; even just “racing” as in evening racing. Each  has its own subtle meaning but it would be helpful if there were one generic term that covers them all. Fortunately the RRS seems to have come to our aid. Prior to the 2020 edition it used the clumsy race or series. Subsequently it’s been (mostly) event even if an event happens to be a series! 

Does this lack of uniformity matter or is it all part of the charm and mystique of our idiosyncratic yet wonderful pastime? The trouble starts when computers get involved (always the way, I hear you say). Computers like to have the same name for the same kind of thing wherever it is used. Actually, with a bit of effort, this can be worked around – take Sailwave and its variable column headings. The major issue is with documentation – how to describe processing a class when class means different things to different people? 

SailEvent’s approach is to align, more or less, with Sailwave. So a class is a set of boats with the same design, either identical or conforming to a rule – Optimist, ILCA7, Fireball, J70. A fleet is a set of boats competing against each other, either all of the same class – a one-design fleet – or a mixture of classes – a handicap fleet.

When one or more fleets compete on one or more related occasions, SailEvent is with the RRS – that’s an event. It’s an event in HalSail too but a series in Sailwave. Ho hum.

Terminology is something of a hobbyhorse for the SailEvent team – we touch on it elsewhere - because we believe it’s important. Way back the RYA convened a meeting of sailing software developers and, among other things, asked us to address this very issue. It hasn’t happened! What do you think? There’s a comments box below...

New Competitor Fields

 We’ve added some handy new fields to competitor records. They are:

• Boat Name
• Nationality
• Gender
• Division

These fields can appear on entry forms, be exported and imported, synchronise with Sailwave via the Importer app, and be upload into Halsail.

Division is anything you want for populating the Sailwave Division column. For instance Gold/Silver/Bronze or Master/Grand Master/Legend.

To compliment the new fields, we have added to the portfolio of SailEvent built-in entry forms. You can now choose from:

• Dinghy Club
• Dinghy Open
• Dinghy Championship
• Cruiser Club 
• Cruiser Open
• Cruiser Championship

Select them on the event set-up page to preview.

Recognising that the built-in forms will not meet all requirements, the new fields are also fully supported by the Jotform integration and custom forms. 

If there are other commonly used competitor-related fields to be added, please let us know. 

Announcing GPS Resource Tracking

“Where’s that RIB gone?”, is a question many a race officer has asked themselves. Often a quick look round provides the answer but it can be less obvious with a big race area, multiple patrol boats and other craft, and maybe murky weather.

SailEvent Resource Tracking lets you see the latest reported GPS location of things on a chartlet on your phone, tablet or computer. 

A thing in this context is anything to which you can attach a GPS tracker. Typically that’s a RIB or committee boat but it could equally be a racing mark, a representative competitor or even the PRO!

GPS trackers can be dedicated devices, either rechargeable or wired in. Or more simply, a free app turns any phone into a very acceptable tracker.

Resource tracking is most likely to be of interest to larger clubs so unlimited use is available only with SailEvent Plus plans. But you can try it out with the Free (1 tracker) and Club (2) plans so why not give it a go. All you need to get started is that free phone app.

Full instructions are in Help. Let us know how you get on. The most innovative use gets a free round of applause.😀

Seven Good Reasons For Using SailEvent - Part 4 of 4

We've already looked at knowledge, consistency, adaptability, communications, automation and integration. Now the grand finale...

No 7 It’s expected!

SailEvent is end-to-end phone friendly because today’s sailors expect to access the world on their mobile. And that’s good for event organisers too because, via SailEvent, they have a direct line to virtually all participants.

The policy is phone-first because that’s where over half of all web requests originate. Yet SailEvent is equally at home on tablets, laptops and desktops. 

With SailEvent you can do everything from putting your name down for club racing to running a world championship, all on that ubiquitous little device.

And a bonus reason - it’s free!

SailEvent’s Basic subscription tier is completely free yet provides all the functionality needed by many clubs and classes. It is limited only by capacity. 

That means it’s easy to get started with Basic SailEvent then upgrade as your usage grows.

 

Register 

Seven Good Reasons For Using SailEvent - Part 3

Knowledge, consistency, adaptable, communications and now...

No 5 Automation

Tell SailEvent to do the boring stuff and it keeps on doing it. That leaves your volunteers free to concentrate on more important matters.

SailEvent accepts entries, sends confirmations, reminds competitors that there’s sailing today, puts up, takes down and collates signing sheets, and even pins the course to the notice board.

No 6 Integration

SailEvent works with a portfolio of services and applications to bring you the best possible software experience.

Jotform for building custom entry forms,

Stripe for collecting entry fees.

Sailwave and HalSail for results publication,

Yachts & Yachting for publicity 

and more...

Next up, the grand finale...

Seven Good Reasons For Using SailEvent - Part 2

Last time we looked at how SailEvent provides insights and supports the implementation of consistent event management.

Here are two more good reasons for choosing SailEvent.

No 3 Adaptable

No two sailing events are the same! 

Sailors are an ingenious bunch and devise many variations on the standard theme. All sailing events (probably) all have an entry list, races, winners and losers but the devil is in the detail. That’s why SailEvent can be configured for all known eventualities, and most likely some as yet unknown too. So, for everything from what goes on the ONB to how many meal tickets, SailEvent has it covered.

No 4 Communication 

Configurable virtual ONBs, Notices to Competitors, reminders that sailing is on today, entry confirmation... 

Email, text and push notifications mean it’s never been easier to keep in touch with competitors. SailEvent leverages today’s technology to keep competitors informed promptly and efficiently.

Good Reasons 5 and 6 coming soon...

Seven Good Reasons For Using SailEvent - Part 1

In the temperate zones of the northern hemisphere, where a lot of sailing goes on, plans for the 2025 season are turning into reality. Here are seven good reasons why your club or class association should choose SailEvent to help your sailing programme run smoothly.

No. 1 Knowledge

Know who has entered, who is sailing today, who has finished sailing. No more spreadsheet hell and undecipherable paperwork. 

It’s all down to SailEvent’s single, central entry list held securely in the cloud. Multiple views and multiple access levels control its availability yet it’s the one and only place that holds all data for all competitors – up to date, secure, backed-up and available 24/7. 

No. 2 Consistent

SailEvent provides a repeatable, reliable yet flexible way to managing all events.

Implement your club or class methodology so that it is consistently applied from club racing to championships. Volunteers may come and go but ground rules defined in SailEvent remain the same. Established your way of working, SailEvent applies it to every event.

Two more good reasons coming soon...

SailEvent and the Yachts & Yachting Calendar

90% of UK clubs and classes plus many worldwide list their events in the searchable Yachts & Yachting online calendar. That makes the calendar a great place for sailors to find racing and for organisers to promote their open meetings and championships.

The SailEvent Y&Y submitter is a quick and accurate way to submit calendar entries straight from SailEvent. It takes information that SailEvent already knows and, with just a couple of clicks, sends your event details to YachtsAndYachting.com for immediate and automatic listing. 

With planning for the northern hemisphere 2025 season well underway, now is the time to start your publicity campaign with a Y&Y calendar entry. The submitter is available at all SailEvent subscription levels and you can read all about it here (pdf 116Kb).

Speaking of Sailwave...

...as we were in our previous post about syncing with SailEvent, Sailing Club Software has contributed a publishing effect to Sailwave’s effects library.

It’s called the Pager and shows results, fleet by fleet, in a continuous cycle, ideal for display on a screen in the clubhouse. When applied to a Sailwave series file, the Pager shows the first fleet in the series then moves on to the next. When it gets to the end it starts again from the top.

Each fleet is shown for a default 25 seconds but you can adjust that. The default number of visible rows per fleet is about 20 so the Pager is best suited to multiple small fleet series, such as club racing. For championships and open meetings with fewer, bigger fleets there’s the Scroller effect.

The Pager effect isn’t directly part of SailEvent but it does present a neat finale to SailEvent’s flow from entry form to results. It’s included in all recent versions of Sailwave and we hope you find it useful.

Import App for Sailwave

Here at Sailing Club Software we like to work in harmony with others who also offer systems and services to the leisure boating community. This, we firmly believe, is the optimum way to bring value to clubs and classes.

That’s why SailEvent comes with integrations to multiple apps. Today we focus on the ones for results services – HalSail and Sailwave.

HalSail, like SailEvent, is cloud based and so integration is straightforward using established technologies. Working together, SailEvent and HalSail offer seamless connectivity for exchanging entry lists and finish status.  That means accurate results published in record time.

Sailwave is trickier because it is strictly desktop. Nevertheless with cooperation and ingenuity we can now introduce the SailEvent Import App for Sailwave.

The Import App is a Windows application that lets you synchronise SailEvent entry lists to their corresponding Sailwave series files. No more downloading and uploading CSVs.

Suppose you are running a Solo meeting and you have 50 entries in SailEvent. Open the corresponding, but as yet empty, Sailwave series file. Run the Import App to connect the series to the Solo meeting in SailEvent. All 50 entries are copied straight into Sailwave.

Then you have some last-minute entries, a couple of cancellations, you correct a few typos. Run Import again and Sailwave is back in sync.

The Import App is available with SailEvent paid-for plans. The installation package and instructions can be downloaded from >Settings >Integrations.

Many thanks to Jon Eskdale from Sailwave for his advice and input.

Digital Event Calendars

In our previous post we introduced SailEvent Digital Posters as an effective way to publicise your club’s sailing activities. We signed off with a hint that several posters in chronological order make a Digital Calendar. Here’s an example of what one might look like -

You can have multiple calendars – for instance one for club racing and another for open meetings. (Subscription plan dependent.)

Just like posters, calendars are customisable. You can change the background and heading to give each calendar its own look and feel.

Every calendar has a link for publication on websites, in emails and on social media. I really neat way is to embed a calendar inside a page on your club website: technically it’s called an iframe. Ask your webmaster to set one up (there are plugins for WordPress) and then you have complete no-code control over your calendar from within SailEvent.

Set up your calendars in >Settings >Calendars ready for the next (Northern Hemisphere) season.

Digital Event Posters

You’ve got your open meeting organised, volunteers lined up, NoR and SIs thoroughly checked, band booked. Now all you need are competitors.

The traditional way to spread the word was via paper posters pinned to noticeboards. Who knew who reads them and how effective they were.

SailEvent digital posters are the digital alternative for quickly reaching a wide audience via links on club and class websites, in emails and texts, and through social media.

Simple to create, easily distributed and with the entry form and other key information only a click away. Here’s an example:

Words, colours and images are all customisable and there can be up to seven action buttons giving instant access to

• Entry form
• Entry list (always complete and up to date)
• Notice of Race
• Sailing Instructions
• Official Notice Board
• Results
• Any additional information

Set up is in the new Posters section on the Events page. 

A list of posters in date order is an event calendar. That’s the topic of our next blog post.