Beginners Navigation Rally – Sunday 29th September 2013
Another clear, sunny day with light winds following the howling 50 knot wind
experienced the previous day all over Sydney. A great day for a rally and with 6
competitors and quite a few firsts were created with this rally. The first to use the new
GPS Data Loggers to track the competitors course, no rally masters in the Rally Box
(both were competing), no spotters required.
Competitors were Bill Carmody (Anxious) with Richard Adamson as crew, Alan Judge
(Arendal) without any crew, Tony and Mona Kalt (Conspiracy) with Programme
Developer, Phil Angilley as crew, John Spry (Kalinda) with Terry and Rochelle Stone as
crew, Alan and Carolyn Fraser (Sea Chant). Ken and Margie Stubbs were going to be
crew but Ken was a patient in hospital with a chest infection. Richard and Rene Chapman
(Nand V) with Richard’s father David and their regular RSYS crew plus the Murphy’s as
crew.
First boat away at 10:30 AM was Anxious followed at 4 minute intervals were Arendal,
Conspiracy, Kalinda and Sea Chant all with a nominated speed of 6 Knots. Nand V, with
a nominated speed of 8 knots, was last boat away at 10:54 AM. The Rally Master made a
miscalculation and forgot to allow for the 4 knot section for the 6 knot boats sending
Nand V off 7 minutes early and she caught and passed (safely) Sea Chant on the lengthy
6th leg.
While the crews prepared the BBQ lunch Phil and yours truly downloaded and imported
the tracks from each of the GPS Data Loggers into the programme which then calculated
the total error count for each boat. First mate of Sea Chant advised that they had
forgotten to turn their Data Logger on until almost to the end of the 1st leg.
Following a delightful lunch all gathered in the Founders Lounge to view the results
which were projected onto the back wall by a projector provided by Phil. After describing
the features of the new programme for firstly creating the course then being able to
import the track taken into the programme and individually calculate the errors and then
providing a total, the result were announce and each track was displayed for each
competitor.
6th place went to Arendal -1635.7 points lost,
5th place to Anxious – 1604.5 points lost,
4th to Kalinda – 1599.1 points lost.
Taking out the Bronze medal was Conspiracy – 1466.4 points lost.
The Silver was won by Nand V – 1392.7 points lost.
The winner of the Gold Medal was Sea Chant – 1379.2 points lost.
Sea Chant lost 600 point from not turning her Logger on but was far more accurate over
the rest of the course to gather in the other competitor for a very good win.
Once again I wish to thank Tony Kalt for his help with the development of the
programme with Phil Angilley. Everything worked perfectly on the day.
Sea Chants winning track (red) with the course shown in white can be viewed over page.
The blue line at the start indicates the error incurred by Sea Chant during the time the
Data Logger was not turned on.
When viewed in Google Earth, a competitor can zoom into each check point and view the
error report by clicking their mouse on the blue line. Refer pictures below.
Bronze Medal – Tony Kalt with Phil Angilley
Silver Medal – Rene & Richard Chapman
Gold Medal - Alan & Carolyn Fraser
Founders Lounge with Programme Developer
Phil Angilley in foreground