Winter ’26 Update on Regatta Hero:
For those sailors and skippers who are participating in the Tuesday races want to use Regatta Hero (RH) to track your starts, finishes and results, here are a few notes to help you get the most out of RH.
- If you haven’t already downloaded and installed RH, it works on both iPhones and most Android phones. Go to your iPhone App Store or Android Play Store and download Regatta Hero. When you first start it up, follow the instructions for the one-time setup procedures. You’ll be asked to enter your Organization: “scyc” and your Passcode: “517949” (without the quotes). You’ll also be asked to edit your Registration Data; it’s self-explanatory. The only thing that’s new this season is we no longer ask you to enter your boat name in the Sail Number field, or your sail number in the Boat Name field. That was a work-around to get the reporting and playback features to better identify the boats, but those problems have been fixed, so now just enter the information straight, as the app requests. For “Team”, enter whatever you like (e.g., the skipper’s name). For “Handicap”, enter your PHRF rating.
- One part of the initial one-time setup that’s less intuitive, are the special settings your phone needs to have adjusted in order for its GPS to accurately record your track.
- These are described on the “Welcome to Regatta Hero” screen shown to new users. For existing users, press the “About Regatta Hero” button to review this screen.
- Also on this screen is a button urging you to “Read Installation Tutorial (!)”. That takes you to a screen with a button labeled “App Installation”. You’ll be shown specifics for both iOS Apple phones and for Android phones.
- If you have an Android phone, please pay special attention to the setup instructions for location tracking. As you will learn, there are specialized tracking issues due to the fact that the Android operating system is open source, and so each manufacturer is free to tweak their tracking settings. Some of them have made tweaks that actually defeat some RH functionality and cause some really bizarre (and useless) tracks to be recorded. RH provides detailed instructions for re-enabling proper GPS tracking on your particular phone.
- For those of you who have been successfully using the RH app for Tuesday races (most of our racers), I hope you have been enjoying it and taking advantage of its features both to participate in the races, and to study the replays after each race. To review some recommendations and Tuesday race practices:
- Before the race, be sure your phone is charged and carried on your person (floating waterproof bags are sold at West Marine). Log in to RH at least a half hour before the start. For the current winter races, the start time is 3:00p. Because fewer boats are racing now, due to the early start time, we are currently only running one fleet and one start time. When asked to “Choose Regatta”, there’s currently only one choice, “Tues Fleet B”. When we get back to summer racing, we’ll re-active the A Fleet and the Spinnaker fleet.
- Also, note the course selected for the race. The Race Officer typically sends out an announcement on the app, identifying the course, which corresponds to one of those on the Course Card you received after you signed up for the Tuesday races. After you select the “Participate” button, you’re taken to the race start screen (orange header), which indicates the chosen Course (e.g., “S5”), and shows the start time in big, bold letters. As the start approaches, it switches to a countdown timer, accompanied by horns and verbal announcements. The start time is announced and reinforced by a horn. To hear these events, be sure that your speaker volume is turned all the way up (same volume as for your ring tone).
- If, as the start horn sounds on your app, you see that you are over early, it’s on you to go back and start again. The app is not designed to call out racers who are over early. But this is sail racing, where much of it depends on the honor system, and racers are expected to obey the rules even if nobody is watching.
- When you reach the finish line, it’s only marked by one buoy, and is the imaginary extension of a line running from a landmark on the shore, extending through the finish mark, and running 200 feet beyond. As you pass through that line, it’s advisable to sail straight on until you hear the app blow a horn and announce that you’ve crossed the finish. Some boats have instead rounded the finish mark and immediately turned for the harbor, and RH did not catch their finish, so they were marked DNF.
- After the last boat in the fleet finishes, RH blows a horn on all sailors’ apps and displays an announcement that lists all boats, the order of finish (by corrected time), and everybody’s time.
- All boats can immediately access the RH race replay, by clicking on the Share icon at the top of the screen. This takes you to a screen called “Mapviewer URL (Spectator)”. From there, you can open the link in your phone’s browser, or you can send it to yourself or others by text, email or other means. It’s possible to view on a phone, but much better on a larger screen. Racers and others can also view the Mapviewer live during the race, although this is quite distracting if you’re trying to race a boat.
- The race replay has loads of useful information, too much to go into here. I recommend you go to the online help to learn more. The “About Regatta Hero” button will take you there (see item #2 above).
- After you’ve finished racing, please remember to “Leave the regatta” (on the racing screen), and then to “Log out”.
- There have been several useful new features added to RH this year. Some of the most requested are:
- Save multiple Logins (useful for people who race, but also serve as mark setters, or as race officers, or who race under a different organization). To save different logins, or to access those you’ve saved, before you hit the orange “Log in” button, instead touch the “Enter login data” button. On the small pop-up screen that appears, you’ll see a small button with three dots at the right end of the Organization line. Touch it and you’ll be shown all the different logins you’ve used before. Select one, then click Ok, and you’re ready to Log in.
- Save multiple boats (useful for people who race on more than one boat). After you’ve logged in and chosen your regatta, the next step is to touch little triangle on the orange Participate button. If you’ve saved more than one boat, you can select your choice for the current race, and its Registration data will be used. Tought the Participate button and proceed to the racing screen (the orange Participate button will indicate your choice by saying “Participate as <boat name>”. To add a new set of registration data, there’s an option on the list of boats that says “New…”.
- As always, I’m happy to assist with any questions you may have about RH. Please feel free to call, text or email me, or find me at the club.
Doug Mahone, Avatar
(916) 541-6607
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