This week SAILX (a.k.a. Tacticat) will pass a nice threshold: more than half a million boats completing (legally) a race since we started.

That's a huge number!. And a nice accomplishment for a bunch of cat sailors that started this thing <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

Where we stand today?
- 4 servers in USA, Europe and Australia provide connectivity world-wide
- SAILX services (the racing mainly, but also the protest room, replay analysis and other functionalities) are available any time and any day (availability over 99.90%)
- More than 1000 starts per week
**** different race formats: fleet (70%), teams (25%), match-racing (5%)
**** different boat classes: laser-like (28%), catamaran (20%), skiff (22%), keel (18%), teams-boat (12%)

- Special races every day and every week and events with prizes almost every month (prizes usually trophies or GPS units but last year a couple of cats also).
- A team of seven juries struggle to cope with an average of 15 protests a day.
- The technical part (simulation software, connectivity, core technologies) is ok after several versions, after all this is not a bank application.
- The 'Behaviour issue' or how to moderate a (quite) anonymous and heterogeneous community interacting in the race course seems more or less under control.

Challenges we face in the near future
- Improve match-racing to the current fleet and team racing level
- The rules engine needs some important tweaks to address 'quantitative' rules (Rules 15 and 16.1, where the book requires for the right-of-way boat to give some room).
- Some effort has to be done to support non-english-speaking communities (although UK+USA+AUS+NZ sailors make 80% of the SAILX community)
- Having completed the migration from old Taticat to current SAILX we will move a step further to be able to provide SAILX services directly thru associated web sites.

SAILX is a free tool for sailors. We've started to work with sponsors and advertisers (someone has to pay) although a big effort is done to provide a clean interface.

You can find us at www.sailx.com

aestela
SAILX Admin

Armand good stuff man. Your project has come a long long way. I will be back in game when the clock gives me a few extra hours per day.

Robi, I hope you'll get nicely surprised.
Apart of the newer functionality the protest procedure has really changed the way people use SAILX/Tacticat.

Probably having everything recorded and being able to show what a poor sailor one is in the protest room forum makes people think twice.

a.

Personally I think there is quite a demand for a protest-free field, some people seem to protest for just about anything.
(The main reason I sail as a guest nowadays).

As I see it, there is a big difference between SAILX and real life. In real life the most important factor (hoe anders?) is boat handling, add setup and boat differences and you have a big dispersion of fleet across the field with also big differences at the buoys.

In SAILX all skippers are the same skipper, all the boats exactly the same boat (ultimate OD <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> ), that makes for very crowded roundings and minimum differences.
With boats sailing at high speeds and no risk of breaking the equipment nor personal injuries you can expect a lot of collisions and incidents (for a 24 boats race we expect some 10-20 collisions during a 10 minute race!).

To hope that sailors will not push the limits and the rules in those conditions is a bit 'naïve'. That's why we do need the protests, the incidents can be replayed later when sailors have somewhat cooled off, the rules in play can be discussed and we all learn.

It is curious how the average sailor ignores about some racing rules, everybody knows the starboard-port (R10), windward-leeward (R11) and clear-astern (R12) but there is a general misunderstanding of interiors (R18), luffing rights (R17) or room to tack (R19).


A-