Recording Timings

Recording start and finish times is the core of race management. Sailboat Racing supports both standard finish-line timing and lapping race timing.

Recording the Start Time

Each start line has its own start time:

Go to the race detail page
In the start line section, click the Record Start Time clock button
The start time is used to calculate elapsed times for all entries on that start line

You can change or clear a recorded start time if needed.

Starting Sequence (optional)

Instead of capturing the start time by hand, you can run a countdown that captures it for you. This is optional: the manual clock button still works exactly as before, and you never have to use the sequence.

Each start line shows a Start sequence control with three options:

5 min starts a five minute sequence immediately
3 min starts a three minute sequence immediately
Schedule lets you pick the wall clock time of the gun, then counts down to it

Once armed, a countdown card appears for that start line:

It turns blue while waiting for a scheduled sequence to begin, orange while running, and red in the final minute before the gun
It sounds the signals as a race officer expects them: for a five minute sequence at five, four, one and zero minutes, and for a three minute sequence at three, two, one and zero minutes. Five short pips lead into each signal, followed by a longer signal beep at the mark
The time pulses for the ten seconds before each signal so you have a visual cue alongside the sound
Restart re-arms the same duration from now; Cancel stops the sequence without recording anything

At the gun the start time is captured automatically into the same field the clock button writes to, so the rest of the race works identically however the time was recorded. You can still change or clear it afterwards.

The sequence runs in your browser as a live aid for the race officer. It is not shared between devices, so arm it on the device you are timing from.

It is remembered on that device: if you leave the race page or reload the browser, an armed sequence is picked up again when you come back, still counting down to the same gun time. If the gun went off while you were away the sequence is dropped rather than recorded for you, so enter that start time yourself. A sequence is also dropped if a start time has been recorded for that line in the meantime, so it can never overwrite a time you entered by hand.

Sound needs one tap to start (the browser only allows audio after you interact with the page), which happens the first time you arm a sequence. After a reload, the signals become audible again at your next tap or key press.

Recording Finish Times

For each entry:

Find the entry in the race entry list
Click to record their finish time
Enter the finish time

The Finish Queue

As boats approach the line, tap a sail number to add that boat to the finish queue. Queue them in the order you expect them to cross. Each queued boat appears as a chip above the entry list, and queued boats move to the top of the list so you are not scrolling to find them. While boats are queued, the Entries heading becomes the queue heading, showing how many boats are waiting and which one is next, for example QUEUE (3) · NEXT 1234.

Tap a sail number to queue that boat. Tapping a boat that is already queued bumps it to the front, which is what you want when boats overtake near the line. Each chip has an ✕ to remove a boat you queued by mistake
Press the spacebar to record the current time for the highlighted boat at the head of the queue. The queue then advances to the next boat automatically

The boat that the next spacebar press will time is always highlighted: it is named in the heading, shown as the head chip, and ringed on its card. After each capture the boat leaves the queue and the highlight advances to the next boat (and, in a standard race, the timed boat drops into the Finished group), so you can keep a steady rhythm without an interrupting popup.

The spacebar only records a time while there are boats in the queue, so on a race page you have just opened it still scrolls the page as usual. It is also ignored while you are typing in a text field (such as the filter or a time input).

On a phone or tablet

There is no keyboard on touch devices, so whenever the queue has a boat in it a sticky action bar appears at the bottom of the screen:

The large button shows the boat at the head of the queue, for example Finish 1234 (or Lap 1234 in a lapping race). Tap it to record the current time for that boat, exactly as the spacebar does
Skip removes the head boat from the queue without recording a time, for a boat that retired at the line or was queued by mistake

The bar disappears once the queue is empty, so it never covers the entry list while you are editing.

You build the queue the same way as on desktop (tap sail numbers), and you can always time a boat out of order by tapping its card's own capture button instead, which also removes it from the queue.

How a press behaves depends on the race format:

Standard race: the spacebar records the head boat's finish time. The boat leaves the queue and drops into a dimmed Finished group at the bottom of the list, keeping the still-racing boats clear at the top
Lapping race: the spacebar logs the head boat's next lap. The boat leaves the queue and keeps racing; tap it again the next time it crosses to record its following lap

Stamping a boat with its card button (rather than the spacebar) also removes it from the queue, so the two never drift apart.

Filtering the Entry List

A search box above the entries filters the list as you type. You can search by sail number, helm or crew name, boat class, or division — for example, type "Masters" to show only boats entered in the Masters division. The matching count is shown next to the Entries heading.

By default the list is grouped by boat class and then ordered by sail number. Sail numbers sort naturally, so "2" comes before "21" and "100" (not in plain alphabetical order). Boats you have added to the finish queue move to the top of the list, in queue order.

Time Display Modes

You can toggle between three display modes:

Mode	Shows
Clock Time	The actual time of day (e.g. 14:32:15)
Elapsed Time	Time since the start (e.g. 0:45:15)
Elapsed Seconds	Time since the start shown as total seconds (e.g. 2715)

All modes record the same data - it's just a display preference for the race officer. This can be useful when results are inputted after the fact, or when the clock time is not known.

Changing or Clearing Finish Times

If you made a mistake you can click details on the entry: - Change - click on the recorded time and enter the correct value - Clear - remove the finish time entirely (e.g. if you recorded it against the wrong entry)

When changing a time, you can move freely between the hours, minutes and seconds fields (by typing, Tab or the arrow keys) without losing your place - the field only saves once you finish typing and pause, or once you click or tab away to something else, so a change in progress is never sent half-made.

If you need to review history of changes, you can go to the edit view to see all recorded times and edits.

Timing on a Poor Connection

Timing is designed to work on the connection you actually have on the water, which is often none at all.

Every timing is saved on your device the moment you record it. Pressing the spacebar, tapping the capture button, recording a start time, marking a boat DNF or changing the race status all write to your device first, before anything is sent. Nothing waits for the network, so a slow or missing signal cannot make you miss a boat, and there is no error message to dismiss while boats are still crossing.

Timings are then sent to the server in the background, in the order you recorded them. If the connection is bad they keep retrying on their own until they get through. You can carry on timing throughout.

A capture stays on screen the whole way through, with no flash once it's sent. The screen doesn't wait for a round trip to the server to show what you just recorded, and it doesn't briefly hide it again once the server has it either - the boat's card shows the time continuously from the moment you capture it.

The sync strip tells you where things stand. It appears under the race title only when something is waiting:

"3 timings waiting to save" in amber means they are safe on your device and still being sent. This only appears once a timing has been waiting for a few seconds - most captures reach the server well before that, so the strip does not flash on and off for every boat you time. This is normal on a poor connection and needs nothing from you
"1 needs attention" in red means the server rejected a timing outright, which usually means a permissions or data problem rather than a connection one. This shows immediately, since it needs your attention. Tap Review to see what it was, then Retry it or Discard it. Discarding removes the timing for good
Nothing shown means everything has reached the server (or is still within the first few seconds of trying)

Your timings survive a reload, a browser crash and a flat battery, and so does the finish queue: reopening the race picks up both where you left off. If you try to close the page while timings are still waiting, the browser asks you to confirm.

Provisional results exclude timings that have not been sent yet. Positions are worked out by the server, so while anything is waiting the results table is dimmed and labelled with how many timings are missing from it. It refreshes on its own once everything has been sent, and it will not say Final results while anything is still waiting.

If you have finished a race entirely offline, keep the page open once you get back into signal until the sync strip disappears.

What Happens After Recording

Once a race has start times and finish times recorded:

Elapsed times are calculated automatically
If the series uses corrected time scoring, handicap-corrected times are computed
Race results and positions are generated
Series standings are updated