Options Button (on the lower black bar)
The Options button opens a page to allow you to configure a number of different aspects of Boat Timer.
Options – Events
Events and Series (series and events are the same thing in Boat Timer) are a way to group races – or more specifically starts – together.
Events have the settings that control how to score a series or event. This is a new feature of Boat Timer so more details on this will be added in the future.
In the results, if a start is in an event the event name is shown above the table for that start. You can put a start into an event by editing the race and selecting the event name in the drop-down box for the start like this:
If your club is hosting an open event you probably do not want to add visitors to your Boat Park. So tick the “Open Event” box on the event and boats will now be added to a new Boat Park only used for starts in that event. Open Events also have the option (in the Entries – Class page) to add all boats in one class to each start as this saves time when the same fleets are racing in each race.
You can export results for each start to a CSV file to produce series or events results in programs such as Sailwave or to import them into a spreadsheet.
Options – Countries
For international events you can assign a country to each boat. There is a default list of countries which for the UK is a selection of larger countries combined with many European countries. You can use the Countries option to add or remove countries from this list. You must use a three-character country code as well as a country name (as the Olympic Games do for dinghies).
Deleted countries are not removed from the database but hidden from the app. They can be restored from the “Show Deleted Countries” page.
Options – Classes
The intial class list in Boat Timer is from the RYA Portsmouth Yardstick class list. You can add to this list or remove boats from the list. Deleted classes are hidden rather than deleted and can be restored from the “Show Deleted Classes” page.
All ratings have a baseline value of 1000 so if you are using a rating system that has a baseline of 100 (for example) you will need to multiply by ten to use it in Boat Timer. A new rating system can be defined in any class page.
In each class you can change the rating value by selecting the rating system/type, entering a new number and pressing the “Update Class” button.
By default the Boat Timer app comes with the Portsmouth Yardstick and Great Lakes rating systems already defined. The rating values are updated every year by their organisers and added to the Boat Timer default database. You can update the values manually if your club uses a different rating or if the rating changes when updates are published each year.
There is more information about rating systems in this blog article.
Options – Boat Park
The Boat Park is where your club’s boats are kept after entering a race for the first time. You can delete boats from the Boat Park, but they will not be permanently deleted from the database (but will be hidden) unless they have never taken part in a race .
You cannot have the same class and sail number twice in the Boat Park. However as a Laser Radial and a Laser are different classes the same boat may appear more than once with the same sail number as a different class “variation”.
If a boat changes hands between club members it may be best to delete it and then create a new boat. This is because each boat has a unique identifier in Boat Timer, so editing the boat to change the sailor’s name would mean that sailor could be credited with all results for that boat rather than just future ones, although that is fairly unlikely to cause problems unless you go back to previous races and re-publish the results.
Options – Switch to Race Entry Mode
You can set the app up for competitors to sign themselves on to the race, rather than the race team adding each boat. Race Entry Mode makes this simpler as it shows only the sign-on page rather than the rest of the app. To switch back out of the mode, there is a single option Switch to Normal Mode in the options menu.
Options – Cloud Services
Cloud Services allow you to send and receive information from the Boat Timer cloud database. This can be used to save race information and share it between devices, show the progress of a race on another computer or allow competitors to sign on from their own devices. Because cloud services do incur costs, there is a charge for this. Cloud Services are not available yet. Please email timer@rotor-rig.com for more information.