Name: delivery.jpg Views: 817 Size: 45.3 KBA possible assist for the race committee is to ask racers to volunteer and enable their on board smart phones to share location with Google Latitude as they sail the course. Here is how it would work:

0) The RC establishes a Google acct with the Latitude feature for use during the race and makes this acct name available to racers.
1) Each volunteer racer sets up a google email account and enables Latitude, a Google feature.
2) Each racer "friends" the RC's acct. and the RC acknowledges same.
3) Each racer adds an App (BackTiTude[free] and Motion X are examples) to their smart phone. This is set up for timed release of position data per the apps features.
- The reason for the App is to reduce power consumption of the smart phone and only connect to the cell phone system at set timed intervals.
4) On race day the App is enabled on the racers cell phone at any time or throughout the race. It would help the RC most if enabled at least in the last period of the race.
5) Only the RC has access to the accumulated position data as the race progresses.
- RC can use this data to track progress, and most importantly have a record of approximate finish times allowing rapid analysis.
6) After the race the data can be shared with all racers.
- It could be replayed at the trophy presentation to show the flow of the event over the course.
- It could appear on a tee shirt.

I did a boat delivery recently and as an experiment used one of the Apps available. The delivery was from HMB to Richmond. I have attached the track captured. It has holes due to cell tower coverage and the fact that the phone was below deck. See the attached JPEG of the plot.

This could be one tool that assists the committee for those willing to participate and could allow the creation of a unique record of the event for later use by all participants.