SAP brings cutting-edge solutions to World Sailing

by Daniel Smith - World Sailing on 2 May 2017 World Sailing is pleased to announce SAP, a market leader in enterprise application software, as its Official Technology Partner.

Over the next four years, SAP will bring its cutting-edge, innovative solutions to World Sailing's World Cup Series of events. SAP will transform the events by improving performance on the water, reinventing the fan experience on the shoreline and at home, simplifying operations for sailors and coaches and supplying media with information and insights to deliver a more informed commentary.

'The announcement of our partnership with SAP marks the start of an exciting new era for World Sailing,” commented World Sailing President Kim Andersen. 'There is a unique relationship between sport, technology and nature in sailing as they all work together in powerful harmony. With SAP, we have an innovative technology partner who reflects this positioning and matches our ambitions to inspire millions more people to fall in love with sailing.”

SAP is providing World Sailing with SAP® Sailing Analytics software and the SAP Sailing Race Manager mobile app across all classes at the World Cup Series of events. The technology has been used at the recent World Cup Series event in Hyères, France, available for all ten Olympic classes, kiteboarding and the Para World Sailing keelboat. For the first time, fans, broadcasters and media will have access to these solutions to follow the competition from anywhere in the world at any time.

Every boat at the World Cup Series events will carry a tracking device and data will feed in directly from the water, bringing followers real-time tracking, live leader boards and race information from multiple areas. Wind sensors will also be placed around the racing areas, providing immediate updates on the sailing conditions the world's leading sailors at the World Cup Series are competing in.

SAP Sailing Analytics enables users to dive deep into the data from every race tracked. Sailors and coaches will be able to benefit from key analytics such as manoeuvers made, distance sailed and winning lanes to analyze and understand their performance. This information will prove invaluable as competitors can assess their performance against their rivals to enhance the competition on the water.

Across the ten Olympic classes at World Cup Series events, upwards of 25 races are contested each day with the competition governed by the world's best International Race Officials managing race protocol on and off the water. To support them in their work, SAP will provide the SAP Sailing Race Manager mobile app at the World Cup Series to deliver greater efficiency and control to race organizers by automating and simplifying their manual tasks and communication during running sailing events.

World Sailing Chief Executive Officer Andy Hunt added, 'SAP continues to research and develop new solutions that bring worldwide spectators much closer to the action than ever before. We're looking forward to growing the partnership and innovating in unison over the coming years in the best interests of the sport.”

Dr. Stefan Lacher, Head of Sponsorship Innovations at SAP said, 'It is very exciting for us to be able to share our experience in providing data analytics to an organization such as World Sailing. With one of the largest individual gatherings of classes in the world, we look forward to opening up the intricacies of the sport at this level over the next years. We will apply our data analytics and insights to further enhance the enjoyment of the sport for fans, sailors and officials. The partnership will also offer a unique test bed for future innovations.”