GPS manufacturer supports dinghy classes

by Gerald New on 29 Mar 2007 Velocitek who design, manufacture and market GPS products specifically for the sailing market are to sponsor two of the UKs more radical dinghy classes, the Cherub and the Musto Skiff.

The company produces the innovative S10 GPS unit which can calculate your upwind or downwind VMG once every second, or in speedometer mode show your current speed over the ground. It can also instantly recall both your maximum and best 10 second average speeds.

The rugged S10 is designed to work seamlessly with both Google Earth and GPS Action Replay to allow you to easily download to a PC, view and analyze the GPS data recorded while you were on the water.

The availability of these accurate GPS units has led to speed bragging oneupmanship among various dinghy classes, but with a 0.1 knot resolution for speeds under 10 knots and 1 knot resolution for higher speeds they can be a powerful sail training tool.

In February the UK Cherub AssociationVelocitek announced Velocitek as the title sponsor of the 2007 Cherub National Championships to be held at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy in July. Now Velocitek are to sponsor the first Musto Skiff World Championships which take place at Lake Garda in June.

For both events the competitors will be allowed to use GPS equipment during the racing and Velocitek will also support the events with some loan S10 GPS units which will be used to provide post race GPS-track-assisted debriefings.

Musto Skiff Chairman Paul Clarke commented: 'As well as the usual points racing that will of course decide the world championships, there will also be a Vmax competition with a Velocitek unit as first prize; with the expected Garda conditions we hope to see some eye-popping top speeds.'

Tony Arends, Velocitek Sales Director said: 'The Cherub and Musto Skiff classes are an obvious choice for us, the boats are great to watch and sail at a range of angles downwind which makes the VMG feature on our products really useful. I expect the sailors will learn a lot from the post race analysis using the Velocitek products.'

The Velocitek S10 :

The Velocitek S10 combines a 100% waterproof, high-accuracy GPS Speedometer / VMG Sensor with a 10 hour GPS data logger.

In VMG mode the S10 combines GPS data with a user defined wind direction to calculate your upwind or downwind VMG once every second.

In speedometer mode the S10 shows your current speed over ground and can also instantly recall both your maximum and best 10 second average speeds.

The S10 is designed to work seamlessly with both Goggle Earth and GPS Action Replay to allow you to easily download, view and analyze the GPS data recorded while you were on the water.

Specification:

Display dimensions: 64mm x 40mm (2.52' x 1.57') Display can be easily read from more than 10m (30ft) away.

Accuracy: +/- 0.2 Knots.

Real-Time Velocity Made Good (VMG) Display.

Calculates and displays VMG in real-time based on two user programmed reference points.

Standard Speed Display:

0.1 knot resolution for speeds under 10
1 knot resolution for higher speeds

User Interface: Two over-sized capacitive touch sensors Data Logger:

Records Latitude, Longitude, Time, Speed and Heading at 1Hz (once a second)
Over 10 hours of storage capacity.
Download .gpx files (for GPS Action Replay) and .kml files (for Google Earth) using an included USB cable.
Data download requires a PC running the Windows XP operating system.

Battery Life:

10+ hours Case Dimensions: 112mm x 85mm x 31mm (4.41' x 3.35' x 1.22') Weight: 204g (0.45 lbs)

Retails around £170


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