Velocitek - High performance for small boat sailor

by Tracey Johnstone on 30 Dec 2007 Small boat and dinghy racing sailors regularly look for performance advantage over their nearest rivals - perhaps through better sails, more competent crew or even new spars. Now there is a new product on the market that can make an immediate difference to their race result.

Velocitek is the newest and brightest out-of-the-box performance-enhancing device available to the Australia’s dinghy and small boat sailing community.

Released into Australia in October 2007 by DeckHardware the Velocitek SC-1 is an affordable and compact unit that harnesses the power of GPS to give the functionality of a complete instrument suite in a self-contained device that can be mounted anywhere on a boat.

DeckHardware’s co-owner Melissa Yeomans has a wealth of sailing experience in dinghies and big boats. She put the SC-1 to the test on her own Adams 10 and is very pleased with the device.

'The SC-1 is brilliant for skiff dinghies, trailer yachts and even my sort of the boat as I don’t have electronics on board. It makes life a lot easier as you don’t need a transducer through the hull or mast.

'When you become more advanced and know how to use the product, then you can download the advanced mode which actually has a tactical compass, VMG, count-down timer, and the best thing, which I am just getting the hang of now, the start line proximity – which is just an absolutely brilliant feature. It tells you how many lengths or metres, you can choose what action you want, your at the start line by.'

The SC-1 is the fifth generation model developed by Velocitek. The first model, the S3, was a simple large-readout speedometer originally targeted towards GPS speed-surfers. Through the input of its development team Velocitek has advanced its first designs into the brilliant SC-1 which offers six modes of operation. Any two modes can be displayed simultaneously.

In its simplest form the SC-1 provides the user with speed and compass data. Once the device is turned on outdoors, it will acquire a GPS connection. Then the display will show the course over the ground in true degrees and the lower display will show speed over the ground in knots.

For those sailors wanting more functionality there are the advanced modes of tactical compass, VMG, start timer and distance to start line.

The tactical compass displays a boat’s heading relative to the wind direction making wind shifts easy to identify. The display shows the same number at equivalent angles on each tack.

The VMG calculates and displays upwind and downwind VMG in real-time based on a user-programmed wind direction. It responds to wind shifts in tactical compass mode automatically adjusting the wind direction used to calculate the VMG.

The timer has one to nine minute countdown sequences and a loud audible signal.

Start line proximity indicates the distance to the start line in metres or boat lengths.

'One of the big things with the start-line proximity, which I know from my own experience, is a lot of people struggle to find enough crew for a race on a normal Saturday. Often they can’t afford to have someone on the bow calling how far from the start line you are.

'This will make it a lot easier because you won’t need that extra person standing up on the bow telling you how far off. Then from this mode you can choose what it changes to, be it compass or speed or whatever you prefer to look at because there are two screens on the SC-1 so that you can choose to have compass on one and speed on the other.

'In the pre-start you can show the start line proximity and the count-down timer and then have them immediately, on the start, change over to be speed and compass. So you don’t have to press any buttons. You can set it up so it will actually do it for you,' Yeomans says.

In addition to providing real-time speed, heading and VMG information, the SC-1 also stores and organises speed, heading, position and time records for the most recent 40 hours of sailing.

Once the sailor gets ashore, or home, the SC-1 data can easily be downloaded to a computer running Windows XP or Vista for replay and analysis. Just download the free Velocitek Control Centre windows application and get going with downloading the GPS data from the SC-1 and launching the birds-eye view video replays of the boat’s races and training sessions.


The three outstanding Australian sailors who have worked with the development and testing of Velocitek’s SC-1 speak highly of its capability and application.

Leading the group is two-time Moth class world champion Rohan Veal who has tested the SC-1 on the Moth and 12-foot skiff in fast conditions with lots of capsizes. He says 'Velocitek keeps me pointing in the right direction and at the right speed'.

Joining him on the team is champion 18-foot skipper John Harris who says 'the Velocitek is perfect for working out best VMG angles downwind in the 18. In light air the cross over between running deep and heating up for more pace is tricky - the Velocitek is a great help here'.

The third Australian development team member, Tony Arends, says 'as a sailmaker the Velocitek unit helps me evaluate new sail designs by tracking the boats performance for evaluation.

The large digital readout helps me learn to sail the boat faster if no training partner is available. It also allows me to coach my fleet using real situations when explaining gains and losses on the race course.

'The VMG function really helps when steering the best course downwind-- when sailing fast, going the right way is important, otherwise it could turn into a big loss. '

Yeomans says downloading and analysing the data is easy. 'You just plug in the USB device and use the VCC. It is a very easy tool to use. You can personalise it to your boat. You can put in boat length and all that sort of thing so that the device suits your size yacht or dinghy.

'When you step out of that and go into the other programs to fully review your tracks, speeds and headings, you can go into much more complicated programs. Google Earth is the main one people use to review their track. There are a couple of other programs you can use to really go into depth for the more advanced sailor.'

What about the average weekend sailor that wants a simple device to help them achieve better results - is the SC-1 daunting ? Yeomans says not at all. 'In its simple form the SC-1 is very user friendly.'.

The compact touch-screen SC-1 is encased in a water resistant casing which ensures the device will float in salt and fresh water. It has good impact capabilities, measures 162mm x 110m x 40mm and weighs only 437g – a useful size and weight for small boats and dinghies.

The display offers ultra-high contrast, sun-readable capabilities. Standard AA batteries are used giving 25 hour endurance. Re-chargeable batteries can also be used.

The data logger records latitude, longitude, time, speed and heading once every two seconds. With its 40 hours of storage capacity the .gox (for GPS Action Replay) and .kml (for Google Earth) files can be downloaded with the supplied USB cable.

Mounting the SC-1 on board is easy. Yeoman says the device comes with special velcro on the back to help with mounting options. 'You can attach the device with a lash plate, or put it on the mast track, or use velcro stick it on the hull.' A slug track mounting bracket is available as an optional extra.

The GPS Action Replay (freeware) and user manual is available for download in PDF or HTML format at no extra charge.

The SC-1 even comes with a two-year warranty against manufacturing defects.

Updates to the SC-1 will be available to download free-of-charge from the sailgps.com website. And if a user has something to say about the SC-1 or needs technical support, there are forum pages available through this website.


DeckH