Dear Speedsters, it's unofficial yet so can't name names.

But it looks like a major Sail manufacturer is willing to donate a brand new speedsail to entrants in the speed challenge... A prize that will be drawn at random just for having entered!!!!!!

The current thinking is to offer a trophy to the fastest individual or team for the event? What do you think about this? How can we make this fair? In the Future 7195 I have poisoned the Sandy Point crew and used a tactical nuclear missile to blow up the Sandy Point sand bar......... But in the present I have heard it is illegal to do these things So how can we make it really competitive for those that love competition, yet even out the playing field?

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Originally posted by black dog

Sorry but I'm a bit confused... is the speed challenge the same as the need4speed campaign being hosted by wind warrior australia ?

Or is the speed challenge an extension of the need4speed ? I'm pretty sure I read something on their site about the comp being expanded to state V state and possible teams if numbers were appropriate ?

Or is the speed challenge a completely separate event ?

If you're talking about the team event... are you planning on cutting the sail into equal parts to match the number of people in the team or will you be devising a 'time share' option if your team is successful in wining the major prize ?

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1 sail for one of the team members drawn at random.

My opinion is given it is a team event, trophy should be for team.

Windwarrior individual event is need4speed, they wanted a state vs state. In my moments of madness just came up with a team based event to encourage Inclusiveness in the sport, Increase Participation, Create another fun activity, and to build relationships intrastate and interstate, create community!!

Am trying to sort out with windwarrior how to do this as they will be a Sponsor.

Be patient my tender little speedfreaks, currently just nutting it all out, it's just at the free association stage......

I will consult more for the next few weeks, and then with sponsors make a decision on how to run it with what rules. We will not solve world peace by executing this within any strict deadlines, so chill, let's get a general consensus.

Probably run a Winter Speed Challenge first, and if it proves popular and there is a demand, we'll try and do something bigger and better for a summer Comp starting 1st Oct or Nov, ending March 31st.

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Originally posted by decrepit

Can we have a location handicap, divide a teams score by their location handicap. Obviously S.P. will be the highest, it's just a matter of coming up with numbers everybody agrees with. Is that a simple solution or what???

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Sounds OK ...but...getting away from the KISS principles as originally proposed.
probably too many variables to handicap sites across Oz.

My 2 cents.
At the end of the competition, the fastest 3 teams fly to one central location and beat the crap out of each other. Last man standing takes all prizes ..... Simple

Mineral. Its sounds like you are volunteering to create Team Pinnas?

Mineral give Simon at board crazy in brisbane a call. I know he is importing a number of the Navi GT-11's, and doing them up as some sort of kit with xd cards and readers (i think). Should be better value than the Garmin's. go to www.wind-surf.com.au for their contact details.

The NaviGPS seems to be the current flavour of the month. On downloaded info it is 10x more accurate than the Garmin Foretrex. It can store more than 10 times the data and is cheaper and now has bigger screen digits than the foretrex. Joystick can be a bit fiddly but hey nothing is perfect.

I don't think anyone is importing them into Oz so probably the best place to order is
http://www.storagedepot.co.uk/Order.aspx?action=add&id=176

65 pounds is the UK price but it's about the same to Oz as the 17% VAT is deducted which compensates for the 12 Quid postage they charge to send to Oz.

Note: It is marketed under different names. The Storage depot units are now called GT-11. Different countries have different branding but it's the same unit.

The manufacturer is very receptive to requests for upgrades (firmware) from the windsurfing guys.

PS 65 Quid = A$155

For those sailors intending to post their sessions on gps-speedsurfing.com it might be worth bearing in mind the list of 'approved' GPS units listed at the following link...
www.gps-speedsurfing.com/default.aspx

Seems a bit restrictive...any comments on the likelihood that the NaviGPS won't make it onto the approved list?

If people want a NAVI - And I will recommend they are better than the GARMIN units then I think Simon at Board Crazy is going to stock a few units first shipment due in the next few weeks.

I have been using a NAVI unit for the last 2 months - it is definitely an improvement on the Garmin.

- J

To Pointman, Martin van Meurs was one of the founders of GPS-SS and one of the fastest Dutch guys. He recently joined Mauisails and this is what he said on their forum.

"Luckily firms are slowly recognizing the potential and seem to be more and more willing to adapt firmware to our wishes. Currently Navi/Amaryllo (LOCOSYS) is the most open firm of all and is totally open to a very active tech group working very hard on upgrading firmware"

So I think it is only inertia and lack of time that has resulted in the NaviGPS/GT-11 not yet being approved and it is inevitable that it will be.

GPS-SS crew are going to launch an improved site soon(hopefully on a faster server)and they are probably spending their time on that rather than updating the old stuff.

To quote Dylan.." One of the main goals for 2007 is to launch the new site at the end of Q2 or earlier. Time is still an issue. To manage the time issue we decided that the web developers buy time from their bosses to develop the site and GPS-Speedsurfing will compensate the costs. The site is growing and growing which currently reflects in performance issues. To manage this we will invest in better hosting facilities for the new site on a much more powerful platform which will be ready for the future and further expansion."

The Navman is not suitable for anything really other than telling you your best 10s speed and without the ability to download anything you don't even know if it is correct. Frankly I'm not sure what they were thinking when they bought it out... looks more like a slick marketing exercise.

The NaviGPS (GT-11) on the otherhand looks a lot less slick but it's functions and utility seem to be improved every second day.

For those who don't follow the gps-ss forum this was a recent comment by 2 software firmware developers...

"The latest versions of GPSResults (PC: V4.1, Mac: V3.0) support additional NMEA-informations (GSA & GSV) that can be displayed as satellite strength- and sky-view- (radar-) plot of the individual trackpoints (see www.gps-speed.com/download_e.html). Furthermore better (mouse controlled) zoom and shift features in the speed over time display are available.

In order to take full advantage of the new features, the Navi settings have to be changed: MEMORY CARD - NMEA ITEMS: GGA 1sec, GLL off, GSA 1sec, GSV 1sec, RMC 1sec, VTG off, ZDA off, and of course MEMORY CARD, LOG SWITCH have to be set to ON. The more complete trackpoint data strongly increase the confidence in the speed analyses. In my opinion this is worth more than the higher sensitivity and the even finer (numerical) spatial resolution of the latest Garmins (Edge 205 - which was my favorite until lately). The old Garmins (Geko / Foretrex) with the grid effect (2.4m spatial resolution) are a bad choice when compared to the new devices (that are available at even lower prices). Mal W. and the Sandy Point crew pointed that out already in another thread.

In order to update the Navi to a new firmware version I had to rename the 'NAVI.BIN'-file under 'FirmwareUpdate' to 'SIRF2.BIN' - V1.6 shows a large MAX. SPEED display with enough digits now :)

Cheers, Manfred

Kean Rogers 4-20-2007 22:21
"The more complete trackpoint data strongly increase the confidence in the speed analyses." And the level of accuracy is going to get even better!