There are plenty of sailors in our team who use a watch in every session, but rarely or never post results because their approved devices all died, or almost died. A couple of people have Motions or GT-31s where getting data off is a matter of patience and luck.

Regarding accuracy, there is just one category that is likely to be off on a regular basis with "non-approved" devices: 2 second top speed. Significant errors in other categories happen, but are very rare, and they also happen with approved devices, especially when posting from ka72.com.

The problem with inaccurate 2-second readings could very easily be addressed. One way would be to limit the difference in 2 sec speed used for the rankings to 2 knots, relative to 5x10. It would be trivial to implement this in GPS Speedreader, but since most postings come from ka72.com, it would require a change on the GPSTC web site. But changes that have been promised to the GPSTC web site years ago never happened, so that's probably just a pipe dream.

One potential solution would be an "open source" web site as a ka72.com alternative, where volunteers can make changes. The ESP logger illustrates nicely how such a model can work. But it would require a volunteer who would be the initial primary developer of the web site. Not my area of expertise, so that's no me. But I'd be happy to make any changes to GPS Speedreader for use on such a site.

A much simpler change to get more active posters would be to officially allow posting wing sessions. That would focus on the "Team" aspect of GPSTC, not the "Speed" aspect, but most postings on GPSTC don't have a chance to get jelly beans. I'd love to see results from wing sessions from the many speedsurfers who mostly (or completely) switched to winging, like Stroppo.

Yes, sadly winging sessions are banned from GPSTC, apparently it is not considering to be Windsurfing. I have discussed this with many members of the committee. It seems the majority of them would be happy to allow winging. Yet the original decision to ban it has not been overturned.
I imagine there are plenty of winging sessions being posted to GPSTC as there is no obvious winging ban on the site and it would be impossible to tell the difference from simply looking at the six category results.
We have several local wingers who even have Mini Motions, but we can not officially invite them to join GPSTC

bc said..
How could would it me if there was a drop down box to pick between windsurf, windfoil and wingfoil ...

Of course that would be ideal, but would mean a change to GPSTC. Winging could be allowed with no software changes.

kato said..
Simple..buy the correct, recommend cricket bat and you can play. Or jump up and down on the boundary line and whine. It's your choice

I'll take the 2nd option!

Not interested in a mini-motion Dezza, but thanks for the offer. It's just not worth the hassle for me. The core problem is obvious to me and I don't want a part in the exclusive club the GPSTC has become. I was banned years ago and I have moved on. I'm finding this boundary line whining thing much more fun.

I had no idea until this thread that wings were banned. Despite the fact they could not possibly be competitive. The inclusive decision would be to allow them realising they will not harm any competitive results, and it would include more possible new members, as well as allowing existing members wanting to try something new to do that and still be a part of the GPSTC.... but if there are two options, the GPSTC chooses the most exclusive option.

I love the GPSTC. I understand the reasoning behind requiring "approved" GPS units. But that reasoning made sense when a good GPS unit was easily available, and other commercial units had much poorer performance. Both of these facts have changed several years ago, but GPSTC refuses to adapt. As a result, participation keeps going down. It's sad to watch.

GPSSpeedsurfing.com (GPS3) is really more comparable to ka72.com than to the GPSTC. It is largely missing two elements that make the GPS Team Challenge so interesting: the monthly competition in multiple disciplines (and within and between countries), and the social aspect created by the multiple categories and the requirement to have 2 postings from the same day.

The desire to allow wingsurfing data to be posted is pretty much just from the social aspect. Wings are slower (even considering the top guys at Defi Wing showing impressive 30 knot averages), so wing results will rarely get jelly beans, and be even rarer in the top 10 rankings. With winging, it's not about comparing apples to oranges - it's about keeping the connection to those who often or even exclusively wing. I'd love to read about the wing sessions from people I know. Kiting is a bit different, since kites can beat windsurf speeds (and distances).

GPS3 has a bit of a monthly competition, but unless you're one of the top 20 guys posting, it's rather irrelevant. They also focus on 5x10 seconds as the primary category, which is pretty insensitive sensitive to artifacts. A spike that causes 2 second speeds to be overstated by 5 knots is likely to be reduced to 0.2 knots in the 5x10 (if it makes it into the 5 best 10 second runs at all). With a lot less competition and a single, robust category, device accuracy has always been much less important for GPS3 than for the GPSTC.

But if GPSTC won't change, maybe GPS3 will?

I use to enjoy gpstc but no more and reading this thread it's no wonder it's dying. So happy to be dinging. I only read the thread because a mate rang and told how discussed he was in it. All over 3kts.

remery said..
It took me three years and thousands of dollars in equipment upgrades to improve 3 knots. I'd be disappointed if someone smashed my PB by using an in accurate device.

Buhahahah! You win the debate!