Jord, this is the laymans version.

Its not racing around a course.

You know what a GPS is, in this case it is measuring your speed and distance travelled over a period of time - 1 second intervals. That is every second the GPS registers where you are and how quickly you got there from the position you were in 1 second before.

The GPS team challenge involves 6 categories.

2 second peak: the fastest speed attained over 2 seconds

5 x 10 second average: the fastest average speed attained from 5 different 10 second runs

1 hour: the highest average speed attained in any 1 hour of sailing

alpha racing: (tricky one this) the fastest speed attained by sailing up, gybing and then sailing with the distance being 500m from the start to the finish - (i'm probably wrong with this one and someone else can explain better)

Nautical Mile: the fastest average speed over a straight nautical mile

Distance travelled: the accumulated distance travelled in any one session.

Basically racing against the clock.
In the instance of a team, you have to have 2 or more people register in any one day for your scores to count. this is the team aspect.

At the end of each session, you download the data from your GPS into a program called RealSpeed. It works out the categories for you

Hope that helps.

grumplestiltskin said...

>>>>>>

alpha racing: (tricky one this) the fastest speed attained by sailing up, gybing and then sailing with the distance being 500m from the start to the finish - (i'm probably wrong with this one and someone else can explain better)

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Very close grumps, but it's a maximum distance of 500m, sometimes the fastest average speed is with a shorter distance. (this is where the interesting false result can occur from a big catapault, if you change direction 180 deg in a big swing, realspeed can give a very big alpha score)
The other proviso is that the start and finish points of the calculation mustn't be more than 50m apart. This is the cause of a lot of missed good alpha's.

Jordo don't take any notice of nebs, the more people that get addicted the better, it'll make me feel more normal!

jord070 said...

<<<<<<

it sound intresting, but not too sure, doesnt sound as good a freestyle and waveriding, >>>>>>>>>

It's very different jordo, freestyle and waves are about you and nature, having fun.

The team challenge is about numbers and trying to improve them. The exhilaration of going as fast as is still there, but it's much more about improving your PBs and getting your team further up the ladder.