Before your First Race

Create the Event, its Fleets, Series and even define the first Race prior to leaving shore

Setting up an Event, its Fleets and Series

You can reduce the amount of time required on the water before starting your first race by setting up or importing the Clubs, Sailors & Boats that will be competing, and then creating the Event(s), Fleets, Series and even some of the initial Races prior to leaving shore.

If the results of an Event will be combined with other results from a longer (or separately scored) Series, some thought may be required on how to best structure the Events, Fleets and Series. Some common examples are:

If you are hosting a single or multi-day regatta with multiple fleets, but these regatta results will not be combined with any long series results, then simply create a single Event for the entire regatta and add as many fleets as are competing.
If your club hosts several season-long series (such as a Wednesday night series, a Saturday series and/or a monthly series), consider creating one Event per day, then use a Series to combine the common fleets across the events into their own result sets (such as the "Wednesday Night Series" results, the "Saturday Series" and/or "June Series" results, etc.).

Tip: If in doubt, create a new Event for each day and combine results from each day using a Series.

Creating an Event

In arcSail, an "Event" is what the RRS refers to as a "Short Series" (a single day or multi-day Regatta, comprised of a number of fleets, each having its own set of races).

To create an Event, navigate to the Events tab and tap the Add button:
- Set the date of the first day of the event
- Set the name as you like (default to today's date title)
- Create the Fleets (see below for details)
- Set the "Starting Sequence" times for the Warning, Preparatory, One Minute and Start signals (the default is 5-4-1-0 minutes before race start time)
- Determine if there will be any races thrown out in the series, for example if races 5,8,11 will be thrown out, enter a comma separated list of these race numbers
- Select the "Scoring Type":
  - Low Point System (scoring matches placement in race - from Schedule A)
  - Bonus Point System (bonus for first 6 finishers)
  - Chips3 System (Ratings out of 100 points, optimized for long series)
  - High Point System (bonus for beating more boats, can miss some races)
  - Low Point Average (no penalty for missing a few races)
- Scoring as a Short or Long Series will affect how DNCs are scored (see RRS Appendix A)
- Setting "Score Double" will double weight this event if scored in a series
- Set the "Minimum # of Races" (minimum races for computing overall results)
- Set the "Host Club", "Race Officer" and "Race Committee" (shown on the results reports)

Most of these parameters will be determined from the Notice of Race, but they can be modified if necessary after races are scored (results may be affected and may have to be re-distributed).

Setting up your Series

In arcSail, a "Series" is what the RRS refers to as a "Long Series". A Series can combine the races from a fleet competing in multiple Events into one result set. A common use for a fleet will be to track a fleet's results over a season. The Series provides a mechanism to use a different scoring systems and having different throw outs than an Event

To Create a Series, navigate to Series on the More menu, and tap the Add button:
- Select the Series name
- Determine the first thow out and subsequent throw outs.
- Set the scoring type for the Series (see above)
- Score as a Short or a Long Series (usually Long)
- Set the minimum number of races and events required for results to be computed.

A Series is added to a Fleet and can be used on several Events. Additional series can be added at any time. If a new Series is added to a Fleet that already has race results, the race results for that fleet will have to be re-distributed.

Setting up your Fleets

A Fleet is a group of boats that will be scored together, either strictly by the order of their finish (as in a one-design fleet), or through a computation based on a chosen handicap system. An Event can have multiple fleets and a Fleet can belong to multiple Series.

To Add a Fleet, Edit your Event and then tap on the Setup Fleets button:
- If the fleet is a "one-design" fleet, select its "Class Name" (do not choose for mixed fleet)
- Set the Fleet Name (default's to the Boat Class Name, if set)
- Choose the Handicap computation for the fleet
  - None - boats are ranked in the order they finish (for "one-design" fleets)
  - Portsmouth Yardstick (PY) international handicap system for various boat classes
  - North American Portsmouth Yardstick (NAPY) wind-adjusted class handicaps
  - Small Catamaran Handicap Rating System (SCHRS)
  - Performance Handicap Racing Fleet (PHRF) individual boat handicap system
- Set the Burgee to be shown in the Race Monitor and Results listings
- Select the Boats that belong to the Fleet
- Set the number of "Digits on Race Monitor" to be shown of the boats identifiers
- Select which Series that the Fleet belongs to

A fleet can be modified after races begin, but adding removing boats and/or changing the handicap system will require that the results be recomputed.

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