Spot tracking for Harvest Moon Regatta

[Andrea]

There is a company that will build a website to track all boats in the regatta using Spot.  How many of you have Spots, with tracking, or would be willing to purchase or rent Spots and get the tracking?  Tracking can add a new dimension to the race, as your out of town friends can follow your progress, you can see where you are in relation to the fleet, and there are numerous advantages for the race committee in knowing who is out there, who has turned around and gone home, and who is approaching the finish line.
Thanks for your input

[Bee]

If Stinger goes we will have one for sure.

This is a great idea.  My wife, son, daughter-in-law, and grandsons loved watching Stinger go.

[ChrisK]

I have the older generation SPOT. It does have limitations and quirks.

For example:
-Funny light sequence you need a manual to figure out (the gen II has improved this)
-It defaults out of the every 10 minute 'Track Progress' mode (the plan you pay extra for) every 24 hours
-No verification a message has actually been sent (they may have fixed this)
-Then there was the time SPOT decided to shut down their website for about 12 hours, completely unannounced to the world, while I happened to be in the middle of the GOM

Still (despite these experiences) the SPOT units are better than nothing.  Cheap insurance for $150.

If you do own one of these, just make darn sure to tell family members about ALL of the tracker limitations.
Explain to them the technology isn't like a cell phone, homing beacon, or some type of fancy video game.  
It's just a very low powered, pocket sized GPS transmitter that needs to face up, bouncing a signal off a low flying satellite that may or my not be there, from a pitching boat, in some not so ideal conditions.

Unlike the SPOT, I do like that the iboat tracker system sets up a blog, specific to each race. Maybe the third party SPOT software developer could setup a blog also.

[Jonsey]

Chris we're going to try and hit all the off-shore events' this year (work willing) - but most certainly harvest moon. 

I would be willing to rent a spot tracker, I think it's a great idea.

Is there an option that would let you download all the tracks and reply them like you can with Velocitek software?     

J

[Andrea]

You can replay the whole race later.  This system would put all participating boats on a single web page. 
This system uses Spots that are individually owned but they do have a small number of units available for rent, and there are other vendors who rent the units but their rental prices are probably higher than the ones available through the tracking web site. 
Unless you already own a unit or are able to rent or borrow one, the initial up front cost would be a little more than iboattracker or ionearth, but those are one time rentals, instead of owning your own unit that you could use again.  If you rent, it is about a quarter the price of iboattrack.  Several of our cruisers tell me they already use a Spot every time they go out.  Their friends and family love them as a means of keeping track.  Several people had them on board last year.  Their co workers had fun watching their progress, and the RC really appreciated the info we could derive from the 6 or 8 who gave us access to their track real time
Tracking can make the race more fun to follow, and those with computers onboard enjoy seeing where the competition is.  (Some guys don't want you to know where they are.)  But tracking would make a huge impact on the race committee's job.  No more wondering if a boat turned around and went home and failed to notify us, or being surprised when ten boats finish the race who never checked in at the start.  And no wondering whether that ghost in the dark crossing the finish line is a racer whose radio has failed, or a local boat returning home after dark.  And all the mandatory check in procedure to help minimize cheating might become unnecesary.  The calls at Free port, etc.
We are always looking for ways to make the race better, without making the cost prohibitive. 

[ChrisK]

The run of the mill SPOT tracking software works pretty good.  Like Andrea mentioned, I suspect there are several developers that have more amped up applications (like race replay) but I haven't had a chance to tinker/Google with that yet.  I'm sure somebody in internet-land has tied in Velocitk info and SPOT with Google Maps.

I forgot to mention I use the SPOT in other applications, like backcountry hiking and sometimes even in the glove box driving around rural Texas.  I also know of some cross country motorcycle and hunter types at the office that use SPOT also.

When not doing offshore stuff, it mostly lives in my flight bag (to go along with the FAA required onboard mounted 406mHz ELT)  The ELT network is a slightly different (and more robust) technology, developed to Air Force specs to detect downed planes/pilots. 
Still, my thinking with the SPOT is a little extra cheap insurance is better than nothing. 
If I survive the crashing and burning part, I can pull SPOT out, hit 911, and hope for the best.

I ran into some Civil Air Patrol guys a few months ago that, along with the ELT in their aircraft, they had a SPOT sitting atop the dashboard for pretty much the same reason.  They joked that with the SPOT tracking feature, the only negative part was the wives finally knew when they would be home for dinner vs. enjoying a few post-flight beers at the hanger.

btw: You can get a 'personal' ELT (ACR is one of the companies) but they don't offer tracking, are '911' only, and $500 something a pop. No annual fee and ELTs use the 'always on' COSPAS-SARSAT satellite system (at least in theory 'always on').  SPOT uses the private GlobalStar network that you pay an annual fee for.