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Jul 27, 2011, 6:36 AM
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Yellowbrick tracking devices chosen for top Great Lake regattas
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PRESS RELEASE
July 2011 – The organisers of two of North America’s premier yacht races taking place on the Great Lakes have chosen to use tracking devices supplied by Yellowbrick, the world’s largest truly-global tracking rental provider. The Yellowbrick tracking devices were placed onboard hundreds of yachts taking part, enabling hundreds of thousands of online spectators to follow the progress of individual boats in the Lake Ontario 300 Challenge and in the Bell’s Beer 2011 Bayview Mackinac Race, Lake Huron.
The two races were held just a few days apart. In the build up to both events, Yellowbrick’s expert technical team was on the ground to support the race teams, allowing the organisers to take advantage of Yellowbrick’s full professional and reliable service.
Despite the vast geographical scale and remote location of the Great Lakes, regular updates from the Yellowbricks provided close to real-time online viewing for race fans. Positioning data was transmitted from each individual yacht via the Iridium Satellite network to Yellowbrick HQ, where it was immediately uploaded onto the online race viewer portal hosted on each event’s website.
The first of the two Great Lake regattas to get underway was the Lake Ontario 300 Challenge (LO300), a 300 nautical mile race taking in a non-stop round-trip tour of Lake Ontario, with the start and finish line in Port Credit, Ontario. The LO300 was originally devised as the ultimate double-handed race 21 years ago, and has today evolved to accommodate both short-handed and fully-crewed yachts. The LO300 organising committee has prided itself in its capacity to evolve and to encourage as many new participants as possible, with competitor numbers seeing a huge increase in the last few years thanks to a number of logistical and organisational developments by the organisers.
In 2011, the major innovation for the event was recognised as being the introduction of race tracking, enabling the race organisers to grow the event for spectators this year too.
Speaking on behalf of the organisers, Guy Perrin says; “Family and friends of the racers were able to follow the action from shore via the Yellowbrick Race Viewer; this new tracking solution partnership for the Lake Ontario 300 has proven to be very popular. Racers, fans and the race committee could also interact directly with the viewing public via Twitter and Facebook, another great opportunity for future enhancements.”
Shortly after the 130 yachts competing in the LO300 finished their event, competitors in the 87th edition of the Bayview Mackinac Race were preparing to set off on another Great Lake race, which was also tracked by Yellowbrick.
On 23rd July, more than 200 yachts crossed the startline of a 259 nautical mile course from Port Huron to Mackinac Island. An estimated 100,000 supporters and spectators took part in the festive activities held along the banks of the River Clair in Port Huron prior to the start. As the yachts disappeared out of view, spectators, organisers and media alike turned their attention to the online race viewer, which provided updates every 15 minutes, showing the precise position of each race boat as the race progressed.
As we write, hundreds of thousands of viewers are watching the Yellowbrick race viewer – thankfully the servers and highly-scalable back-end systems which Yellowbrick have developed and honed over the years are more than capable of handling the load for this and the many other high profile events around the globe, which it may be tracking at any given time.
2011 was the third year that position tracking devices have been used for the Bayview Mackinac Race; tracking devices have brought a crucial additional dimension to the racing which has added huge value for the race’s title sponsors, Bell’s Brewery, who agreed to host the online race tracker on its website.
Bell’s Beer owner, Larry Bell, says; “Bell’s Beer is thrilled to bring sailing fans the ability to track all the sailboat via GPS from Port Huron to Mackinac Island, on both the Shore Course and Cove Island course. The live video webcasts of the race starts have also generated a lot of interest in this race. With the growth of smart phones and portable tablets we have received massive amounts of traffic to our website and we are delighted with that.”
Further information regarding Yellowbrick can be found at www.yellowbrick-tracking.com
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