Have you been following the debate about using gps marker buoys for racing that stay on a fixed location? If you are with a Club that has to bring its race marks ashore frequently, or resets courses a lot, it will be of interest.

It’s very interesting. Datchet dinghy club has had a large GPS located marker on trial for a couple of years. Datchet Radio Sailing group was trialling one mark this last Saturday for the Tens racing. The concept is for six gps controlled buoys, great for our purposes, all linked together by radio.

This is the hand controller for what would be a fleet of six buoys.

Results of the trial? Despite it being blowy with a bit of a swell running, the buoy held station for three to four hours very accurately. It used 18% battery in that period, so that’s one big question answered.

There’s a really good Australian video about them in operation that you can see here:-