RaceFlow
User Guide

A single event in RaceFlow ties together five things: the race parameters, the fleet, the course, the exclusion zones, and the routing runs you request against a weather model.

You work through them on one dashboard, save your changes, then request a routing. RaceFlow uses the PredictWind engine, which calculates the optimal track for each boat and predicts the optimal elapsed time (PET). RaceFlow then calculates time correction factors and gives you maps, per-yacht tracks, animated tracks, and printable scratch sheets to share.

Page login.php

You can reach RaceFlow with an ORC Sailor Services account or a social login. Any time your session expires, RaceFlow returns you here automatically.

Email & password

Sign in with the email and password tied to your ORC account. Forgot my password sends a password reminder.

Google & Facebook

One-tap sign-in with a Google or Facebook account. RaceFlow uses the account only to identify you, using your email address to register you as an ORC Sailor Services user.

Register

Not registered? Register now will create a Sailor Services free account, which you can use to enter RaceFlow.

Page events.php

After signing in you land on your events — the home base for everything you organize.

Create your event

To create an event you need to apply for one by clicking the "Apply for a new RaceFlow event" button, or directly here. The ORC Staff will create and assign an event for you. The event will include route designs according to the NOR and SI that you provided in your application, as well as one or more sample routings.

Open an event

Click a card to open its dashboard. Each card shows the event name and start time at a glance.

Page index.php?rfkey=…

The dashboard is where an event comes together. It's organized into four collapsible sections you can open and close by clicking their headers. To setup a routing you will need to construct the fleet, select the start time and the weather model to be used.

Dashboard · Section 1

These are the race basics that the next routing run is built on.

Name

The display name, shown across RaceFlow and on result sheets.

Start time (local)

The race start, typed as DD/MM/YYYY HH:MM:SS in local time. RaceFlow validates the format and converts to UTC behind the scenes, as soon as a routing is requested, based on the coordinates of the start of the selected route.

Distance (NM)

The course distance in nautical miles, as published in NOR/SI, used for time-on-distance scoring.

Weather model

Choose which forecast model the next routing will use uses.

Route

Pick which of the event's courses this routing runs on, from the route(s) provided by ORC Staff. You can update these routes or build your own from scratch in section 3.

Divisions

Divisions are starting groups within the fleet, each able to start at its own offset from the gun.

Add division

Creates a new starting group you can name and configure.

Enabled

Toggle whether a division takes part in the next routing without deleting it.

Start offset (seconds)

How many seconds after the main start this division's gun fires.

Delete

Removes a division — but only if no boat is currently assigned to it, so you never strand an entry.

Routings

The table of routing runs you've requested for this event. Each row shows the submission time, start (local and UTC), the weather model used, and a live count of boats that are idle, processing, done, or errored.

• Done — track ready
• Error — routing failed for that boat
• Idle / processing — still running

While a run is processing, RaceFlow refreshes the row automatically every few seconds and shows a spinner. Once a run finishes, Details opens the full results and Delete removes the run.

Dashboard · Section 2

The fleet is the list of boats racing, each carried with its current ORC certificate. The fleet table is fully sortable — click any column header.

The fleet table

Shows each boat's country flag, BIN, yacht name, sail number, division, class, certificate, RefNo and issue date. The RefNo links straight to the boat's certificate.

Assign a division

Type or pick a division directly in each boat's row; the field suggests the divisions you've defined.

Remove

Takes a single boat out of the fleet.

Update fleet certificates

Refreshes every boat to its latest ORC certificate and saves immediately — run this if certificates have been re-issued since you built the fleet.

Fleet Builder

Manage entries opens the Fleet Builder, a side-by-side workspace of available boats and your selected fleet.

Rating family tabs

Across the top, a tab for each rating family and VPP year. Click one to choose a country.

Country picker

A flag grid of the countries with boats in that family. Pick one to load its certificated boats into the available list.

Search

Filter available boats by yacht name or sail number (three characters minimum).

Add & remove

Double-click a boat to move it between available and selected. Both tables sort by any column.

Clear Fleet

Empties the selected fleet after a confirmation.

ORC Scorer import

Already have a scoring file? ORC Scorer Import reads a .orcsc / .xml file, pulls the boat reference numbers from it, and rebuilds the fleet from those certificates in one step.

Dashboard · Section 3  ·  Editor route.php

A route is the course the fleet sails — an ordered list of waypoints. An event can hold several routes; you choose which one a routing uses in section 1.

New route

Creates a starter course centred on your location (found from your IP), with a Start and Finish about 10 NM apart, and opens the editor.

Display on map

Opens a read-only map of the event's course and zones.

Edit / Delete

Open a route in the editor, or remove it. Deletions take effect when you save the dashboard.

The route editor

An interactive chart where you shape the course directly. The on-screen instructions sum it up: drag points to move them, click a point to edit it, and click a line to add a point.

Move points

Drag any waypoint or zone vertex on the map to reposition it.

Insert a point

Click anywhere on a route leg or zone edge to drop a new point exactly there.

Edit a point

Click a point to rename it, change its type, or delete it.

Waypoint list

Edit names and coordinates as text, reorder with the up/down arrows, or Append blank to add a row.

Copy & paste

Copy All puts the waypoints on your clipboard; Paste brings a list in — quick for reusing a course from elsewhere.

Route name & recenter

Name the route, and use Recenter Map to bring the whole course back into view.

Dashboard · Section 4  ·  edited in route.php

Exclusion zones are areas the routing must keep out of — traffic separation schemes, shipping lanes, restricted water, hazards. The dashboard lists them; you draw and shape them in the route editor.

Add new zone

Creates a zone you can name, colour, and shape vertex by vertex on the map.

Name & colour

Label each zone and give it a colour so it's easy to tell apart on the chart.

Enabled

Switch a zone on or off for a routing without deleting it.

Vertices

Drag, insert, reorder, copy, paste, or delete the points that define the zone's outline — the same controls as route waypoints.

On the dashboard, the zones table is a read-only summary showing each zone's status, name, colour, and points.

Dashboard

Editing the dashboard never runs a routing on its own. You save your setup first, then request a run — which is the step that produces tracks and results.

Save Changes

Writes the whole event — parameters, divisions, fleet, routes, and zones — in one go. The button confirms with a brief "Saved!".

Request a new routing

Queues a weather-routing run for the current setup, after a confirmation. Each boat is then routed over the course against the chosen model.

When the request button is locked

RaceFlow disables Request a new routing and tells you why, so you're never guessing:

Unsaved changes

Save first — a routing always runs against the saved setup.

A run already in progress

Wait for the current routing to finish before starting another.

Not enough credits

Each run costs credits. The credits badge shows awarded, used, balance, and the price per request. RaceFlow is a free service for race organizers. However, in order to ensure that this free service is not abused but stills remains free, each routing is "charged" with a price (the number of yachts to be routed). The ORC Staff awards the event enough free credits for doing the job. But if your event runs out of credits just let us know!

Page routing.php?wrskey=…

Open a finished run with Details. The results page has three parts: the routing summary, the scored fleet, and the tracks map.

Routing summary

The run's name, course distance, and the scratch PET — the rounded average of predicted elapsed times used as denominator to calculate the time-on-time factors. This is mostly for informational reasons and normally you wouldn't need to change it.

Results table

Every boat with its status, country, yacht, sail number, class, certificate, RefNo, and the scored figures: TOD, TOT, start time, PET and Predicted Finish Time (PFT). Sort by any column.

Show on map

Tick a boat to draw its track; the header checkbox toggles the whole fleet at once.

Details

Opens that single boat's track and step-by-step data (section 11).

Exports

Tracks map

Speed heat map

Colours each track by boat speed, blue at 1 knot through red at 22 knots and up — so you can see where the fleet sped up or parked.

Show windbarbs

Overlays the forecast wind across the course.

Auto-fit

Keeps the whole course framed in the map as you toggle boats on and off.

Segment details

Hover any track to read that leg's numbers.

Animation

Opens the playback view (section 11).

One boat in detail

Page yacht.php?wrskey=…&refno=…

The yacht view focuses on a single boat: its routed track on the map, plus a full track table of every step.

Track table

Local time, latitude and longitude, speed over ground, true wind speed and direction, bearing, true wind angle, and per-leg duration, distance, course speed and course direction.

Back to routing

Returns to the full results page.

The animation

Page animation.php?routing=…

A playback of the whole fleet sailing the course, so you can watch the race unfold and see where boats converged or split.

Play / Pause

Runs the fleet forward through the forecast.

Timeline

Scrub the slider to any moment; it steps through the race in half-hour intervals.

Choose boats

Show All or None, or pick individual boats, to compare a few at a time. Trails are coloured by speed.

Pages scratch-tot.php · scratch-tod.php

Scratch sheets turn a routing into the printable allowance tables race officers use to score and post results. They open from the results page.

Time-on-Time (TOT)

Builds corrected times from each boat's TOT coefficient — the standard offshore scoring method. Adjust the reference and the sheet recomputes.

Time-on-Distance (TOD)

Builds allowances from each boat's TOD figure and the course distance, for races scored by the mile.

Page wrsappl.php

Organizers who need ORC to set up an event can submit the RaceFlow event request form. It collects the race details and documents and sends them to the ORC weather-routing team.

Race details

Race or event name, organizer, location, and the start date and time (required).

Documents

Notice of Race and Sailing Instructions, by link or PDF upload (optional).

Your details

Your name and email (filled in for you), plus a free-text comments box.

On submit, the request is emailed to the ORC weather-routing team at wrs-requests@orc.org.

The shorthand you'll meet around RaceFlow.

Weather routing

Computing the fastest sailing path through a wind forecast, given a boat's performance.

WRS

Weather Routing Service — a single routing run requested for an event.

ORC

Offshore Racing Congress, which publishes the rating system RaceFlow uses.

RMS

The ORC rating/certificate data RaceFlow reads to build fleets.

VPP year

The version year of the Velocity Prediction Program behind a certificate.

BIN

Boat Identification Number on an ORC certificate.

RefNo

The reference number of a specific certificate; links to the certificate itself.

TOT

Time-on-Time — a coefficient that scales elapsed time into corrected time.

TOD

Time-on-Distance — an allowance per mile of course.

PET

Predicted Elapsed Time — how long the routing expects a boat to take.

PFT

Predicted Finish Time — the clock time a boat is forecast to finish.

Scratch boat

The reference boat that standings are measured against on a scratch sheet.

Division

A starting group within the fleet, each with its own start offset.

Exclusion zone

An area the routing is required to sail around.

Credits

What an account spends to request a routing run.

SOG / TWS / TWD / TWA

Speed over ground, true wind speed, true wind direction, and true wind angle.