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GoFastHow -the easiest way to record, replay and analyze your sailing tracks and races!
Record your tracks on the water with our Android app and then one click to upload. Then visit www.GoFastHow.com with your computer to replay and analyze your sailing, your races and more. GoFastHow is the only free Android app that has a custom, free online track player and analyzer (see youtube video below)
Of course GoFastHow can also be used to record GPS tracks for other activities (cycling, hiking, running, motor sports etc) but the website is currently designed with the sailor in mind.
The Android app supports voice output (text-to-speech) of GPS measurements and can dispaly speed, bearing, velocity-made-good (VMG), and angle-made-good (AMG). There is also a real-time graph of speed if you need it.
A little background...
I developed GoFastHow to help me sail my boat faster. I race F18 class catamarans and I needed a really simple app that could give me feedback about my trimming and steering so that I could discover how my boat will sail the fastest course in various conditions.
I looked at other nice GPS and sailing apps that had all sorts of features, but I found them too impractical to use on the water. Being inflicted with the engineer's conceit ("I can build it better"), I naturally set about to build something better.
I needed something really simple... something that I didn't have to fiddle with on the water. I wanted big read-outs and big controls and what's more it had to have voice output, so that I didn't need to look at my smartphone while I'm concentrating on sailing. Just listen to my speed or VMG etc.
In fact, I wanted voice-output so I could wear a waterproof bluetooth headset, and keep my smartphone in a dry place out of the way, while I get updates straight to my ear.
That was the humble start, and like all projects that tease you with their simplicity, this one grew to demand more. Now that I had these GPS points, how could I view them? Well of course... I'll build my own website where I can upload my data with one click, and why not throw in a cool flash app that will playback my tracks and my fellow racers, and all the sailing goodness that I could think of?
Well after many months of tinkering, I now have my app and website. So now when my friends and I are racing or training, we can combine all our tracks in to one view (race) using my online tracks player and see how and where each of us is sailing faster or slower -- even get timings around marks and race legs.
Well that is where it stands right now. I hope you find it useful and tell your fellow sailors about GoFastHow as well. I plan to continue to build up the features on the website and flash app if there is enough interest. Feel free to send me a note if you have any comments or suggestions. They are always appreciated!
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