Peter Hopford

Dear HalSail user,

It is with profound regret that I have to inform you of the sad death of Peter Hopford - the founder and software author of HalSail. Peter died earlier this week after a period of ill health aged 79. He will be missed by many in the sailing community for his intelligence, kindness and not least his creation of HalSail over a period of 20 years starting with a desktop based Results Service.

I should like to take this opportunity to introduce myself as the new owner of HalSail having worked with Peter over the last 12 months or so on an extended handover. I have done so knowing I have big shoes to fill, but nevertheless have determination to see Peter's legacy flourish and continue. I will be maintaining the software, providing support and continuing to develop HalSail - so it's business pretty much as usual.

Peter was very positive in life and wouldn't want us to dwell on his departing so much as enjoying our sailing and using his software. I shall be raising a glass to Peter this weekend, a brilliant man, a likeable man and a good friend - I hope you can join me whether you knew him personally or appreciate his contribution to sailing.

As Peter would often sign off,

Happy Sailing!

Phil Ashworth

HalSail Ltd.

New PY Numbers

The RYA issued the 2026 Portsmouth Yardstick handicap numbers over the weekend and we lost no time putting them into HalSail.

You can see how your PY racing classes are affected by logging in and going to the Crosstab page under the Boats menu. Not all the numbers have changed, so some boats will probably have green backgrounds, meaning their handicap agrees with the latest value. But most will have red backgrounds, indicating that their handicap is different from the latest value.

There are two methods of updating the handicaps. You can either stay on the crosstab page and update each boat individually, or you can go to Boats > Tools > Standard handicaps and click on your PY classes. This will show all the boats that need updating, which you can do with one click per raging class. HalSail will enter a new handicap for each boat in each racing class valid from the date of issue of the 2026 PY numbers.

I always think that the announcement of the new PY numbers is a happy occasion meaning that the new sailing season is just around the corner, so Happy Sailing.

The curious case of the silent beeps

Race officers that use HalSail on their phones or tablets while starting races appreciate the Countdown page that shows how long there is until the next signal. It says which flag has to be raised or lowered and what sound signal to make. There is a second-by-second countdown and beeps marking the last 10 seconds. Or there were beeps until recently, but then they mysteriously went silent.

It seems that over the last few months the publishers of the main browsers, Safari and Chrome, decided that no audio should be played by a website page until the user had made some physical interaction with the device, such as pressing a button. The Countdown page did not call for any interaction, so the beeps fell silent.

To cure the problem, we have added a new button at the top of the page labelled "Enable beeper". Once the Countdown page has loaded, the user needs to press that button. Just press it once, whereupon it will disappear so as not to clutter the screen. After that everything will work as before, including audible beeps. Don't forget to turn the sound volume up on your device.

Offline app no longer available

The original version of Hal was Hal's Race Results. This was an offline program that could be installed on a Windows computer from the Microsoft Store.

Hal's Race Results used old software technology dating from the year 2000. It has become very difficult to maintain, so we have been forced to discontinue it and remove it from the Microsoft Store.

The good news is that HalSail, the modern online version of Hal, can do everything that Hal's Race Results could do and more. You can take a file produced by Hal's Race Results and upload it to HalSail, whereupon all your data - including classes, schedule of races, boats and results - will be available online ready for use.

So if you are still using Hal's Race Results, now is the time to take out a subscription to HalSail.

New Portsmouth Yardstick Numbers

Two days ago the RYA published the Portsmouth Yardstick handicap numbers for 2025. They are now in HalSail and will be used as the default handicaps in PY racing classes.

But note that EXISTING HANDICAPS ARE NOT UPDATED AUTOMATICALLY. That is because many clubs use their own bespoke handicaps and would not appreciate them being overwritten by the new ones. 

However it is easy to do the update yourself. There are two ways of doing it.

• You can update all the numbers in one go from the Boats  > Tools > Standard handicaps menu item. That page gives you access to all the standard handicaps in the following schemes: PY, IRC, Small Catamaran Scheme (SCHRS), Australian Yardsticks and the base numbers for the National Handicaps for Cruisers scheme. To update all your PY numbers in one go, click the button on the right of the PY row. That will give you a list of all the boats in each PY class and their current handicaps. The ones that agree with the latest numbers will be in green and the ones that disagree will be in red. Click the button at the top of each column to update them and turn them all green.
• You can update the handicaps one at a time by going to the Boat-Class crosstab page. There you can see all the boats in each class, with those that agree with the new handicaps in green and those that disagree in red. Click each one individually and add a new handicap that will automatically default to the new value. 

Happy sailing in 2025. May the new numbers reduce the bar-room arguments about handicaps. Some hope!

PHRF Time on Distance

We are frequently asked by clubs in North America whether HalSail can do PHRF time-on-distance handicapping. Well the answer is YES. We have recently implemented the ToD version of  Performance Handicap Racing Fleet from US Sailing, in addition to the time-on-time version that we have always supported.

In PHRF ToD handicaps are specified in terms of the number of seconds a given boat is allowed per mile, relative to a scratch boat. So the higher the number, the slower the boat. The race organizer specifies the length of the course in nautical miles. Each boat's corrected time is calculated as its elapsed time minus its handicap times the course length.

In HalSail the course length is entered by the race officer when selecting a particular race, or in the case of a fixed course it can be specified when the series is set up.

Results are shown in the same way as other types of handicap races, with the seconds per mile allowance shown as each boat's handicap. The length of the course is shown in the race header, along with the race officer's name and the wind conditions.

Price Increase

The price of a subscription to HalSail has remained the same ever since it was launched in 2016. Since then our expenses have gone up substantially, so unfortunately an increase is  inevitable.

The price will be £100 per year for all clubs, except those in the European Union where the price will be €120, and those in the USA where it will be $130. These prices will be applied to subscriptions or free trials whose expiry date is on or after 1st March 2025.

If you need to check your expiry date, login as a club administrator and go to Admin / Settings. Your expiry date is displayed in the top-right panel.

One more thing

There is a new handicap-analysis button on the public results pages. Open the results of any handicap series and look at the right-hand side of the header panel for each individual race. Alongside the button to print the results, there is a button with a graph logo to show the way each boat performed against its handicap, such as 1% fast or 2% slow.

This is the same information as was always available using the  Analyse Handicaps tool to users that were logged in. Now anybody can see it.

Latest Updates

 I have made several improvements since the new version went live after Easter. You may be interested in the following.

• When viewing the overall results of a series on a small screen, such as a phone, the default is not to show a detailed table of the result of each boat in each race, but just to show the rank, sail number, boat details as in the series switches and net points in the series. Now there is a button to expand the display to show the full table just like on a full-size screen. That will inevitably involve some horizontal scrolling.
• If you are running back-to-back races and there are guest helms or crews, the system will remember the guest names from the previous race and suggest them for the next race. Also race officers can automatically preselect the competitors from the previous race on the same day.
• Tandem races now appear on the public calendar page. Users can click to see the results, just like base races.
• The default action has been changed when importing boats from a spreadsheet, Hal file or SailEvent. As before, users have the ability to change the action for each boat by means of drop-down lists on the preview page, but the preselected option varies.
  If the numerical sail number (what is written on the sail, excluding any letters) is not the same as that of any existing boat, the new-boat option is preselected.
  If there is a boat already in the boat register with this numerical sail number, there will be three options: ignore the new boat, update the existing boat, or add as a new boat. The preselected option will be as follows:
• If the complete sail number, including letters, of the boat being imported is the same as that of an existing boat, and they are of the same type, assume they are duplicates and preselect the ignore option.
• If the complete sail number of the boat being imported is the same as that of an existing boat, but the type of boat is different, preselect the new-boat option.
• If the complete sail number is different, albeit with the same numerical number, and the type of boat is the same, preselect the update option.
• If the complete sail number is different, albeit with the same numerical number, and the type of boat is different, preselect the new-boat option.

Strategic Alliance with Sailing Club Software Limited

Many HalSail users benefit from the app’s integration with SailEvent, developed by Sailing Club Software Limited. SCS also runs the popular DutyMan rostering app.

SailEvent’s eTally feature lets sailors sign afloat and ashore on their phones or shared touch screens. Intentions to sail are transferred automatically into HalSail, so that the race officer knows which boats to expect at the start line and the safety officer has a list of boats that are under his care. After racing, sign ashore declarations are seamlessly synched with HalSail for accurate and timely results.

In 2022 the relationship between the two developers, HalSail Ltd and Sailing Club Software Ltd, was formalised in a strategic alliance agreement. The two companies provide each other with technical and customer support. Going forward our strategy will improve efficiency and reliability by sharing infrastructure and spreading the customer support load.

Our commitment is to further integrate the activities of the two companies. The aim will always be to support the sport of sailing by reducing volunteer workload, eliminating paperwork and providing rapid, accurate results in a format convenient to sailors.

At HalSail I am excited to be working with great partners.

New version of HalSail going live after Easter

Thanks to the many users that have commented on the beta-test website. Your contributions have all been positive and very helpful in tweaking the site to get the best possible HalSail experience.

The new site will go live next week, after Easter. So when you go to the usual address - www.HalSail.com - you will see the new site. If you go to the beta-test site you will be redirected to the new site automatically.

I trust you will enjoy using the new version, but at least for a while you will still be able to access the old site by going to old.HalSail.com

Happy sailing during 2024

Help beta test new version of HalSail

HalSail is getting an update for 2024 with a fresher look, especially when viewed on a phone or tablet. It is nearly ready for release, but any feedback from users would be welcome before it goes live for everyone. There are no changes to the underlying structure of the app - how you set up your boat register, racing classes or schedule - just to the look and feel of some of the web pages.

Please log in at beta.HalSail.com, give it a try and send your feedback to support@HalSail.com

New Portsmouth Yardstick Numbers

The UK RYA has just released its PY numbers for 2024 and I updated the table of HalSail standard handicaps this morning.

If you want to update your PY racing classes to the latest numbers, log into HalSail and go to Boats > Standard handicaps. Click the button showing your PY classes and you will see a table of boats and their handicaps. Those that are not in agreement with the latest numbers will be shown in red. Either update them individually, or click the button to update them all at once.

Another Autumn Update

I have been busy responding to some of your requests. Here are another two features you asked for.

Scoring by helm, rather than by boat, is popular in clubs whose members swap boats during a series. It has been in HalSail for some time and appears as a button on public results pages. However the button can be confusing and it makes no sense unless there are guest helms specified for some of the results. So the button now only appears for those series with guest helms.

Race committees sometimes award redress to a boat that have been prevented from getting a result for some reason outside its control. Typical situations are if a boat is damaged in an incident that was not its fault, or if the crew had been asked to help organise a race rather than take part in it. To cover these situations there has always been a facility in HalSail to award redress in one of several ways which are specified in this FAQ. But in each case the boat is treated as a non-finisher. What if the boat does finish, but the race committee want to award it a number of points different from those applicable to the place it achieved? Up to now the only way was to score the boat DPI, but that implies a "Discretionary Penalty". The word penalty is not always appropriate, so there is now a new scoring abbreviation in HalSail called RDF - Redress given to a Finisher. You can award any number of points you like to a boat scored RDF and it will still take its place in the race as a finisher.

Country Flags

HalSail is used in many countries for international regattas and championships, so I have added a feature to show country flags alongside the sail number. The picture below shows what it looks like on a public results page.

It is controlled by a new series switch called "Show country flags in results". Set that switch and the flags will appear alongside any boat whose sail number begins with one of the national sail identifiers defined in racing Rules of Sailing Appendix G.

Autumn Update

I have made three small improvements recently that you may find useful.

• Races that have not been sailed yet shown in public results pages. When you display the results of series in which no races have been sailed, you used to get a simple message saying there are no results yet. Now you get a list of the races in the series with their start dates and times.
• Download series results by helm. When you edit the results of a series and click the icon to download them to an Excel file, you get the option to score by helm. Previously you could only download results scored the usual way by boat.
• Download series winners and runners up. Open the winners page from the Result Menu showing the winners and runners up of all the series in your account. Alternatively open it from within an individual event to get the winners and runners up in that event. An icon now appears top right to download them into a spreadsheet. Note that in order to avoid asking the server to calculate all the results again, the file is made by your browser directly from the information on the web page. Thus it is very quick, but it produces a csv file rather than an Excel file. You can, of course, open the csv file in Excel to format it as you wish.

CSV Bug

When I updated the website a couple of days ago I made a number of improvements to the way data is imported from Excel files. Unfortunately in the process I inadvertently removed the ability to import from csv files. Sorry about that.

It is fixed now so that you can import racing classes, boats, races and results from either Excel files or csv files.

Mid-Season Update

 I have updated the HalSail website with a number of improvements.

1. Scoring penalties are no longer limited to 20% when the result status is SCP, XPA or ZFP. You now specify the percentage penalty when you input the result, although the default continues to be 20%.
2. There are improvements to the way data is loaded from Excel spreadsheets or csv files to make the process more robust. This applies to importing racing classes, uploading boats to the register, importing races to the schedule, or importing results.
3. The default type of redress is now RDG2 - average of all races except DNC, which is the recommended option for boats that cannot take participate in a race because their crews are part of the race-management team. You can, of course, still specify any of the other options if you wish. This FAQ gives details.
4. There are new options on the public links page to go straight to the latest results for each racing class. You might use these on your own website to provide bespoke links for each of your classes.

Result Caching

The HalSail server gets very busy on weekends when there are lots of regattas. There were a couple of occasions last year when it slowed to a crawl, due to hundreds of boats finishing at about the same time and entire crews using their mobiles to see how they had done.

The immediate availability of new results is one of the big advantages of HalSail, so I have been working hard to build more resilience into the system. I have done that by storing results on other computers on the web, as well as the HalSail server. So when people ask for the results of a particular series, the request goes to one of the other computers in the first instance. That computer gets its results from HalSail once every five minutes. This is known as caching.

The net result is that HalSail should be much more resistant to high work loads, but that results may be up to five minutes late. In other words, if a race officer updates the results of a race, those results may not filter through to sailors on their mobiles for up to five minutes. That seems to me to be a reasonable compromise between speed and reliability.

A race officer who is logged in can use the result editing screens to see results. They will not be cached, so what the RO sees is the latest version.

Updated PY Numbers

The RYA released the 2023 Portsmouth Yardstick numbers over the weekend. They are now in HalSail.

If you add a boat to a PY class and it is on the RYA's list, its handicap will default to the new value. But the handicaps of existing boats are not updated automatically. To do that go to the Boats menu, Standard handicaps, click to see your PY classes and then Update all.

Alternatively you can update boats individually, either on the Boat-class crosstab page, or by editing each boat's details.