This past weekend, the MarkSetBot replaced a traditional mark for the J70 porch series at Davis Island Yacht Club in Tampa, FL

25 boats participated.

The MSB acted as the mid-line starting mark, as a gate, and then replaced the traditional starting mark.

There were oscillations of more than 40 degrees every couple minutes. Since the mark can’t be moved during the sequence, we had to set the start for the average of the wind directions.

We ran in to a new challenge. Boats tend to hover around the MarkSetBot to check it out and because it is a mark of the course. There were a couple times we wanted to move it but couldn’t because it was surrounded by boats during the pre-start.

We have an add-on horn system from SailBot (https://www.sailbotstarter.com/) that we are going to use to solve that problem in the future. We are thinking a bunch of quick beeps as it starts to move to a new location.

If you have pictures of the bot in action, please share them at www.facebook.com/MarkSetBot

If you are interested in ordering a MarkSetBot, you can do so a https://store.marksetbot.com