RaceSense RTK: The World's Leader in Race Management Offers New Levels of Precision
Over the past two years, RaceSense has become the most widely used Race Management tool in the world. Across over 400 events on 6 continents, in dozens of classes, including more than 10 World Championships, RaceSense has helped realize racing that is more fair, more fun, and more efficient. “We’ve been especially excited to see so much adoption from grassroots classes, including the VX/One, J/24, Melges 15, and many others,” said Vakaros Events Director, Doug Wake “Our goal for RaceSense has always been to make the technology accessible and affordable to as many sailors as possible, and we believe we’re really delivering on that promise.”
In November 2024, RaceSense made its 40,000th start line call. As RaceSense continues to grow, Vakaros has continued to invest in the technology that powers RaceSense, building out new features, including real-time finishing, live tracking and replay, mark zone detection, and more. For 2025, Vakaros is thrilled to introduce two innovations that will deliver even higher levels of accuracy to every RaceSense event:
Differential GNSS Corrections
Delivering accuracy on the race course requires a combination of technologies, including high-accuracy positioning, precision orientation measurement, and reliable, real-time communications. Over the past two years, Vakaros has worked to improve each of these aspects within RaceSense, yielding an impressive system-level accuracy of 25 cm. For 2025, we’re excited to take the next step, by integrating differential GNSS corrections for all RaceSense events, further enhancing the positioning performance of every Atlas 2 and Atlas Edge instrument. “Leveraging the highly-reliable RaceSense mesh network to deliver differential GNSS corrections, we’re able to achieve higher levels of accuracy while maintaining the simplicity and ease of use of RaceSense” notes Vakaros Co-Founder Todd Wilson. “These corrections are fully supported by every existing Atlas 2 and Atlas Edge instrument, making this a seamless upgrade for all of our customers.”
RaceSense RTK
Real-time kinematic (RTK) positioning represents the current state-of-the-art for high accuracy position measurement, and has been on the roadmap for RaceSense from earliest conception of the idea in 2018. “We’ve been waiting for the cost and complexity of an RTK solution to reach a point where it is practical for a wide range of sailing events” notes Vakaros Co-Founder Jake Keilman:
Our RTK solution adds a second, high-accuracy receiver to each boat, the Atlas HALO RTK, which is paired with an Atlas 2 or Edge to provide a consistent RaceSense user experience, and unprecedented 1 cm accuracy. Our goal is to make this technology available to classes and events that demand the ultimate level of performance, while maintaining the core objectives of affordability and ease of use.
The Atlas HALO (High Accuracy Location and Orientation) RTK and an Atlas 2
RaceSense RTK and the Atlas HALO RTK will be available in mid-2025.
About RaceSense: RaceSense is the world’s first, most used, and most reliable Race Management software. RaceSense uses Vakaros Atlas instruments to adjudicate starting, finishing, and other points of convergence around the racecourse. This technology is the official Race Management Technology of a variety of classes and clubs, including the J/70, M32, Melges 15, and 69F.
About Vakaros: Vakaros, like so many great companies, was founded in a basement by two sharp engineers who strived to make a better instrument for their own sailing. With the help of an amazing team, Vakaros has grown from these humble beginnings into the world leader in small boat sailing instruments. Vakaros introduced the Atlas 1 in 2018, followed by the Atlas 2 in 2021, designed to support RaceSense, and the first sailing instrument with a dual-band GNSS receiver. With the introduction of RaceSense in 2023, Vakaros brought advanced electronic race management from the world of the America’s Cup and SailGP to all levels of sailing. RaceSense has quickly become the choice of events, classes, and clubs worldwide, from the largest World Championships, to casual weeknight races.
FAQs
What is RaceSense’s current accuracy?
RaceSense currently achieves a system-level accuracy of 25 cm for OCS determinations. This accuracy is achieved through a combination of high accuracy position and orientation sensors, precision timing, and reliable real-time communications. With RTK and DGNSS, this accuracy will be improved even further.
What is Differential GNSS? RTK?
Differential GNSS (DGNSS) is a broad category of techniques which make use of correction data transmitted from fixed reference stations with known or surveyed positions. The GNSS receiver inside the Atlas uses this correction data to improve the accuracy and reliability of its own position calculation.
Real-time Kinematic (RTK) GNSS positioning is a specific type of DGNSS which combines carrier-phase measurements with real-time correction data from a reference station to measure positions with an accuracy of 1 cm.
Why now?
Differential GNSS technology has been widely used for surveying and military applications for several decades. Recent technological advances, driven primarily by growing demand in the autonomous vehicle and drone market, have significantly reduced the cost and complexity of deploying this technology.
Building on the success of RaceSense, Vakaros has worked closely with suppliers and technical partners to incorporate these new capabilities into RaceSense, while maintaining affordability and ease-of-use.
How does RaceSense make automatic OCS calls?
RaceSense uses a combination of high accuracy position and orientation sensors, as well as a model of hull shape, to measure the location and orientation of each part of a boat at all times on the race course, with errors as low as 1 cm and 1 degree. The positions of the marks which make up the starting line are transmitted multiple times per second, enabling RaceSense to determine if any part of a boat crossed the starting line early, even in conditions where the ends of the line may be moving due to current, wind, or waves.
How does RaceSense communicate? Does it use cellular networks?
RaceSense utilizes a highly reliable, fault-tolerant mesh network for all race management communication on the water. This ensures RaceSense can provide accurate and reliable race management anywhere in the world.
RaceSense specifically avoids use of cellular and other 3rd party networks for critical race management functions. On-the-water, these networks frequently have coverage gaps, high latency, and other challenges. We view RaceSense as a mission critical system, and consider these to be unacceptable risks.
Why can’t I just do this on my phone?
Achieving race management accuracy on the water requires specialized hardware, like that found in the Atlas 2 and Atlas HALO RTK devices. Vakaros hardware is designed and built from the ground up to deliver maximum performance for RaceSense.
Is this like the America’s Cup and SailGP?
Yes! In fact, RaceSense was inspired by and closely modeled on the America’s Cup LiveLine system, first used for the 2013 Cup in San Francisco, and later adopted by SailGP. RaceSense RTK completes this evolution, delivering accuracy comparable to that provided by these Grand Prix systems, for a fraction of the cost.
