The app will only show you races that you can start to track on that day.
Once you join the race the app starts to use the GPS to collect position data so it would be a huge battery drain to join the race hours or days beforehand. Best practice is to start the tracking when you go to the boat and start to rig.
Sailchart can optionally record the boat's heel angle and true heading if you turn on the 'use heading and heel' toggle when tracking. It uses the phone sensors to measure heading and angle of heel, and therefore the phone must be level and pointing in the same direction as the bow, though it doesn't have to be on the centre line. It must be level though, so vertical is not going to work. In testing we found that the phone could not accurately measure heel when vertical. If you do not want to use the heel and heading features, then you can place the phone anywhere in the boat and should not set the 'use heading and heel' toggle option on.
The phone should be placed in a good quality dry bag (ideally with a plastic window so you can see the screen). It then needs to be secured in a position where it is facing forward and level. Attaching it to a secure point with bungee is a good solution, for example the thwart or side seat.
A boat can be co-owned by multiple users. The boat should be created by one user and then the other user can be added as a co-owner or user of the boat in the Sailchart Dashboard by the first user. This will allow both users to track the boat. However a boat can only be tracked by one user for each race, so if both owners are sailing in the same boat, only one of them should track.
You can upload a GPX file of your tracks to Sailchart once you have finished sailing, either on the same day via the Sailchart app or using the Sailchart Dashboard. However live tracking is only available if you use the app or dedicated GPS tracker.
Once a race has finished, Sailchart needs to run an analysis routine to calculate the leg statistics. This is done when the race administrator defines the course sailed (sets the course marks and any waypoints), updates the actual start and finish times and sets the race status to 'Completed'.
When the race marks are defined by the race administrator, they need to ensure that they are positioned such that every boat's track actually rounds the mark. If the marks are set from preset club marks, the actual mark position for a specific race may differ to the preset position. The actual position can vary because of tidal effects and also GPS drift. However, occasionally the tracks for one boat are significantly offset from other boats, for example due to a GPS fix error in the tracks for that boat. It may not be possible to adjust the mark positions so that the rogue boat rounds the mark, in which case it's mark rounding time will be estimated based on when it was closest to the mark.
The race marks are probably positioned (incorrectly) such that the boat does not round a mark. If the boat does not round a mark, then the leg is not completed and no data is available for that leg. The Race Administrator should check the tracks for each boat and position the marks so that each boat rounds the marks correctly.
The Analysis page is only available in the desktop version of the Sailchart Dashboard. It is not available in the mobile version, i.e. when viewed from a small screen device like a phone.
Use the Chrome browser instead of Safari on an iPad.
If the race course requires a boat to round a mark, they are best defined as rounding marks not waypoints. A leg is completed once a boat has passed a mark or waypoint, so whilst you can use either, it is best to use rounding marks where these are marks that the boat must round. When you define a mark rounding, you specify whether it is a port, starboard or gate rounding so Sailchart will only complete a leg for a boat that has sailed the correct way round a mark. A waypoint or wayline is used to divide a race leg into separate sections, for example to record the time taken to sail between two points, typically when there isn't a direct route between two marks. See the Race Administration guide for further details.
When you define a race course, you can either use preset marks (which are defined in Club Administration) or define new marks for this race. If you define a new mark by clicking on the map, it will be created as a waypoint and given a generated name like New Waypoint 5. You should change the name of the mark to something more meaningful and also change the mark type to be a rounding or gate mark.
in Club Administration you can define your usual race marks and then use these when laying out the actual race course sailed after the race has completed.
There can be a difference between the actual GPS position and the position displayed on the map. Furthermore due to GPS drift, tidal effects, atmospheric effects and other small errors, the race mark may not be in the same position for every race and so you may need to adjust the mark positions for each race.
To use a preset course when defining a race, switch to the Course tab, press Copy… and a dialog allows you to either copy a preset course or a course from another race.
The club boats should we defined by one account, for example the club administrator. You can then edit the boat in the Dashboard and add other accounts as 'users' of the boat which will allow them to select the boat that they are tracking for each race.