12 Races. 20 Teams. 0 General Recalls.
Three years ago, the New York Yacht Club Race Committee set out to bring precision automated starting line management to its renowned biennial Corinthian international sailing championship. The NYYC challenged Velocitek, the leading provider of GPS starting aids, to fully automate the starting process, while reducing the large cumbersome systems employed by the Americas Cup and SailGP to simple devices that could be installed in minutes at a cost that individual boat owners could afford.
This vision became reality at the 2025 Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup, held earlier this month in Newport, RI in the club’s IC37 fleet, when Velocitek deployed Velocitek RTK the first automated race starting system using RTK GPS outside of the Americas Cup and SailGP.
The Velocitek RTK race management system is built around the RTK Puck, a precision GPS device no larger than a softball. Affordable and easy to use, it gives race committees professional-grade accuracy without requiring technical expertise.
The 2025 Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup brought together 20 teams from 12 countries for five days of world-class one-design racing. Over the course of 12 races, competitors spoke six different languages on the docks and across the water. But when it came to starting the races, there was no confusion: every team trusted the fairness and accuracy of the Velocitek RTK race management system.
Zero General Recalls
Across 12 races, not a single general recall was required and every start was run under a P-flag. That’s an extraordinary achievement at this level of competition — and a direct result of centimeter-accurate positioning. Velocitek RTK gave the race committee instant, reliable data on which boats were over early, eliminating the guesswork and ensuring every start went off smoothly.
And at this regatta, the stakes were even higher: no drop races. Every result counted, which meant every call by the sailors, the race officers, the umpires — and the Velocitek RTK system — directly impacted the leaderboard. Accuracy matters.
With the race clock and line ends automatically transmitted to the boats, the race committee gained the freedom to adjust on the fly without forcing competitors to ping line ends or reset watches. This produced square starting lines, quick turnarounds between races, and a higher level of fairness. According to NYYC Race Committee Chairman Forrest Williams, every 1.5 race days Velocitek RTK enables the RC to run an additional race. At major events without RTK, general recalls and penalty flag starts are common, wasting valuable time and straining relations between sailors and officials. At the Invitational Cup, Velocitek RTK eliminated those issues, delivering fast, fair racing without a single delay.
A perfect case study of this additional racing occurred on Day 4 of the Invitational Cup. The forecast called for a dying Easterly that would shift South, and without Velocitek RTK preventing a general recall in Race 9, Race 10 could have featured a 40° shift on the final leg—or been blown off entirely. Velocitek RTK also kept Race 11 from slipping into a general recall, and with the wind shutting off just after that race finished, any delay would have meant Race 11 was abandoned or never started. A fantastic three race day easily could have been a one, maybe two, race day without Velocitek RTK.
The Closest Shaves
The data tells the story: the fleet consistently pushed the start line right to the edge. The highest density of boats crossed within –1 to 5.3 meters of the line — a level of accuracy that simply isn’t possible without centimeter-precise Velocitek RTK.
With Velocitek RTK, sailors knew that if the Puck was green, they were clear; if it was red, they needed to restart. That confidence enabled them to push harder than ever before, creating tighter, more competitive racing.
By contrast, with less accurate systems sailors are forced to hold back by 3–4 meters to de-risk GPS errors. That hesitation spreads the fleet out and blunts the intensity of the start. At the Invitational Cup, Velocitek RTK flipped that equation: instead of sailing conservatively, teams fought for every centimeter — knowing the calls would be instant, fair, and beyond dispute.
The narrowest margin? Just 0.08 meters from the line — less than the length of a sheet of paper. On a 370-meter starting line, that’s impossible to call by eye. But with Velocitek RTK, there was no uncertainty. Sailors pushed hard because they were confident in the accuracy of the system, while race officials ran cleaner races with total confidence in the system.
Speed and Style at the Line
It wasn’t just about distance — speed mattered too. The fastest boat at the gun hit 9.0 knots while still inside a single boat length of the line.
Scatter plots of Speed Over Ground vs. Distance to Line show the variety of starting strategies across the fleet: some favored conservative approaches at lower speed, while others went for the jugular with full speed and centimeters to spare.
Velocitek RTK made it possible to capture and analyze those differences in detail — and to run racing that rewarded skill, not luck.
One of the best ways to appreciate how close the racing was at the Rolex NYYC Invitational Cup is to look at the numbers behind the starts. With our RTK system, we captured each boat’s distance from the line at the gun and their speed at that exact moment. From those two numbers, you can calculate how long it actually took them to hit the line — for example, a boat 3 meters back at 6 knots reached the line in just 1.4 seconds.
The matrix below makes it simple: just look up a boat’s final distance to line and speed to see their time to line. In other words — how late were they?
Consistency and OCS Calls
With 238 total starts (20 teams × 12 races - 2 races RVYC sat out), only 15 were OCSs. Every OCS was recorded and reported in real time, with no disputes and no missed calls.
The data also shows which teams consistently pushed the line with minimal average distance-to-line (DtL RMS), and which played it safer. RTK gives race managers and coaches a new layer of insight into performance and decision-making at one of the most critical moments of the race.
A Truly International Regatta
The Invitational Cup was as diverse as it was competitive: 20 teams representing 12 countries, with six different languages spoken across the fleet.
One thing that united the sailors was trust in the system. No matter their background, every competitor knew the racing was fair, every start was accurate, and everyone was measured to the same standard. That trust was built during the Invitational Cup’s two mandatory practice days, where the NYYC ran multiple starts and a practice race twice each day. In total, the international fleet experienced 12 starts before racing began—ample opportunity to test the Velocitek RTK system and gain confidence in its performance.
RTK also removed one of the biggest barriers in international racing: communication. Instead of relying on VHF calls that can be missed or misunderstood across languages, the RTK Puck made line calls universally clear: red means restart, green means go.
On top of that, ProStart mast displays showed a live readout of distance to the line, along with immediate OCS notifications. This gave sailors the information they needed to restart cleanly — without confusion or delay.
Velocitek RTK proved itself as the universal language of fair racing.
RTK Race Management for the Masses is Here
The New York Yacht Club had a clear vision: the accurate, automated starting systems proven in the America’s Cup and SailGP could transform all of sailboat racing—if they were made cost-effective and simple to use. At the Rolex 2025 New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup, Velocitek RTK delivered on that vision, providing fair, efficient, and transparent racing at the world’s premier Corinthian big-boat one-design championship.
If you’re running major regattas, you don’t have to gamble with guesswork at the start line. Bring RTK precision to your racecourse.
👉 Learn more about Velocitek RTK or contact us to discuss bringing centimeter-accurate starts to your next event.