We wrapped up our 13th and final Velocitek RTK event of the year in Vilamoura, Portugal, closing out what has been our 20th—and biggest, busiest, and most exciting—year yet. From Youth World Championships to the pinnacle of Corinthian racing, 2025 pushed Velocitek RTK forward in all the right ways and showed how ready the sport is for accurate, modern race management. Accuracy Matters, and this season made that clearer than ever.
Finishing the year at the Youth Sailing World Championships with the Female two person dinghy (I420) fleet felt especially fitting. There’s an energy and focus in this group that reminds us why we’re building this technology: to support the next generation of sailors who are already racing at an incredibly high level.
This event also marked another great collaboration with our friends at TracTrac. Their live tracking added an excellent spectator layer on top of the precision race management data coming from Velocitek RTK. Beyond that, our RTK data was also shared with partners including Swiss Timing and SAP, ensuring that accurate, high-resolution positioning data was available across the broader event ecosystem. It was exciting to see our technology feeding multiple platforms simultaneously—another step toward a future where reliable RTK data underpins every part of major regattas.
For this regatta, all 21 supplied Nautivela 420s were equipped with RTK Pucks on the transoms, while ProStarts provided magnetic heading, a system-synchronized start timer, and magnetic heading in Race Mode. Because the boats were assigned to countries and rotated between the Men’s/Mixed and Women’s teams, every hull needed to be identically prepared. That meant installing RTK Puck mounts even on boats used exclusively by countries that brought only a Men’s/Mixed team.
To help sailors get comfortable with the setup, we were fully operational during the practice race—where roughly 15 boats were OCS, yet everyone kept sailing anyway because nobody wanted to miss the speed test.
Once racing began, things settled quickly. PRO Miguel Pinheiro ran every start under a U Flag, and the fleet responded. No more jailbreak attempts. With the Women’s and Men’s/Mixed fleets rotating into the same boats, there was also a safety and boat-preservation element driving this approach: the OA wanted to avoid restart scenarios where boats bearing away at speed could conflict with boats that had started correctly.
Miguel was especially enthusiastic about our automated time synchronization and system-driven Bluetooth airhorn. With sound signals at 6 minutes, 4-3-2-1-Start, the horn played a bigger role than it does in a standard, Rule 26, 5-4-1-Start sequence. Sometimes the small conveniences genuinely elevate the race committee experience.
Racing kicked off with a BIG first day—so windy that the fleet sailed the entire track under main and jib only. The breeze moderated for the rest of the week, delivering fantastic conditions throughout the Worlds.
The Women’s I420 fleet recorded zero general recalls—helped in part by the clarity our technology brings to the line. The Men’s ILCA fleet had a much tougher time. In the final race of the series, their starts escalated from U Flag to Black Flag as the race committee was forced to repeatedly recall the fleet. With the stakes high, the outcome of the event was directly shaped by those penalties: the regatta leader going into the last race was Black Flag disqualified. It made for a dramatic conclusion and highlighted how consequential start-line discipline can be at this level.
We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Vilamoura and appreciated the opportunity to showcase Velocitek RTK to the next generation of rockstars.
Looking ahead, we’re excited for a future where Velocitek RTK is written directly into the Sailing Instructions, allowing race committees to eliminate General Recalls, U Flags, and other starting penalties entirely. We’re proud of the progress we’ve made—and even more excited about the work still ahead. Better Racing Through Superior Accuracy isn’t just a catch phrase; it’s the direction the sport is headed.