How to Get YB-tracked Yacht Race Routes into Nav Apps
This is new, so we standby for your feedback. Start with just 3 or 4 boats at time
1. First learn the YB name for the race, such as rolexs2h2025 or transpac2023 or nb2024
You can normally just ask google for the name.
2. Get the data in KML tracks (of all yachts) from links like this (for Sydney-Hobart, Transpac, Newport-Bermuda):
https://yb.tl/rolexs2h2025.kml
or
https://yb.tl/transpac2023.kml
or
https://yb.tl/nb2024.kml
It can take several minutes for the site to put together your request, but then it will download automatically to your downloads folder.
3. Once you have that KML file, load it into Google Earth to see what you have. You will have to move the time sliders top left to see the tracks build.
4. At some point you will want to know who won the race in which division so you can choose the boats you want to track. You can often get this information from the race webpage for past races. But if that does not work, you can get related information by sending an email such as,
mail to [email protected]
with the word "Leaderboard" in the subject line. Change the race to the one you want. You at least get the order of finish.
This typicallyt gets you all the final positions in all divisions and related data. It is presented as a CSV file that can be opened in some Excel equivalent and saved as a spreadsheet for easier access.
5. Once your boats are selected, return to Google Earth and if needed, use menu / view / show side bar
Then in your temporary places you will see the data, and under tracks you can see all boats in the race. This is where we will select the ones we want to see if we do not want all of them. Practice turning all off and then turn on just a few to see how this works.
Then delete all the boats you do not want. Click, then Shift click, will delete the list between selections. Again, try just a few boats at first to see how it goes. We are making full interactive routes from these data. The races can have over a hundred yachts in some of them, which would overwhelm some nav apps if we took all of them. Futhermore, we count on this selective procedure to make the files we convert.
Then do Save place as, i.e. s2h-2025-myboats.kml
6. Now convert that kml file of several tracks to a single gpx route file that includes all the routes in a format that is accepted by most nav apps. Demos of specific apps are linked below as we make them.
Use this link for the conversion: starpath.com/gpx
Load your file onto that page, press convert, and choose download the GPX file we need. That is the file we will import into our favoriate nav app to study historic tracks and to practice routing computations we can compare to them
You will need historic GRIB files for wind, current, and waves that span the durations of the races. See here how to get reanalyzed ECMWF wind and wave data for the time of the race.
7. How to import and use the data in various nav apps. Video examples of the use of this method in the apps below will be added as completed.
Adrena — does not need this as they have this functionality built in to the program.
Coastal Explorer
Expedition — does not need this as they have this functionality built in to the program.
qtVlm — qtVlm has a built in method (DCC Race data) for getting live race tracks into qtVlm, but this method adds a way to access archived races
TimeZero — has a similar function as an optional add on, but this method offers a free alternative.
WinGPS
8. Questions to [email protected]