FAQ

SailScores is a web-based scoring for sailing clubs. It helps scorekeepers manage series, calculate results, and publish standings instantly—whether you're running a casual series or a multi-day regatta.

It's built for speed, scorekeeper convenience, and to organize a club's results. No need to keep track of multiple spreadsheets or series files. (And we'll continue to make it even faster and easier to use.)

And SailScores was built from the ground up to keep shareable, stable page URLs, so it's easy to integrate with other websites.

Absolutely. You can score races from a laptop, tablet, or phone—right from the dock or the committee boat. Just make sure you’re connected to the internet and have a modern browser.

Yes. SailScores is cloud-based, so you’ll need an internet connection to enter results and publish scores. Offline support is on our radar, but not available yet.

SailScores supports a range of scoring systems such as: Appendix A low point, high point percentage, Cox-Sprague, and Appendix A with modified first place values. You can tailor all score codes to match your club’s requirements, such as custom volunteer or DNC values.

SailScores is aligned with the 2025–2028 Racing Rules of Sailing, including updates to rounding and scoring penalties.

Reach out if you need another method supported.

If you need offline scoring, handicap calculations, or specialized formats such as team or heat-based racing, another tool might be better fit until we get those features built here. But for one-design racing, SailScores covers most scoring needs.

(While SailScores won't calculate handicap results, it can include elapsed times in results. That can help clubs that calculate handicap results in another system.)

In order to keep race entry really fast, the initial club setup has a few steps:

1. Request your club — Use the "Try it out" link at the top of this page.
2. Once you get an email that things are ready, use the link in the email to naivgate to your Club Admin page. That page will start with a checklist of the key items that need to be configured before your first race results are entered:
   • Boat Classes
   • Seasons
   • Series
   • Competitors
   [Insert link here to setup tech tips.]
3. Assign scorekeepers — If others will help manage results, you can give them access here.

That’s it! You can always come back to adjust settings, add fleets, or tweak scoring rules. If you’re just exploring, feel free to create a test club to try things out.

Yes—every series and regatta belongs to a season. Most of the links to your club's results will include a season in the URL. This helps keep years of results usable on SailScores.

Many clubs use calendar years or hyphenated years for the southern hemisphere ("25-26"). But you can define a date range that fits your schedule. Pick an interval that will cover your series. Series names can repeat from season to season. Make sure there's a season covering the dates for any race that you'll enter. (You can add additional seasons at any time.)

Regattas are multi-day events with their own fleets, competitors, and scoring rules. To create one:

• Make sure the regatta dates fall within an existing season. If not, create a new season first.
• Go to the Club Admin page and scroll to the “Regattas” section.
• Click “New Regatta” and follow the prompts to set up fleets, scoring, and competitors.

Absolutely. SailScores supports both long-running series (like a summer club series) and short regattas. You can run them side by side within the same season.

Yes. Multiple accounts can share the scorekeeping responsibilities within a club. They’ll be able to enter results, manage events, and help keep things running smoothly.

Nope. Competitors don’t need to log in to view results. Only scorekeepers need accounts to manage the site and results.

For small fleets, the buttons that show up on a race page are usually the quickest way to add results. But once the total fleet grows, it can be faster to dismiss the button panel and then type partial sail numbers into the score entry text box. If multiple competitors match, tap or click on the correct choice in the auto-complete list. Ohterwise, just press enter to start entering the next boat.

The race date is pre-populated and some of the weather fields are filled in if you enter results on the day of racing.

[Insert details of handwriting and speech recognition]

Regattas can have multiple Fleets. After creating those, you can choose from your club's existing competitors or add new competitors to the fleets.

Currently, SailScores supports ranked finish order. You can make the handicap calculations in another system.

SailScores will help capture and show elapsed and clock times for competitors if you indicate that a race should "Track Times."

TODO: Add a link to a Quick start for Assistant Scorekeepers in deepdive section.

Mark a race in a series as provisional to display the series scores with a note indicating that they are not final. When resolved, update that race status to “Raced”. SailScores automatically recalculates series results when a race is saved.

Ties for most scoring methods follow World Sailing RRS Appendix A rules. Some base scoring systems, such as PWA Standard, have different tie-breaking rules.

A regatta is a single event, often over one or a few days. A regatta has a dedicated scoring page that can display notices. A series is focused on the scores for a collection of races over a season or period. A regatta can include multiple fleets, but a series scores all included boats against each other.

A regatta race will automatically include a result for every competitor in the fleet, while a series won't add results for anyone that wasn't added explicitly. But scoring will assume DNC for missing competitors.

When setting up or entering results for a regatta, make sure to use the New Race and New Fleet buttons from the regatta scoring page. This will keep them linked to the regatta.

Yes. A race can belong to multiple series without duplicate entry. When entering the race, select all the series which include it.

Each scoring system has discard rules, describing the number of discards after X races are sailed. A club can have many different scoring systems set up. Typically, clubs will have a regatta scoring system and a club sailing scoring system with different discard rules and different custom score codes.

Yes. You can link directly to results pages or embed them via iframe. Public SailScores URLs are stable and can be used to link directly to the scores you want to share.

Yes. Export to CSV for spreadsheets or HTML for formatted pages to post.

Yes. Export HTML results and print those for the cleanest prints with minimal headers and extra text.

TODO: Add common error messages and offline guidance.

Check your internet connection. If the problem persists, contact support with event details.

TODO: Document automated exports and retention policy.

Yes. Export results regularly to CSV or PDF.

TODO: Clarify data retention and account closure process.

Your club’s data remains accessible for download before closing the account.

Use the feedback form or email the development team.

Yes. SailScores welcomes code contributions, translations, and documentation help.