Digital start clocks...

[Andrew 4CE]

I don't have much experience running against a digital clock. And most times I did, I couldn't find the clock even. I am still in favour of them, but curious...

Does anyone use something to show the elapsing time of the second? 1/5 or 1/10 of second digit, or some other way of doing it?

Say during your approach you get glimpes at the clock, each time you look at it there is a 1 second variance. A human can count off the clock pretty accurately in their head… You see 10-9-8 seconds… your brain is tuned in… You might be looking through spary and what not… sun or drizzle… paying attention to the person beside you only inches away trying to find a hole, or all of these. Only getting very fast glances at a clock is typical in crowded classes. You glimps on approach and see 0:05 left, on target… really it is 5.3 left. Next glimps you get you see 0:03. Doing good. But really it is 3.6 seconds left. Next glimps you see 0:01! Go for it! Really there is 1.9 seconds left… you just jumped by 10 boat lengths if you're going 60 mph.

Am I being too critical? Some classes could be approaching at near 100 mph if the race course is setup properly. That’s 150’ a second.

With a dial clock you get a feel for the seconds elapsing better.

Any thoughts?

[fcliff]

Good Point

Good point Andrew. Depending on the clock engineering, the number could light at the beginning or the end of the second. When the clock reads :01 it could be :01.9 or it could be :00.1 If a driver is accustomed to the first engineering he is in trouble when racing using a clock with the second engineering. There is the potential of nearly 2 seconds difference between the two possible ways of designing the clock.

[ricochet112]

Way too critical. The inaccuracies and discrepancies in the analog clocks we all use is so bad that it's a joke. I haven't seen a pie clock that didn't have a personality of it's own. After spending a year (or more) on a digital you wont want to go back.

I don't have much experience running against a digital clock. And most times I did, I couldn't find the clock even. I am still in favour of them, but curious...

Does anyone use something to show the elapsing time of the second? 1/5 or 1/10 of second digit, or some other way of doing it?

Say during your approach you get glimpes at the clock, each time you look at it there is a 1 second variance. A human can count off the clock pretty accurately in their head… You see 10-9-8 seconds… your brain is tuned in… You might be looking through spary and what not… sun or drizzle… paying attention to the person beside you only inches away trying to find a hole, or all of these. Only getting very fast glances at a clock is typical in crowded classes. You glimps on approach and see 0:05 left, on target… really it is 5.3 left. Next glimps you get you see 0:03. Doing good. But really it is 3.6 seconds left. Next glimps you see 0:01! Go for it! Really there is 1.9 seconds left… you just jumped by 10 boat lengths if you're going 60 mph.

Am I being too critical? Some classes could be approaching at near 100 mph if the race course is setup properly. That’s 150’ a second.

With a dial clock you get a feel for the seconds elapsing better.

Any thoughts?

[foot_doctor]

Here's an extremely important fact for all of you to consider. Time does not elapse in interrupted moments.

[pops67g]

Very Ethereal

Here's an extremely important fact for all of you to consider. Time does not elapse in interrupted moments.

This is why the digital clocks are so hard to start well on. They blink the seconds rather than having time represented in the continuing movement that it is by the sweep of the hand.

[Bill Huson]

true . . .

This is why the digital clocks are so hard to start well on. They blink the seconds rather than having time represented in the continuing movement that it is by the sweep of the hand.

This is the analogue v. digital deal. Our brain is not digital, it is analogue, and we are driving boats which proceed in an analogue fashion, not digital. Imagine trying to catch a pass or baseball that moves in steps = blink-blink-blink - when the only time you see the ball is when it blinks every 1/10 of a second.

Now the reality, which is $$$. The only digital time piece I own is a digital stopwatch I used when I was a motorcycle riding instructor. It is digital because it was dead on the mark and cost less than $20. Of course I priced my preferred stopwatch mode, analogue, but my checkbook was screaming NOOOO! Same deal with our starting clocks. A dead on accurate sweep hand clock (one that doesn't stutter, stall or drag going uphill) would cost mega-bucks. True, digital clocks aren't dirt cheap, but I'm betting they're way cheaper than an accurate analogue sweeper.

Reckon we have to tune our tiny brains to go digital. At least us *mature* folks do. Kids? Nah, I think the little rug rats are born with the new improved digital gene. Ever wonder why many hot lick electronic devices don't have manuals included? No need, the average middle school child can have it up and running before your coffee cools purely on digital intuition.

[Raymond]

Perception of the pace of time; analog v digital

There may be some validity in the perception of the pace of time in this analog v digital discussion.

Here is some background that helps form my perspective

When I first started flying the US Navy’s P3 Orion (Allison T-56-14 Turbo Prop), we had analog Turbine Inlet Temperature (TIT) indicators; the sweeping hand over a dial face type. When setting power for take off, we had to use great focus, scan and peripheral to read and interpret all the activity on four motors at once. We set takeoff power using TIT and then compared shaft horsepower at that temp setting to make the continue / abort decision relative to expected engine performance. To ensure we could accurately determine an engines TIT, the analogue indicator was outfitted with a rotating drum numerical readout like the old fashioned odometers that showed temperature resolution down to 1 deg C. These old technology indicators failed allot. In the late 90’s the Navy upgraded them to LED digital readouts. While the sweeping hand was still present, I struggled (all the way to the end of my flying career) with the fact that I could no long see the direction of movement in the numbers intuitively. The drum no longer rotated so I could not see ‘direction’; it was either ‘this’ number or ‘that’ number. Understand that the needles movement was not as perceivable as the rotating drum movement when focusing on setting exacting temperatures before we got the 80 knot point to make to go/abort decision. I now had to ‘read’ the numerical readout to understand if temp was going up or down. While this may not sound hard, but when you are simultaneously setting power on and scanning readouts for four individual motors for TIT, horsepower, fuel flow and RPM along with aircraft speed …you need every bit of…help you can get.

I equate this multitasking to a drivers situational awareness of his and his competitors positions on the race course along with his rate of closure to the start line as it correlates to the ‘displayed rate of time consumption’ they perceive. The ‘direction’ of movement that I could/not perceive on the LED indicators is analogous to the notion of imperceptible rate of time progression as it moves between segments of time; the changing of the readout every second.

What does this all mean? Nothing; it’s just another one of those dilemmas that will always crop up in a diverse community. Don’t get me wrong…I don’t advocate a society of drone robots…I am just saying; it is what it is. There are always going to be two sides to the discussion.

One thing we can’t ignore is that fact that the world is changing around us; like it or not. If boat racing is still around in 100 years I bet it won’t be on gas or any other liquid fuel. Im betting on some other power source of sort.

My two cents? Go digital and retrain the brain.

[sam]

Ray, sounds like it would have been a lot easier if there was something like a color changing display feature on the TIT LEDs ... red increasing, green decreasing and yellow for steady ... a real peripheral, intuitive display feature, like the old analog

My suggestion to improve flash/peripheral understanding of digital clocks would be to add a strobe for some final part of the count. Something like one flash at 60 sec, 2 at 30 and steady flashing from 15 to 0.

[foot_doctor]

There certainly have been many valid opinions expressed on the digital versus analog start clock issue. My personal view results from having used and maintained our analog clock for most of the last 20 plus years. I'm most impressed by the insight used by the people that constructed the mechanism that moves the second hand. It was created mor than 50 years ago, and uses a hysterisis sychronous motor. The motor operates on almost any voltage between 80 and 130 VAC. The important motor input is the line frequency. For our clock to run accurately, the line frequency must be 60 cycle per second. If it is supplied with 60 hz., it will rake exactly 6o seconds for one complete revolution. The motor has a great amount of torque, and our second hand is balance. Wind doesn't affect it, gravity doesn't affect it. The only thing that affects it is human intervention. (generally considered to be a screw-up by the operator) We have used our clock to operate a lot of closed-course national championships, and have no knowledge of any complaints re. it's accuracy. It's extremely visable, with a yellow face and flat black second hand. We chose yellow for the face because it is in the center of our visible spectrum and easiest to see in low-light conditions. The contrast ratio between yellow and black is higher than white and black.

I like our clock!

R.T.

[Matt Dagostino]

A good start!!

There certainly have been many valid opinions expressed on the digital versus analog start clock issue. My personal view results from having used and maintained our analog clock for most of the last 20 plus years.
I like our clock!
R.T.

Ron
I am sure that a clock tuned and maintained by you would not dare to be off by so much as a tenth of a second!!!!!...........few folks in our sport have the touch the 'foot doctor' has!

Hope you have a great New Year!!

Matt D.

[blueskyracer]

There certainly have been many valid opinions expressed on the digital versus analog start clock issue. My personal view results from having used and maintained our analog clock for most of the last 20 plus years. I'm most impressed by the insight used by the people that constructed the mechanism that moves the second hand. It was created mor than 50 years ago, and uses a hysterisis sychronous motor. The motor operates on almost any voltage between 80 and 130 VAC. The important motor input is the line frequency. For our clock to run accurately, the line frequency must be 60 cycle per second. If it is supplied with 60 hz., it will rake exactly 6o seconds for one complete revolution. The motor has a great amount of torque, and our second hand is balance. Wind doesn't affect it, gravity doesn't affect it. The only thing that affects it is human intervention. (generally considered to be a screw-up by the operator) We have used our clock to operate a lot of closed-course national championships, and have no knowledge of any complaints re. it's accuracy. It's extremely visable, with a yellow face and flat black second hand. We chose yellow for the face because it is in the center of our visible spectrum and easiest to see in low-light conditions. The contrast ratio between yellow and black is higher than white and black.

I like our clock!

R.T.

I must say I agree that my favorite clock will always be a good old analog clock. The nice thing about these clocks is when you are keeping track of the competition and where you want to be it only takes a quick glance to know how much time you have. No thinking involved you can just tell by the arm position where with digital you have to process the number if you can see it in the light condition..Just my

[daveracerdsh]

Digital clock

Having raced for going on 20 years...I have ran on every type of clock you can think of.....I personally like a digital clock....you can calibrate it with an onboard dash clock for better starts.....But I do understand how people like the old pie face or analog clock better.....you can look over your shoulder and seean approximate time left...IE 1/2 minute, 1/4 minute etc......the concept as stated earlier is the same as digital dashboards on cars....you have to look at the number being given, such as speed, as opposed to seeing a pointer.....it may take you 1/10th of a second longer to have your brain process the digital display as opposed to the analog...I will say though the CORA clock from Oregon is the best clock I have ever raced on...you can see it from dang near a mile away...it is that clear. I am so glad SOA has ordered one. David