Short answers about Little Brother race tracking and 3D replays, for sailors, race officers, coaches and clubs. For which phone or watch to use, see the device guide.
Your phone in a drybag records just like a watch. Nothing extra to buy. Will mine work?
Sailors never sign up. Your name, sail number, crew and boat are saved in the app.
Tap Start on the beach and go racing. Your phone or watch shows nothing during the race, so it doesn’t aid you.
No questions match that. Try a shorter word, or ask us.
No. There’s no hardware and no accounts. Sailors never sign up. Your name, sail number, crew and boat are saved in the app. Then tap Start.
No. Little Brother is paid for by the club, never by sailors.
Start on the beach, end at the bar. Tap Start while you rig, and tuck your phone in a drybag/pouch or wear your smart watch. Tap Stop when you’re ashore. Once online, tap Send to upload your phone or watch tracks in seconds.
That’s your race uploading. Keep the app open on that screen until it says it’s saved, then you’re done.
No. Nothing is needed on the water. The race records on the phone or watch and sends once the sailor is back on land, over club Wi-Fi or mobile data.
No. Your phone or watch is just the recorder. It shows nothing during the race, so it doesn’t aid you, and racing stays fair.
Probably, but use a pouch anyway. Most phones released since 2020 (iPhone 12 and later, Samsung Galaxy S20 and later, Google Pixel 5 and later) are rated IP68. That rating comes from a lab test in fresh water, at 1.5 to 6 metres for up to 30 minutes depending on the model.
It isn’t a guarantee at sea: salt water and knocks wear the seals over time, and most makers don’t cover water damage under warranty. So we always recommend a £5–10 waterproof pouch or mini dry bag on a lanyard or carabiner, tucked into a buoyancy aid pocket, halyard bag or hatch pocket. In testing we tracked dozens of races this way, and the phones stayed dry and tracked nicely. Rinse your phone in fresh water after sailing.
Nothing goes wrong. You still appear on the sign-on sheet and the results are unaffected. You just won’t be in that race’s replay.
The app reminds you. And because your club’s sailing area is geofenced, anything recorded outside it is dropped, so nothing is kept about where you go after racing.
Yes. Choose sign on, don’t track. You’re on the club’s sign-on sheet, but the app records nothing.
Sailors mark their own DNF or DNC in the app.
Open your club’s replay link, or catch it on the club TV. Fly the virtual drone yourself, let autopilot follow a boat, or switch to the map and data views to compare yourself with a rival per race or leg.
iPhone and Android phones, plus Apple Watch, Wear OS (Samsung Galaxy Watch, Google Pixel Watch) and Garmin watches. Newer devices give sharper stats, but every listed device records the race. Check the device guide.
No. A phone in a drybag, pocket or halyard bag records the race just like a watch does, and often better.
Little Brother is built to be battery friendly. Nothing is sent until the race is over, and the battery level shows before the start, so sailors know they’re good to go. In our testing, even an old iPhone XS tracked an entire regatta day and still had battery left when its owner got home that evening.
Best not. Battery-saving modes can slow down GPS on some devices, which makes your track less accurate. A full charge is the better fix.
They’re our accuracy tiers, based on the GPS chip inside. Every tier records tracks and 3D replays. Gold has dual-frequency GPS for the sharpest track, tacks, gybes and speed. Silver works well. Bronze is older and stats can jump. Compare the tiers.
Look up its GPS spec. “Dual-frequency” or “L1 + L5” means Gold. L1 only means Silver, or Bronze if it launched in 2020 or earlier.
Install Little Brother on your watch, tap Start and race. The watch shows nothing during the race, just a Start button and battery level. There are apps for Apple Watch, Wear OS (Samsung and Pixel) and Garmin.
Water and sails bounce GPS signals around. Older Bronze devices feel it most, so your course or speed can jump. A Gold device filters most of it out.
Garmin watches work with Little Brother now. We’re still grading Garmin models into tiers.
Older Samsung watches run Tizen and can’t install the app. Galaxy Watch4 and newer work.
No. Lap and finish times from GPS are labelled unofficial. Your race officer’s times are always the official ones, and can be typed in to replace the estimates.
Yes, you can track and replay both. Pursuit races work well, and handicap races replay like any other race, with every class together on the water.
Little Brother is a race replay solution, not a scoring system. It doesn’t apply PY ratings, calculate corrected times or score your series, so keep using your usual results software for that. The estimated lap and finish times are there as a backup to your clipboard.
Yes, for the most common set-up: several classes sharing one start line (or with a splitter) and one start time, even on different courses. Typically a fast fleet, for example catamarans, and a slow fleet of monohulls start together, with the monos rounding an inner windward mark. This works perfectly well, and so does a pursuit race.
Create it as one race and every boat appears together in the 3D replay and on the map. In map view you can turn classes and individual boats on and off. Lap times are logged for every boat, and the automatic drone views include the whole fleet, ready for Club TV.
Or create a race for each fleet. It’s just one click, and the drone replays show the fast fleet and slow fleet separately.
Coming in a future release:
Supporting these would mean the race officer setting up a race for each course and dragging boats into the right start. That’s extra work for race officers, which breaks our own rules! 😉 So we’ve held it back for a future release.
Export is Coming soon. Little Brother doesn’t do scoring, so your Sailwave process stays exactly as it is today. Soon you’ll be able to export lap and finish times to bring into your results software. Ideal if you’re using Little Brother to click and log official lap times.
No problem. A boat might not track because the sailor forgot to tap Start, or chose “sign on, don’t track”. The replay shows every boat that did track, and you run your results as normal for the whole fleet. Either way, they still appear on your sign-on sheet.
Yes, if the protest committee accepts it. Under rule 63 of the Racing Rules of Sailing, the protest committee decides what evidence to hear and how much weight to give it, and that can include tracking data and replays. A replay can help by:
GPS has limits, especially on older phones and watches. That’s why Little Brother publishes its own GPS accuracy tiers, Gold, Silver and Bronze, and shows each boat’s tier, so the committee can judge how much weight to give each track. A replay works best alongside your diagram and witness evidence, and the decision always rests with the protest committee.
Three ways. From the patrol boat, drop each mark in the app as you lay it. Use AlgoMarks Beta to place missing marks in one click. Or turn on all the tracks afterwards and add or move marks by hand.
No. Your club’s sailing area is drawn as a boundary on the map. This is called geofencing. When a sailor taps Stop, all recording stops. If they forget, the app reminds them. And because the sailing area is geofenced, any data from outside it is dropped from our server. So nothing is kept about where sailors go before or after racing.
Sailors only give their name, crew name, sail number and boat. No email, no account. By design, video exports show only the sail number and, at most, a first name and last name initial, and published replay links only show the sail number and the first and last names of the helm and crew.
Because we hold so little, removal requests almost never come up. That keeps data risk and admin for the club practically zero.
Races delete themselves automatically after a set period unless a coach or club admin saves them. A club admin can also delete any race at any time from the admin screen.
Replays are shared by link, so only people you send the link to, or who see it on Club TV, can watch them.
In our privacy policy.
Very little. Enter a start and finish time for each race, before racing or after, and edit them any time. If your club has no weather station we can read automatically, add the wind speed and direction too. State of tide is optional. Marks can be dropped from the patrol boat, placed by AlgoMarks, or added afterwards from the tracks.
No. The app is designed to show nothing, so it does not aid a sailor during a race.
No. The replay shows whoever tracked. Sailors who don’t want to be tracked can still use the app just to sign on. Your results still cover the whole fleet as normal.
Yes. Sailors who track already sign on with sail number, name, crew and boat. With “sign on, don’t track”, everyone else can sign on in the app too.
Yes. Little Brother works for open meetings, regattas and class events as well as club racing. Visiting sailors download the app and sign on as usual, with no accounts. Tell us about your event on the sign-up form and we’ll set it up.
Little Brother is paid for by the club, never by sailors.
We set your club up, you race with it, and you decide if it’s worth keeping. Get your club started.
No. Sailors use the phone or watch they already own. For Club TV, any clubhouse screen will do.
Open your Club TV link on any clubhouse screen and the last race day plays on a loop in the bar. Add a keyboard and mouse and it becomes a kiosk anyone can use to replay their own race, fly the drone and record clips to share.
Draw on the chart while the race plays, record clips with their own voice commentary, and save and label races for training.
Start with whoever’s nearest. Most race-day questions are answered in the race box.
Your club runs Little Brother on race day. The race officer or club admin can help with sign-on, replay links and saved races.
Setup, trials, marks, or anything this page doesn’t cover. Tell us your club and what you’re trying to do.
help@getlittlebrother.com
Send your phone or watch model, the club, the race date and what you saw. A screenshot helps.