The day before Charleston Moth North Americans, Anthony and other Moth sailors were out for a tuning session. There was a cruise ship in town scheduled to depart that day. Like the insect to a light, the Moth sailors were drawn to the crowds of cruise ship passengers returning to their boat. As the Moth fleet were buzzing around the Charleston waterfront, the cruise ship sounded its horns signalling its departure.

The sailors heard the horns but never saw the dock lines go slack as they went in for one final flyby. On his last pass Anthony wiped out at speed. The crash was directly astern of the ship. There was a cruise ship worker on the back deck blowing a whistle and pointing at him and the harbormaster was called. In Anthony’s own words, “It was almost a situation, but it wasn’t.” He was able to right himself and sail away before anything more came of the capsize.

In the high-speed wipeout Anthony’s ProStart was ejected from its cradle and unfortunately was not secured with a lanyard. While Anthony didn’t use a lanyard, he did write his name and phone number on his ProStart.

Thankfully, Anthony had a backup ProStart in his quiver of Moth parts. With his backup ProStart, Anthony went on to win the final event of the Charleston Moth Winter Series and was crowned the 2013 North American Champion.

Weeks later, while sailing Melges 20’s in Porto Ercole, Italy (here too, Anthony, and the Cinghiale team, used a ProStart to sail their way onto the podium), Anthony got a text message from a friend, “Dude, did you lose a Velocitek in Charleston harbor at some point?” Anthony’s Velocitek ProStart was recovered five miles upstream in a sandbar. The ProStart had the new battery gasket and the only damage from the capsize and 5 mile trip upstream were three dead AA batteries!

The morals of this story are: use a lanyard, write your name and phone number on your Velocitek, and by all means get the new ProStart Battery Compartment Gasket!

Click here to view the embedded video.

The footage is from the 2013 McIntosh Cup Regatta in Savannah, GA.

SPOILER ALERT: Speed recorded by Velocitek ProStart. 24.1 Knots Max Speed and 22.7 Knots Best 10 Second Average!

With a second place finish at the final event of the 2012 – 2013 America’s Cup World Series, in Naples, Italy, Oracle Team USA – Spithill/Slingsby became the 2012-2013 America’s Cup World Series Overall Season Champions. Congratulations to skippers and crew!

Oracle Team USA – Spithill/Slingsby was not the only team to use the Velocitek ProStart. In fact, 7 of 11 America’s Cup World Series Teams were Velocitek ProStart equipped. ProStarts were used by Oracle Team USA – Spithill/Slingsby, Oracle Team USA – Coutts, Emirates Team New Zealand, Team Energy, Artemis, Team Korea, and J.P. Morgan BAR.

Unlike other instruments, which are heavily customized for use in the America’s Cup, the Velocitek ProStart used by Ainslie, Barker, Coutts, Outteridge, Peyron, Slingsby, and Spithill is the same device sold to the consumer.

Used by the best. Trusted by the best. Available to the masses. The Velocitek ProStart.

Check out the clarity on the ProStart! COG – 155 degrees. SOG – 4.3 knots.

French offshore legend, Jacques Vincent (of Hydroptere fame), took his Velocitek ProStart offshore in the 2013 Roma per Tutti. Roma per Tutti is a 530nm race starting in Riva di Traiano, racing around Lipari, and returning to Riva di Traiano.

Here’s the report from Jacques: “Thanks a lot for making the ProStart! We had a top start for our race in Roma per Tutti… it has done it’s job perfectly!”

Up next for Jacques and his Pogo 40 Team (and ProStart!) is the ARC Transat in November.

56 J/70
39 Viper 640
37 Melges 24
34 Melges 20
11 Ultimate 20
4 J/80

59 boats in the Offshore Circles and 18 in the Pursuit Circles.

How valuable is a front row start in fleets of those sizes?

The Velocitek ProStart is the best distance-to-line tool ever. And we only have 88 ProStarts in stock until the next shipment arrives in early May. Don’t get left behind. Order one today so you have it for Charleston!

Click here to view the embedded video.

To demonstrate Velocitek’s commitment meeting the needs of racing sailors, if Nick Holroyd, Dean Barker, or Grant Dalton sends an email to charles@velocitek.com we will send you Velocitek swag and a half pound of locally grown, Maui coffee.

While it’s still April 1st here in Hawaii, we’re not fooling around. Velocitek is dedicated to providing racing sailors an edge, whether through coffee or superior instrumentation.

The first person who correctly identifies the boat in today’s post wins a Velocitek t-shirt.

The first person who correctly identifies the sailor and the boat in today’s post wins a Velocitek hoodie.

Good luck!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Through April 30, we are offering this upgrade to ProStart owners for free with free shipping. Please visit our online store to get your new gasket:

http://store.velocitek.com/ProStart-Battery-Compartment-Gasket

If you’re curious how this upgrade came about, here is the background story:

The Velocitek ProStart was designed to the IPX8 industrial water resistance standard for continuous immersion. Our production samples were tested to this standard and they passed. Practical Sailor magazine also tested the ProStart to this standard during their review of the product and the ProStart passed those tests as well. It turns out there is a big difference between sitting in a bucket of still water and wiping out on a fast boat.

Velocitek received an unusually high number of ProStart warranty returns due to water damage, especially from customers using the product on boats like the International Moth that can capsize violently and hold the ProStart underwater. In these instances we looked after our customers and honored their warranties. But this was a frustrating situation: it was expensive for us and inconvenient for our customers.

Earlier this year, Velocitek had some Australian Moth sailors coming back for their second and third ProStart warranty replacements. It was clear that we needed to improve the product.

Though customer feedback and our continued product testing we understood that the water was entering through the battery compartment. Velocitek teamed up with a company on the East Coast that specializes in gaskets for medical and industrial equipment for a solution.

The solution was to replace the hard rubber o-ring used to seal the battery compartment lid with a much softer, thicker silicone gasket. This gives us more overlap between the ridge on the battery compartment lid and the gasket, providing a much better seal.

Thus far, ProStarts with these new gaskets have passed a number of rigorous testing scenarios including smashing the product into the surface of the water at different angles, immersion in overhead surf and use by Australians.

All Velocitek ProStarts that ship from now on will be equipped with the new gasket design. We hope this improvement helps you get even more out of your ProStart.

This win caps an amazing year for Peter who, at only 22, competed in his second Olympics, won a silver medal and then got hired to drive Team Korea’s America’s Cup boat.

Here is a great video of Peter talking about his win. A surprising amount of the interview is spent discussing how he uses his SpeedPuck while racing.

Click here to view the embedded video.