Death of the Black Flag?
Originally Published on Trofeo Sofia, 1 April, 2026
The 55th Princess Sofia Mallorca Trophy by FERGUS Hotels is the first major event in the Olympic classes to implement Vakaros. This system is set to revolutionise regattas and is already receiving very positive feedback from both the fleet and the organisers.
The general recall is the bane of race officers, and of Olympic sailors too. When too many boats break the start line before the gun has fired, sometimes the race officer has no choice but to bring everyone back for a restart. And sometimes that whole re-run goes around for multiple cycles. For those that are ‘black flagged’ and banned from taking part in the next re-start, it’s a frustrating time sitting around on the water waiting for the race to finish before they can join in on the next sequence.
Ben Remocker, manager of the 49er class, has seen enough. A former Olympic representative for Canada at the Beijing 2008 Games, Remocker is always keen to make the regatta run more efficiently for his sailors as well as the race officials. The class has now bought a number of GPS units from American technology company Vakaros. "The main problem we’re looking to solve with this technology is to have no more general recalls," Remocker explains. “It’s such a waste of everyone’s time.”
The cost of these delays isn't just frustration; it’s lost opportunity. Remocker points out that while the sailors' time might technically be ‘free’, the schedule isn't. "We’ve had so many general recalls throughout the course of a day that we pack up early and miss a scheduled race. In the ‘shoulder’ seasons, when days aren’t as long, three recalls in a row is at least half an hour of 200 people’s time wasted."
The Return of the 'Papa' Flag
To combat this, the 49er class is moving back to "Papa" flag (P-flag) racing, because if the technology does its job, there will be no need to bring in the harsher ‘U Flag’ or ‘Black Flag’ options currently favoured by frustrated race officers. In the modern era, the Vakaros unit acts as an automated judge, jury, but not executioner.
"Everyone gets an instant recognition that they’re over; they get an instant message," says Remocker. "The unit flashes red and says 'OCS' [On Course Side, the three-letter acronym that tells sailors they’ve started too soon]. For the people that get a chance to restart, they don’t get an automatic disqualification; they get a chance to race their race. The people that did start clear get clear air quite quickly and get to go on unencumbered [by boats that started too early but carried on up the race track]. It should mean less protesting. There’ll be no people crossing the finish line thinking they’ve won a race - only to see their score marked up on the scoreboard as OCS later in the evening, and then having a 25-point gap to try and make up in a protest room."
The Quest for Two-Centimetre Precision
One might wonder why it took the Olympic classes so long to adopt technology that a few non-Olympic fleets like the J/70 sportsboats have already been using successfully for a few years. According to Remocker, the barrier was the ‘public eye’ factor. "Ultimately, the reason we didn’t go forward in 2024 is because we couldn’t reconcile a half-metre of error at a regular regatta - which sailors can put up with - versus the public’s ability at the Olympics to see a photo that shows the opposite of the system. When you can see that someone has started behind the line but recorded as over early by the system, we can’t explain that to a hundred thousand fans watching the Games."
It was only when the technology reached a two-centimetre accuracy threshold that the class felt ready for the Olympic stage. While the current units in Palma are quoting about 25-centimetre accuracy, the hardware will be compatible with the hyper-precise software due to arrive further down the road.
The end of ‘invisible’ boats
Beyond the start line, the elimination of ‘hiding’ behind other competitors on the start line opens the door for a visual revolution. Historically, sailors kept their boats white and anonymous to avoid being singled out by race officers.
"There’s no hiding anymore," Remocker says. "With GPS, everyone is equally visible. That means you can amp up the branding as much as you want." This will open the door to much better commercial opportunities with potential sponsors. “We have huge billboards in sailing available to us, and we’re not taking advantage of them,” he says.
He points to SailGP and the America's Cup as the gold standard for what sailing should look like. "The SailGP boats are beautiful - coloured sails and full branding. It makes the sport recognisable from a distance. If the Canadians are out with a giant maple leaf in the middle of their flag, you can follow their journey. If everyone looks the same, which is what everyone is aiming to do at the moment in Olympic competition, it’s impossible to care."
The Data Democracy
Then there is the data coming out of the Vakaros units. The 49er class is following the SailGP model of “total data transparency," where telemetry is collected and shared equally across the fleet.
"In theory, everyone can learn from the best," says Remocker. “The teams further down the pecking order can take a look at the speeds and angles the top sailors are achieving.” Gathering the data is one thing, but knowing how to analyse it is another. But as Remocker points out: “AI will probably be better than humans at doing the analytics on this quite soon."
Counting the Cost
The obvious question for many sailors is the price tag: USD $600 per unit [for the Atlas Halo RTK]. Remocker, however, argues that in the context of an Olympic campaign, it’s a bargain.
"It sounds like a lot, but put that into context. The average team is spending $10,000 for a two-and-a-half-week trip to an event like the Trofeo Princesa Sofia. If you cost out, say, 15 races across that $10,000 figure, if they lose just one race out of 15 due to general recalls, that’s your $600 right there. In the context of the overall cost of the sport, where a high-end coach costs $600 a day, it really is not very much."
The 49er class has prided itself as one of the innovators in Olympic sailing. At the 49er’s Olympic debut at the Sydney 2000 Games, the skiff fleet was the first class to have national flags emblazoned across their spinnakers. Now, by pushing ahead with this new technology, Remocker hopes that the 49er class will set a standard for eliminating start line disqualifications from all 10 Olympic disciplines by the time the next Games comes around at Los Angeles 2028.
