Getting Involved with Access - Maybe (1 Viewer)

[Solar.Paul]

Greetings from Down Under

I am actively involved in my sailing club and have been setting handicaps for their Sunday pursuit races over the last year. Although there are a number of off-the-self systems around none of them provide the level of functionality I would like to have available for this type of racing. I've been using Excel in which I have had a good deal of experience but its complexities and limitations lead to problems when I go away. Many members don't have appropriate skills and there is a risk that those that do will unwittingly corrupt data, make mistakes etc.

I've always wanted to develop the skills to develop a database system but I do have some questions before I commit to doing this. I will post them in the appropriate places in the forum. After that I hope to have a clear way forward, hopefully with Access

My background - I'm retired from a career in IT - Systems integration with a focus on business process and project management rather than programming and system building

Best Regards
Solar Paul

 

[CJ_London]

The benefit of Access is it's flexibility and a much highe rlevel of security than Excel - tho' not as great as strategic systems such as SQL Server, I'm surprised you say that off the shelf systems do not provide the level of functionality required - that is what they are supposed to provide

 

[Solar.Paul]

Thanks CJ

There are off-the-shelf systems and off-the-shelf systems. Most I have found focus on the more traditional style of yacht races with massed starts and staggered finishes. Handicaps are then used to determine place getters. Pursuit racing (staggered start with finishing order the final placing) is considered "less serious'' and is either an after thought or not addressed by most systems. It is, however, used by a lot of clubs for twilight racing and is conceptually more difficult, with many more factors used to establish fair start times. This is what I want to address

Regards
Solar Paul