VIDEO Here’s the smart buoy. You move it with a click on your smartphone

In 2016, during a J/70 regatta in Monaco, the hulls are hanging around waiting for the Race Committee to fix the course because the wind has changed. It takes so much time. Valentina Venturi, a sailor and mechanical engineer, had an idea pop into her head: “But why not make buoys that act like drones, capable of maintaining a precise GPS position without needing to be anchored?”

THE BUOY THAT MOVES WITH A CLICK ON YOUR SMARTPHONE

Think of the advantages: on the one hand, no effort on the part of the posaboe. A “thankless” role in organizing regattas, especially where there is so much bottom and each change of buoy position means dozens and dozens of meters of line hoisted and recalculated. And then there is the Race Committee, which by remote control, from a telephone, can change the position of the buoy by accommodating wind changes and ensuring participants that the race course is always perfectly set.

Thus was born SMark Buoy (Smark is the cross between the words “Smart,” intelligent, and “Mark,” buoy in English.) To understand how it works up close, our own Luigi Gallerani went to Switzerland to have Valentina explain to him all the secrets of the smart buoy that could revolutionize the racing world. HERE the SMark Buoy website

SMARK BUOY, THIS IS HOW IT WORKS

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