The forward march of technology

I spent Sunday at Newhaven and Seaford Sailing Club, writing down sail numbers and doing sums, converting elapsed time into seconds, dividing by the number of laps completed, and multiplying by the boat's Portsmouth  number over 1000, then looking down lists to sort them from finishing order into final places. This is precisely the same way I carried out the same task nearly twenty years ago, the last time I was involved in a sailing race. Surely, I thought, technology must be able to help. A simple Excel file would do the trick and I set about devising one. Then I discovered the RYA's spreadsheet, the answer to a sailor's prayer