Peter Hopford, author of HALs results software, is now an Honorary Life Member!
Published 10:17 on 22 Nov 2025 by Stephen Fraser
We congratulate Peter Hopford on being made an Honorary Life Member of Weymouth Sailing Club. Peter has sailed at WSC since 1978, in Phantoms, Falcons, Squibs and keelboats, has served as Hon. Gen. Sec. and Commodore, and provided the Club (and the sailing world at large) with the now legendary Halsail results programme.
Back before the turn of the millennium, at the request of the club, Peter began work on the first version of this project, in order to replace an earlier rather cumbersome system. In 2001 this was trialled for the first time at the club, and in 2002 at Castle Cove; its popularity has spread largely by word of mouth, so that it is has been used by 150 clubs spanning five continents, including for radio-controlled yacht racing in Washington State in the north-west of the USA, Cartagena Yacht Club in Colombia, as well as a sailing school in Taiwan.
Indeed, the success of the software has at times produced its own problems; at a J24 championship in Weymouth, the results were being published so rapidly online that sailors were aware of them before the next race started out in the bay! However this was finally deemed admissible, and these days a well-equipped race team on Viking thinks nothing of entering results almost in real time as boats cross the finishing line. For those of us who remember the old days, of writing up the results using a kind of log table for time correction, there is still an element of science-fiction in this
Peter has very generously donated a sum of money to the club, to be used for the purchase of boats to further its charitable aim. This has already resulted in the appearance of a third SB20 christened HAL, after Peter’s own company Hopford Associates Ltd., rather than the computer in the film ‘2001 A Space Odyssey’ – although it might be argued that Peter’s software now plays a similarly central role in the success of the club’s racing programme!
Peter’s contribution to the club over nearly half a century has been considerable, and we thank him on behalf of members past and present and future, as new members sail in club boats and graduate to become skilled users of Halsail as future race officers!
Last updated 10:39 on 22 November 2025