Just back from helping with timing for the Veteran Head of the River race, run on the same weekend as the HoRR.
This one is run by Vesta, with most of the timing volunteers being senior Men and Women from the club. This year they used the Webscorer tablet timing system, same as the Pairs Head. The tablets (iPad or iPhone) work as a pair, one at Start and one at the Finish.
My role was on the backup Watch at the Finish, with the very capable Kate. Kate operated the watch while I did the writing.
The race was unusual in the number of crews finishing together. I guess that we had more than ten occurrences of three or four crews finishing close together.
The Webscorer app seemed to cope well. In Normal View you need to select a "bib" (crew number) in order to record a time; but in Fast-tap View you have a choice: to get the time first, then assign the crew number; or to tap the crew number first and then get the time.
On the Watch we had great teamwork and I think got a perfect set of results. I am sure the times were right, as Kate was concentrating hard on the line, while we worked together to make sure we knew who the crews arriving were and how we were going to get the times. The way we did it was to write down the full time for individual finishers, and for the last finisher in a tight group of finishers. The Memory counter in the watch then gives us the actual times for the crews in between, and makes sure that our sequence is complete.
In the event the Webscorer tablet times were fine and the Watch times weren't needed, but that's what backup is for and its satisfying to know we had a good set of times anyway.
Congratulations to the Chief Timekeeper and the whole team for a great set of results.