iSail Has Gone. Here Are the Best Alternatives for Competitive Sailors.
If you've searched for iSail recently and found a parked domain or a dead link in the app stores, you're not alone. iSail was the GPS race analysis app developed by Dutch company Keper BV, and it quietly went offline around 2017. The website is now a GoDaddy domain-for-sale page, the Android listing returns a 404, and updates stopped years ago. It was a genuinely useful tool for competitive club sailors, and its disappearance left a gap that many sailors are still trying to fill.
This post covers what iSail offered, why it mattered, and most importantly what you can use instead.
What was iSail?
iSail was a smartphone app and web platform for GPS race analysis, launched in 2012. You ran the app on your phone during a race or training session, it recorded your GPS track, and you uploaded it to i-sail.com afterwards. The platform then let you replay your track, overlay it against competitors' tracks, and identify where you gained or lost time on the course.
It was aimed at competitive sailors: people already racing at club level who wanted data to back up their post-race debrief. The core idea was simple: you can argue all evening about whether your tack on the second beat was too early, or you can look at the GPS data. iSail made that accessible without requiring expensive hardware or a dedicated GPS logger.
Key features included:
- GPS track recording on iOS and Android during races and training
- Web-based track replay after uploading
- Competitor comparison, overlaying multiple sailors' tracks on the same map
- Live tracking at designated iSail events
- Team debrief tools for clubs and coaching groups
The last update to the app was April 2017. There was no announcement, no migration path, and no export tool. The service simply went dark.
Why did it shut down?
Keper BV never published an official reason. The most likely explanation is the same one that kills most small sailing apps: a niche market that's genuinely hard to monetise. GPS race analysis requires a backend server, storage, and ongoing development, all of which cost money, and the sailors who need it most (club racers) are often unwilling to pay subscription fees for tools their competitors don't use. Without a critical mass of users uploading tracks from the same races, the competitor comparison feature loses its value entirely.
iSail was ahead of its time in some respects. The market for this kind of tool has matured significantly since 2017, and the apps that exist today are more capable, better funded, and in the case of SailingMetrics, embedded in a broader competitive ecosystem.
The best iSail alternatives
SailingMetrics: the most complete replacement
SailingMetrics does everything iSail did, and considerably more. The Android app records GPS tracks and video simultaneously, which means you can watch your own footage synced to your speed, heading, and VMG data. That's something no iSail equivalent ever offered. The analysis platform gives you tack detection, leg-by-leg performance breakdowns, and the ability to compare your sessions over time.
Where SailingMetrics goes significantly further than iSail is in the competitive infrastructure around the analysis tools. Rather than a standalone recording app with a replay website, SailingMetrics is a full sailing performance platform:
- GPS tracking with simultaneous video recording, so you can review mark roundings, tacks, and starts in full context
- Speed, VMG, and tacking angle analysis with leg-by-leg performance metrics and charts
- Live audio callouts so you can hear your speed and heading during the race without looking at the phone
- Tacking training mode with drills and instant performance feedback on each tack
- Competition and regatta management covering full club series, entries, handicap results, and published standings
- SailingMetrics League, a decentralised, handicap-based competition open to sailors worldwide and free to enter
- Skipper rankings, a community leaderboard showing where you stand against other sailors globally
- Race video analysis so you can upload and annotate race footage for individual or group debrief
The critical difference from iSail is that SailingMetrics connects your individual performance data to a live competitive ecosystem. Your sessions feed into league standings, your boat's handicap history, and a skipper ranking, so the analysis has stakes. iSail was a recording and replay tool. SailingMetrics is a performance environment.
Download the SailingMetrics app or create a free account to start tracking your sessions today.
RaceQs
RaceQs is one of the closest direct replacements for iSail's core feature: animated 3D race replay with multiple sailors' tracks overlaid. It's free, has a reasonable user base at club level, and the replay viewer is genuinely good, far more polished than iSail's was. The weakness is that it's purely a replay tool. There are no performance metrics, no training modes, and no competition management features. You record, you upload, you watch the replay. For sailors who primarily want that post-race "where did I lose it?" review, RaceQs is a solid free option.
- 3D animated race replays with fleet-wide tracking
- Widely used at club level for group debriefs
- Free to use
- No performance metrics or training features
KWINDOO
KWINDOO focuses on live event tracking. It's frequently used by race organisers who want to offer spectators and competitors a real-time view of the fleet. If you're organising events or your club wants to offer live tracking to shore-based supporters, KWINDOO is worth looking at. For individual training analysis it's less useful, and the feature set for performance improvement is limited compared to SailingMetrics.
- Strong live tracking and spectator features
- Photo and video integration during events
- Popular for regatta organisation
- Limited individual performance analysis
TackTracker
TackTracker has been around for a long time and has a dedicated following among performance-focused club sailors. It detects tacks and gybes automatically and presents leg-by-leg timing, which is useful for structured analysis. The interface is functional rather than polished, and the mobile app experience is behind what SailingMetrics offers. Worth considering if you want detailed tack analysis without the broader competitive features of SailingMetrics.
- Automatic tack and gybe detection
- Leg-by-leg timing analysis
- Fleet replay with performance comparison
- Free and paid tiers
eStela
eStela is used by some professional sailing events for live tracking and offers post-race replay with start analysis and mark rounding breakdowns. It has more traction in offshore and offshore-style racing than in dinghy racing. If you're doing coastal or offshore work and want live tracking with analytics, it's worth looking at. For club dinghy racing the user base is thinner.
Which one should you use?
The honest answer depends on what you actually used iSail for.
If you used iSail mainly to get a post-race GPS replay to review with your coach or fleet, RaceQs is the most direct free replacement. The replay quality is better than iSail's ever was.
If you want to go beyond replays and actually understand your speed numbers, work on your tacking angles, compare your performance across sessions, and race in a structured competitive context, then SailingMetrics is the obvious choice. It's the only app that combines the analysis tools iSail offered with a full competitive platform, video integration, and a community of sailors to race against. The fact that your GPS data feeds into league standings and rankings gives the analysis a purpose that iSail's standalone replay tool couldn't provide.
iSail was a good idea that ran out of time. The tools available today are better, and the best of them, SailingMetrics, have turned GPS race analysis from a post-session curiosity into a core part of how competitive sailors train and race. If you're still looking for a replacement, it's the place to start.
Create a free SailingMetrics account and upload your first GPS track. You'll have a performance breakdown within minutes of finishing your session.