Reinventing the Wheel? (Score 1)

I don't know how many /.ers have any sailing experience, but I'm guessing I'm one of just a few. It seems that this competition is reinventing the wheel. The sailboat that my family uses is perfectly capable of sailing itself to wherever you would like. If you sail without a jibb(the front sail), it can even handle tacking(turning the bow through the wind). Sailboats already come with sensors for wind speed, wind direction, etc and GPS, and you can bring up the GPS, put the cursor on a point (that you could get to without going over land) and say, go there, and the boat can do it all. So it seems that the only challenge is how will you make sure you don't crash into anything? I'd say read up on the rules regarding right of way on a boat (I believe a portside tack always has the right of way) and that should give you right of way over all the other boats. And as long as the course isn't in the arctic, you shouldn't have too much else to worry about.