SilverHook powerboats are one of the fastest, power efficient boats in the world manufactured by the company of the same name. SilverHook powerboats are used in powerboat racing around the world. High speeds of the boats pounding against saltwater pose a risk of failure of onboard equipment. Racers rely on telemetry data from their boats to make safety and strategy decisions. In some situations, biometric data of racers is also collected. Thus, racers receive a lot of information, making it difficult to track all of the data. SilverHook also noticed that powerboat racing fans were finding it hard to follow the racers in the ocean, as the boats moved quickly, decreasing engagement from fans. SilverHook powerboats collected sensor data from 80 sensors but there was no easy way to get insights to improve decisionmaking abilities, make safety decisions, and enhance fan experience. The SilverHook team employed IBM Bluemix Platform as a service (PaaS—see next section) to employ IBM SPSS analytics solutions and deliver insights in an understandable format to the users and fans. PaaS enabled SilverHook to build applications, pull data into the cloud, and perform required analytics on that data. IBM Bluemix, along with partner company Virtual Eye, used an IoT foundation to send sensor data generated from sensors and global positioning system (GPS) trackers to the cloud. Analysis on the sensor data was done using analytics tools present in IBM Bluemix. Virtual Eye delivered technical information alerts to the racing team and realtime representation of the race to the fans. Racers can now get real-time insights about the race, improving their decision making and competitiveness.

Questions for Discussion

1. What type of information might the sensors on a race boat generate that would be important for the racers to know? What about for the fans?

2. Which other sports might benefit from similar technologies?

3. What technological challenges might you face in building such systems?