At the end of each season you need to consider how to prepare for the next one. One option is to use your existing classes and just carry on adding new series and races as before.

If your race programme will be much the same next season as last, you can duplicate your existing series. From the Schedule menu open an existing series in edit mode. Click Copy this series and opt to copy it to the same class 52 weeks later. This will give you a new series with the same races in it on the same days of the week. Do the same for your other series.

If you have lots of boats and want to make changes for the new season, just carrying on adding new series and races for your existing classes may lead to problems. You may need to delete some boats from the Boat Register in order to remove clutter, or remove old races so that the new ones are easier to find. But if you delete boats or races you will also delete their results and you may still want to have last year's results available.

Basically there are two ways to proceed. One is to add new classes and schedule your series and races for the new season using those classes. So you might rename your 'Laser' class as 'Laser 2021' and add a 'Laser 2022' class for new races. You add all the Lasers that are carrying on for the 2022 season to the Laser 2022 class along with any new ones. There is still a problem, though, with any boats that have changed helm. If you change the helm field in the Boat Register the new name will appear for old races as well as new ones. You could get around that by adding a new boat with the same sail number and put the new boat into the 2022 class, but things get messy.

A better way is to archive your existing data and do a spring clean ready for the new season. This is the procedure to follow:

• Save your data by  downloading it as a Hal file. Use the Admin Menu (you need to be logged in as a Club Administrator).
• If you want to retain online access to your old results, you can  upload them to the archive server, again from the Admin Menu.
  • If you have archived results before, HalSail will automatically connect you to your account on the archive server.
  • If you have not archived results from HalSail before, but have been using the Windows version of Hal, you may already have an archive account (previously known as the Club Results Service). You will be given the option of continuing to use that account if you know its login and password.
  • If you have never used the archive before, or cannot remember the old account login, HalSail will automatically set up a new account for you.
  You can store 20 separate sets of results on the archive server. So if you archive results at the end of each year you will have the last 20 years of results available to view.
• Once you have archived your results, you are ready to do a spring clean using the tool in the Schedule Menu. This will remove any series whose final race is before a specified date, say 1 January. It will also remove any handicaps in the boat register that have been superseded by new ones and are no longer relevant.
• Spring cleaning the schedule permanently removes series, races and results, but does not affect your boats or classes. You can then look at your classes to ensure they are still the ones you want, make any changes required to the boats and schedule new series and races.

Hint: if you wish to set up a new schedule of races for next year that is similar to this year, the easiest way to do it is to copy the existing series. Go to each series that will be the same next year and copy it to the same class adjusting the start times with a 52 week delay.