If all boats start at the same time in a large race, the starting area may become very congested. Staggered starts are a way to alleviate this problem.

In a staggered start, groups of boats are told to start at prescribed intervals. So some boats start at the normal start time for the race, some boats start a number of minutes later. However they all finish on the same line and have their times taken as normal. The race officer inputs the start delay (in minutes) for each boat alongside its finish time.

To use staggered starts you need to set the appropriate switch for the race in question. Go to the Schedule menu and edit the series containing the race with staggered starts. Edit the race in the list at the bottom of the screen and set the start to 'staggered'.

Once the setting is done, you will be asked to enter a time delay in minutes alongside the finish time. The elapsed and corrected times for each boat are calculated allowing for the delayed start.

Note that a race with staggered starts is not the same as a  pursuit race. In a pursuit race the start time for each boat is calculated so that, if they all performed according to their handicaps, they would all finish at the same time. You do not need to record a finish time in a pursuit race since the order of finishing is taken as the result of the race, as in level racing.