A package of computer hardware and software worth more than £500,000 has been put together by BT to provide communications support for the Global Challenge race.

BT is probably the only company in the United Kingdom with the skills and resources to develop the package, which has kept information flowing to and fro via satellites, fax, ISDN, mobile phones, e-mail, the Internet and intranet.

Known as the BT Race Information System, it provides race organisers and end users with detailed location and statistical information on each of the 14 yachts.

Race followers can get the latest information from this web site, which has received more than 35 million hits since its launch, or from the BT-Fax Database, enabling people to dial it up through a fax machine.

Information from the yachts - mainly location details and crew messages - is transmitted from the Inmarsat-C equipment on each boat via one of four satellites 22,500 miles above the equator. It bounces through a land earth station to Race Headquarters in Southampton where it enters the Race Control System made up of five PCs, using Windows 95 and NT software.

The Race Control PC seeks and receives locations, processing them to produce new race reports. The Race Communication PC handles yacht messages. The Fax Database Update PC is used to transfer to the Fax Database pages from the current race report. Switching results on to the BT World Wide Web server is the task of the Internet Update PC.

Media interest has been immense. Feeding that is the Press PC, used via ISDN by the press officer in London, where there is access to maps and yacht messages, to attach the race news to the main race report.

The system is the brainchild of a core team of just three people at BT Laboratories in Martlesham, Suffolk - Maurice McQuitty, Chris Taylor and Andy Bridden. Andy said: "The whole system has performed well. We have had no major failures of any kind, just a few minor hiccups."

And these hiccups in the equipment at Race Headquarters were put right rapidly by the Martlesham team without moving an inch. It was all done using a form of teleworking via an intranet system. "We can go into the system at Southampton as if we were there on the spot," said Andy.

E-mail, sent by satellite, has been used to allow the Royal Yachting Association jury to rule on protests lodged by skippers. Evidence and witness statements can be submitted in minutes. It speeds up verdicts and saves a fortune in flights and accommodation in bringing the five-person jury together.

Another way of receiving news from the yachts is via the GSM mobile phones - a special version branded as the BT Global Challenge Flare - and pagers provided to each yacht by Motorola.

Keith Martin