The setup
Real money on the line and a huge, mixed field — weekend crews next to full-time charters. App and text reporting fit every boat without new hardware, and lines-in / lines-out run on the schedule automation so the clock is never a judgment call.
How the day runs
Catches flow in by app with GPS attached; the leaderboard moves live on the dock TVs and in every family's pocket. Text alerts keep captains current. When the last-hour flurry hits, every report carries a server timestamp — the 3:00:00 cutoff is exact, and a 3:00:41 report is flagged automatically instead of argued about.
The difference
Scoring closes with a one-click export in receive order with the official tie-break sequence and a single counts-for-scoring column. The jackpot pays out the same evening, with a record nobody can dispute.