temporary mooring web database

[SteveGorst]

I've just started cruising this season and have come across the problem of mooring at places that I am visiting. ie no visitors moorings, how do I know which moorings are free/ when will the owners return.

I can't be the only one having this problem so it has set me thinking.

Would there be any mileage in setting up a web based database of vacant moorings. We could set up a group of members as on this forum. When a member goes cruising he could flag his mooring up as being vacant for a set period of time, another member could then cruise to that mooring and flag his own mooring up as being vacant, other members could then cruise to his mooring etc

The web front end would then be searchable by port or county and let the user know about any free moorings and contact details. The user could use a web form to reserve the mooring which would automatically generate emails to the owner and the free period would be adjusted accordingly. It could also be set up so that a member could not book more than one mooring per night to stop blanket booking taking place.

I'm happy with developing interactive database based pages myself, if any other members would like to join in developing the graphical interface and we could finance the hosting somehow this could be made to happen. Maybe we could persuade PBO to host it!!!

Comments/Suggestions?

Steve



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[SteveGorst]

I guess from the lack of response it must be a crap idea.
Just as well I aired it on the forum before I spent hours developing it, there's nothing I hate more than developing something that doesn't get used...

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[seashaw]

Hi Steve

You might want to have a look here

http://www.offtosea.com/

I have not used the site, and came across it by accident

Mark

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[webcraft]

Hi Steve,

I think it's a brilliant idea - but I'm equally sure that not enough people would actually register to make it work - most queries would return the dreaded 'There are no results matching your query'

(And I speak as someone that has set up their fair share of things that haven't been used . . .)

Empirical evidence for this can be seen in the fact that the offtosea database has the grand total of one entry for moorings, three for crew and one skipper! The site is copyrighted 2002, so it must have been around for at least six months and has five database entries in total, even though whoever has set it up has done an excellent job and it fulfils a definite need.

On the web, 'if you build it they will come' is definitely not the case.

- Nick

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[SteveGorst]

Re: [url]http://www.offtosea.com/[/url]

well great minds think alike eh, this is exactly what I had in mind. Just shows how hard it is to have an original idea nowadays!! As webcraft said though it's a shame to see that it is not being used properly. I think the best chance for the site would be to link itself to an established community like this, but even then, judging by the response to my post, I think it would continue to suffer from the "match not found" sydrome.

Thanks for the pointers Guys

Steve

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