tracking for a boat! would you want it?

[mactricky]

Hi All
I am developing a tracking system for boats whether it be sail or motor.
I was wondering if you guys would like to have a chat about it and give me your thoughts this is the sort of thing you can see, the different colours are different speeds which can be set per craft, i.e. say green on the plain, red at 35+ knots which means flogging it.
you can see/receive emails when it leaves the marina and when it returns etc. etc.
I thought it may be of interest to the people who charter their boats out or have a boat share, or just because you want to keep an i on where and when it goes out, retrace your trip.
Its covert without any lights or labelling, saying “TRACKING”
It has a stationary battery life of around three years, so it will keep an eye on your craft over winter!
It can work anywhere in Europe
All for around the £15 per month.
it is still under development but your thoughts……. positive or negative would be greatly appreciated
regards
Richard Jones
MD Prompt Comms LTD
Ref Marine-tracking

 

[jfm]

Hi All
I am developing a tracking system for boats whether it be sail or motor.
I was wondering if you guys would like to have a chat about it and give me your thoughts this is the sort of thing you can see, the different colours are different speeds which can be set per craft, i.e. say green on the plain, red at 35+ knots which means flogging it.
you can see/receive emails when it leaves the marina and when it returns etc. etc.
I thought it may be of interest to the people who charter their boats out or have a boat share, or just because you want to keep an i on where and when it goes out, retrace your trip.
Its covert without any lights or labelling, saying “TRACKING”
It has a stationary battery life of around three years, so it will keep an eye on your craft over winter!
It can work anywhere in Europe
All for around the £15 per month.
it is still under development but your thoughts……. positive or negative would be greatly appreciated
regards
Richard Jones
MD Prompt Comms LTD
Ref Marine-tracking

I think it's a great idea but it's already being done. I have bought both yacht-sentinel (on last, and next, boat) and textracker (on last but one boat). I can also switch my AIS transmit on by mobile phone and see the boat online on several free AIS websites.

All for less than £15/month; I only pay for the texts on PAYG SIM for the yacht-sentinel, and the AIS is free

Are you proposing something beyond what the existing products do?

 

[bammylovechops]

As stated it is already available, I have a similar setup which is either operated by a keyfob very locally or remotely from my mobile phone, again only chargeable for the texts that are sent to me regarding boat location, primary and secondary battery condition etc.

I would be willing to discuss with you, what I have to see if you could maybe get a unique slant to what you are developing.

Will we see you on Dragons Den in the near future perhaps!

Good luck.

 

[mactricky]

As stated it is already available, I have a similar setup which is either operated by a keyfob very locally or remotely from my mobile phone, again only chargeable for the texts that are sent to me regarding boat location, primary and secondary battery condition etc.

I would be willing to discuss with you, what I have to see if you could maybe get a unique slant to what you are developing.

Will we see you on Dragons Den in the near future perhaps!

Good luck.

Why thank you,
I understand that there are units such as Yacht Sentinel, more to the theft of boats and alerts such as bilge pump failure (which can be catered for with this)
I was thinking more down the line of monitoring your boat, so you can see
its been out all day,
where it has been,
how its been used,
Lets say you have a large ish boat in Croatia, you charter it out.
You look on your laptop and you see a trip like this

You have set the colour to revs or speeds that you are comfortable and have agreed with, RED means over the rev limit you have set with the charter company.
So now you can see this sort of data, which is all taken into account in the £15.00 a month
Richard

 

[jfm]

Why thank you,
I understand that there are units such as Yacht Sentinel, more to the theft of boats and alerts such as bilge pump failure (which can be catered for with this)
I was thinking more down the line of monitoring your boat, so you can see
its been out all day,
where it has been,
how its been used,
Lets say you have a large ish boat in Croatia, you charter it out.
You look on your laptop and you see a trip like this

You have set the colour to revs or speeds that you are comfortable and have agreed with, RED means over the rev limit you have set with the charter company.
So now you can see this sort of data, which is all taken into account in the £15.00 a month
Richard

Ah, thanks for the further info. And, on relfection, sorry to rain on your parade a bit in my earlier post. A system that provided loads more data would be interesting

Right now, I'm not sure what data makes sense. Might have to think about it some more. I think the market for your "over RPM" data is tiny, and you'd need other/more useful features. Reason the market is tiny is that with big boats the owner employs the skipper and would only employ someone who didn't thrash the boat, and with small boats chartered bareboat there's not much you can do if the customer thrashes it. The number of boats chartered out crewed, but where the owner doesn't employ/control the crew, is quite small

With yacht sentinel I have SOG, COG, position, geofence in/out, battery voltages, door opening alert, and some other odds n ends, and that seems pretty good. Not sure what I'd add. If you wanted to make a camera version like yacht sentinel's but not packaged in such a horrid enclosure, that would be interesting

 

[bammylovechops]

With yacht sentinel I have SOG, COG, position, geofence in/out, battery voltages, door opening alert, and some other odds n ends, and that seems pretty good. Not sure what I'd add. If you wanted to make a camera version like yacht sentinel's but not packaged in such a horrid enclosure, that would be interesting

It would appear, jfm, that we may have the same although under a different trade name, geo-fence, onboard burglar alarm, facitity to isolate zones on the alarm etc.

Works very well, but there again it would, it was installed by poltergeist, a member of this forum, those who know him will know the standard of installation, excellent!!

As a courtesy to mactricky I dont want to advertise the brand as not to take away any potential customers.

 

[mactricky]

Thanks JFM for looking at the positives!
You are the second person this week to ask about the camera link, we are looking at it!
And thanks for the crew information, i was thinking more towards the un-crewed charter business.
But i suppose even the crewed option, wouldn't it be nice to keep an eye on things............ going by some of the crews i met in Auckland, never mind the med!

mac

 

[aquatom]

Maybe you could talk to the people who control the fishing in the channel and get them to make it law that all large fishing vessels have this fitted so their movements can be monitored more closely (especially the French ones!)

 

[mactricky]

It would appear, jfm, that we may have the same although under a different trade name, geo-fence, onboard burglar alarm, facitity to isolate zones on the alarm etc.

Works very well, but there again it would, it was installed by poltergeist, a member of this forum, those who know him will know the standard of installation, excellent!!

As a courtesy to mactricky I dont want to advertise the brand as not to take away any potential customers.

just a thought which i haven't mentioned, this unit can be installed very easily as a basic unit, as long as you can find a 12/24v supply or even 240v it can be done.
the unit has a built in GPS antenna and a built in GSM, its water resistant.
so it could be taken with you in your luggage and left on-board.

obviously we do offer a fully fitted version, anywhere in the world, normally takes about a week, including sea trial with the wife and kids!!

 

[Andrew_Fanner]

Sounds fascinating. What would be of interest to me would be something for the tender, more likely to go missing, either due to villainy or, in the case of skipperless charter, unfamiliarity and forgetfulness. Maybe an alerter if the tender is more than a specified distance from the mothership, with an override so it knows if you and the kids are out playing in it ofc!

 

[mactricky]

Sounds fascinating. What would be of interest to me would be something for the tender, more likely to go missing, either due to villainy or, in the case of skipperless charter, unfamiliarity and forgetfulness. Maybe an alerter if the tender is more than a specified distance from the mothership, with an override so it knows if you and the kids are out playing in it ofc!

Hi Andrew,
We could track the tender, which would track the main boat when on board, so in the event of skipper-less charter, you would be able to see the main journey and stopping, then a separate play time "journey" ............

cheers

Mac