Good Anchorage is a leading niche innovator of Maritime information technologies, specializing in sharing live, accurate anchorage data, weather, local news and service information for vessels, yachts, motor and sailboats around the globe. The company launched globally with more than 3,000 anchorages from Antarctica to Greenland, USA to Australia and everything in between, with the goal to provide 50,000 certified anchorages covering all maritime nations by 2018.
Navigating international waters can be daunting, with concerns ranging from outdated government surveys, incorrect charts and language barriers, to piracy, petty crime and political unrest. Captains on all types of vessels spend up to 40 percent of their time researching and planning, using cruising guides that can be both obsolete and costly, while also seeking a multitude of resources for current news, anchorages, customs and immigration procedures, and other services before entering the waters of an unfamiliar country. Good Anchorage, launching at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show (FLIBS) October 30, 2014, is the first and only FREE online global sharing platform of real-time, verified maritime information, available 24/7 to mariners worldwide.
Captain Todd Rapley points out “We have knowledge and log books of where we have been, but what we are looking for is ahead of us and where we are planning to go. If we share the knowledge we have, making it accessible to the many unknown mariners behind us approaching, and the mariner ahead of us does the same, we can now go around the world, benefitting from each other’s shared data, knowledge and experiences.”
Good Anchorage provides via Crowd Sourcing from mariners, exact anchorage coordinates including all-important depth, charts, images and visual aids, waypoints integrated with 72-hour weather forecasts, wind and swell protection, latest local news, customs and immigration procedures, with new features added weekly for provisioning, fuel, boat parts, restaurants, events and cultural activities. Anchorage sites are quality-controlled by Good Anchorage experts who live in each maritime community and are likewise continuously updated by mariners who visit the site to both share and verify data and add new anchorages.
Not only is this sharing service FREE to mariners but Good Anchorage is allowing users that have a business, agency or even a marina, to choose their business name, URL or blog address as their user name, effectively creating a free advert for each anchorage that they enter. For every new anchorage provided by a user they get the “Claimed By” recognition against their user name. Vessels must use both Marinas, Ports & Anchorages so it makes sense for a Marina, Agent or Marine Company to share anchorages that surround or are on route to their business to inform vessels who they are within their area. It becomes a win, win for providing quality local information that is needed & driving traffic to your own door.
Captain Dietmar Petutschnig, of Good Anchorage, says, “Good Anchorage will be a game changer for those contemplating releasing their lines and exploring foreign waters. Access to quality, dependable data for all maritime needs will increase the opportunities for current captains and less experienced mariners to explore our planet that is 70 percent water.”
Captain Rapley, at Good Anchorage, states, “We are making yachting tourism easier and expanding the planet by safely increasing the range of where boats can travel. Many destinations like China, Burma, and Vietnam in Asia, former Eastern Bloc countries in Europe, and Latin American destinations such as Cuba and Columbia are opening their waters; meanwhile, the South Pacific, once intimidating to all but the most experienced captains, is experiencing a 35-percent growth in yachts and cruising boats.” A Superyacht Captain for more than 10 years, Todd sees continued increase in demand from yacht owners and charter guests to travel further afield to unique and exotic locations now that accurate information and tools to maintain safety standards are being freely shared through the Good Anchorage platform.
