New Release: TheBoatApp - Boat Maintenance & Management App

[MarineDataCloud]

Originally Posted by sailingharry

I have just started playing with the program. The first stumbling block -- neither of my sailboats are in your database.

My first boat was a Sabre 34. I'll wager 98% of the users on this forum have heard of and probably seen a Sabre sailboat. They aren't a big production like Hunter and Catalina (you have those two brands), but they were a significant player in years past and there are many out there.

My current boat is a Saga 43. This is a "production boat" but production tapped out at 54 hulls (probably closer to 150 if you count all the models they made). While it's a limited number of boats, probably a quarter of the users on this forum have heard of the brand.

I tested another brand, the Outbound. That's another brand that many lust after even if it's a fairly limited (and very expensive!) brand.


I'd suggest you up your database of production boats.

Hello dear SailingHarry,

You are spot on and we should and we will enlarge the database! We currently have just a couple of thousands boats online and about 15K+ more on our offline records grooming them to be imported on TheBoatDB-2.0 that will be released soon. Still, there are countless boats out there, even dating way back, thus for sure always will be a model missing. For this reason any user may register manually his own boat and data (specs) allowing others to find the same model too.

Thank you and have an always seaworthy boat!

[MarineDataCloud]

Hello dear GrantMC,

...that was a really looong post, and here is the equally looong answer!

Originally Posted by grantmc

I think that is a bit harsh Harry. The system facilitates adding any boat with some basic specifications. It doesn't need to be in their database. Neither of my boats are listed either but it was very simple to add them in. I'm not really sure if such data is even needed.

Some users provide the full-specs while others just the very basic (maker, model, year). It is up to the user to decide how much info wants registered about his boat.

Originally Posted by grantmc

Now I tried to get in to the Boat DB (rather than the Boat App), but nothing I did got me there. It always reverted to the Boat App. So I could never see what that did.

Have you added a boat? This should show up in the “Boats” module. Please login and navigate to https://app.theboatapp.com/my-boats.

Originally Posted by grantmc

I should clarify after reading the earlier posts about version 1 vs 2 and how 1 is a phone app and 2 is a laptop app. I have not tried the phone app at all. I've done everything on my laptop, so presumably I'm always using version 2. The settings don't actually display the version of the code.

Better that you have avoided the existing Mobile App. Has many “issues” but we still keep it live due to some existing users. The new Mobile-2.0 is finishing up in a couple of months. Until then we urge all users to stick to their WEB BROWSER. There you always have the most updated version, currently v2.2.0 (see the online Changelog for the full details).

Originally Posted by grantmc

I think that the idea of this App is great, and it's a good start.
An obvious missing item are costs, well I see that the word is displayed with some outputs plus there are graphs and displays in the promo material too, but I was never able to figure out where any costs are actually entered (apart from original boat cost). So how you get graphs and the like I am mystified. Yes I am using a 90 day trial of the Gold version.

Fixed and running costs. I can't even see a way of entering fuel purchases, let alone all the never ending demands of my money for mooring fees, racing fees, subscriptions, toys, team clothing, boat gear, engine maintenance, sails, running rigging and associated stuff etc etc.

Regarding Cost, this is booked on each discrete module, such as:

Cost in Tasks: https://ibb.co/xCMKVWG


Cost in Inventory: https://ibb.co/gS2LbXb


We do work on a Costs module, including cost categorization, but this is not yet released thus bear with us a bit longer please!

Costs Module: https://ibb.co/h8q2m8X

Originally Posted by grantmc

Another limitation is the choice of measurement units. It only offers imperial or metric. But we are more nuanced. So just take gallons, different countries have different quantities in their gallons. Here in NZ we are metric, but we sail nautical miles not kilometres and our speed is measured in knots not km p/h. But my boat was built when we were still largely imperial so measured in feet, but mooring fingers are in metres, oh the confusion and the contradictions!

Indeed, that a major headache to deal with. I kept a note on our online products-specs to see if in the future we may improve this.

Originally Posted by grantmc

Also, perhaps the target audience is too wide. It seems to me to be aimed at the Western European market, at least the British market. And Britain isn't even part of Europe now; it took several years, but finally 31 January 2020 they'd finally completed towing Britain way out in to the middle of the Atlantic But seriously the app needs a great deal more work to internatioalise the software. You probably don't have VAT Harry, and we certainly don't here. The NZ currency isn't even offered, let alone Fijian.

Is true that being EU based (England, even though officially out of the European Union!) we develop with, well…, what we have at hand! Of course, with many thousands of non-UK or even EU users, we should make the currency selection really international and we will (note made for the dev-team).

Originally Posted by grantmc

I wonder what information being captured will be made public? For example there is the possibility of providing running costs across, say, a range of Saga 43s once a few have signed up. This could be done (ie averages only) without divulging anything personal. Obviously that assumes running costs are entered (as I said above if they are, I couldn't find how).

Technically yes, of course anonymized or with the user consent. We have plans for financial ratios too, benchmarking the asset value (boat price) vs. maintenance and other costs. For this reason we have a field for the user to book the acquisition price of his boat (…and to answer to some that are emailing us on why we ask the boat price, we don’t report this to any tax authorities, in any country!)

Originally Posted by grantmc

One blaring omission, in my view, is a lack of the dreaded 'Mooring' and related costs. So assume a boat is kept in a marina, then there's at minimum a fixed periodic charge, plus potentially a power usage, and other costs, particularly if a live aboard. It would be very interesting to be able to compare marina costs within geographic areas, even if just for temporary visits whilst on a trip. And the promo material suggests that sort of meta data.

I love that you go deeper the rabbit hole but for the time being we shall stick to the basics. You are most welcome to submit your idea(s) in TheBoatApp Community (same login credentials with your TheBoatApp account).

Originally Posted by grantmc

Something too I've not figured out is why I would want to have the 'Gold' version. I found a comparison of the features vanilla vs Gold, but the only difference were the alerts (10 vs 100 and why I'd want alerts I do not know), and data storage 300MB vs 3,000MB, oh plus adverts on the free vanilla. Something too that perhaps is available but I couldn't find it and that's the ability to extract the data that is loaded. Will Marine Data Cloud Ltd still be around in 10 years, who knows? Will I care about my log of 10 years before, well yes I will. And I have my logs back to 2003. OK I'm a hoarder but it's nice to read about things long past sometimes.

We still have work to do, and doing it. In a few months that the value of the product/service will be improved we expect that users will acknowledge it and subscribe. Some will do so for an extra feature, some to simply acknowledge pragmatically the effort and support it. In the bottom line the subscription fee is as low as a good cup of coffee per month!
About the data Import/Export, it is coming up. Export will be available on June for everyone to rest assured that may retrieve his boating data at any point! The data belong to the user and we simply provide the tool for the user to manage them! Data-import is a bit heavier task and will come later on.

Originally Posted by grantmc

And a technical issue. The App is very slow to respond and act.

We are currently changing servers and moving to MS Azure in London, from a much cheaper EU hosting provider. Despite a 5+ times higher cost, data integrity, speed and uptime are a must.

Originally Posted by grantmc

The reality is that this product is still very much a work in progress and until it offers more I wont be paying 49.9 euroes (NZ$80) per annum. And I have to say I really can't see any difference in using the software today than when I tried it nearly 3 months ago. What are the developers doing?

To start from the end, please check the online changelog on what we have been working on. Much more, wait until June to release TheBoatDB-2.0 and the Mobile Apps 2.0.
Regarding the subscription price vs. product value, for this very reason we never made any active marketing (i.e. advertisements) and have only some thousand users so far. Acknowledging even the price-value gap, we have provided one (1) extra year for FREE to early GOLD subscribers who paid, much less for the product quality and much more to support in overall the project (they told us so). Of course, everyone is entitled to stick to his Forever-FREE account and if/when he sees that the value is decent or simply feels sympathetic to the efforts, only then he may subscribe.
Closing on probably the longest post I have ever done(!), I wish you well and with an always seaworthy boat!

[MarineDataCloud]

Originally Posted by Island Time O25

The only way today a platform will become popular enough among the average Joe and Jane boaters if it integrates a bunch of now stand alone programs i.e. OPEN/CPN, Active Captain, Excel spreadsheets, anchor alarms, weather, tides, etc. How feasible such program may be without charging its users more than a few dollars, if at all, remains to be seen. But I am surprised that the boating (or IT) industry has not come up with such an app/platform.

A few years back, when I replaced my then 7 year old first gen smartphone with more up to date version in my excitement I installed a good bunch of boating apps. I ended up decluttering and uninstalling most of them except a few which I ended up using regularly. It would be nice to have everything in one app and hopefully ad based and thus free to use or very low cost. Not sure there are enough boat owners/users to justify mega investment needed to develop such a comprehensive app.

Hello dear Island Time O25,

...well, the super-app/platform that you describe needs about a couple of million sterling and a really big, experienced and skillful team (...talking from a couple of decades hands-on professional engineering and managerial experience, in many countries and projects). Putting navigation into the mixture is an explosive combination. We have IoT (sensors) in our roadmap but definitely not navigation. OpenCPN, Navionics and other apps out there work really well.

Regarding the "mega-investment", we luckily have some lads that could spare some, are sailors and liked the Marine Data Cloud idea for efficient and effective boating data management, with a place for everything and everything in its place!

Thank you and have an always seaworthy boat!

[grantmc]

MarineDataCloud poster, I very much appreciate your effort in providing honest answers.

Perhaps you might describe a little about your company. How many staff? Do you have other products? How long can you fund development of this project with only 1,000 users?

[heizer1]

Hello MarineDataCloud,

thank you very much for your efforts. I do have a question regarding maintenance tasks.

Is there a feature (or feature planned) to link Tasks with the logbook to get custom alerts? One of the Use Cases could be the following:

Your Maintenance plan says to have an engine oil checkup / service every 20 hours engine runtime. If there would be now a field where you could put that information in which would check it against the logbook the tasks would appear every 20 hours of runtime.

Do you get what I mean?

Regards
Timo

[MarineDataCloud]

Originally Posted by grantmc

MarineDataCloud poster, I very much appreciate your effort in providing honest answers.

Perhaps you might describe a little about your company. How many staff? Do you have other products? How long can you fund development of this project with only 1,000 users?

Hello dear GrantMC,

We are already counting fifteen (15) souls working on the platform. For better or worse, all these are designers and/or engineers with zero (0) commercial/marketing staff yet. In other words, we keep the focus on the development.

Our Company's legal registration name is "Marine Data Cloud LTD" and developing exclusively the "Marine Data Cloud" platform, comprised of TheBoatDB and TheBoatApp, web and mobile apps.

Why are we sell so cheap (...ZERO for Free accounts, forever!) and how are we surviving? We had this question asked too many times and thus it has made it in our Frequently-Asked-Questions. As we elaborate there,

"We cater for the many and not the few. In other words, we choose to get few from many and we are willing to wait and keep investing, as we do since 2019. Our business model is for every sailor our there to be able to afford the subscription and make use of the technology to manage his boating data. This does not have to be the exclusive privilege of really big yachts, that need even specialized software applications just to follow-up with strict requirements about waste-management, crew rest-hours, etc. There are already great apps for these in the market but this is not our target. We cater for every sailor that wants a good set of tools to be able to efficiently and effectively manage his boat, systems, maintenance, etc, the modern way, not just by scraping papers but collaborating and sharing boating data with friends and family (e.g. trips), technicians and mechanics (e.g. inventory, tasks, alerts) or simply any other fellow sailor (e.g. public checklists). A place for everything and everything in its place, for every mariner, affordably, now!"

[MarineDataCloud]

Originally Posted by heizer1

Hello MarineDataCloud,

thank you very much for your efforts. I do have a question regarding maintenance tasks.

Is there a feature (or feature planned) to link Tasks with the logbook to get custom alerts? One of the Use Cases could be the following:

Your Maintenance plan says to have an engine oil checkup / service every 20 hours engine runtime. If there would be now a field where you could put that information in which would check it against the logbook the tasks would appear every 20 hours of runtime.

Do you get what I mean?

Regards
Timo

Hello dear Heizer1,

For the time being the Logbook module is focused on trips. However we plan to expand to a full vessel-logbook, including on-the-dry works, etc.

Regarding Tasks, you can book a task in the Tasks module and set the needed recurrence frequency and alert. For your example, is better to set it up from within the Inventory module, where for a specific asset/system, like the Engine, you set up a linked task (please refer to the Inventory Tutorial).


Furthermore, we plan to introduce usage tracking functionality (e.g. hours). We shall introduce Usage Logs where you may log the usage (hours/liters/etc) on any inventory item. This along with the respective "Threshold" defined will be used to generate the respective alert X units (defined by user) before the necessary maintenance threshold is exceeded.


Ideas are always most welcome and we plan to be really listening them and do our best to implement the best ones. You may post ideas at Support Portal.