Anyone else blocked from Active Captain?

[BandB]

Thanks...my internet is slow and I tried to include Salty Southeast Cruisers too....

While AC is a great resource...Kevin is correct in that cruising doesn't have to have NSA level intelligence briefings and planning to be fun and safe.

That said...it is my go to resource for every day planning.

I mainly wanted to point out that there is a bit of competition.

Wifey B: We use it for marinas, bridges, locks general planning. Interestingly, the marina booking site he was pushing, AC doesn't appear to be linked with any more. Dockwa just purchased Marinas.com. There's one other resource for finding marinas. We've used it in areas that AC has less than perfect coverage. You may have heard of it. Google. Actually Google Maps. Just type in marinas near xxxxx city.

Ok, funny, just did that. Marinas near Fort Lauderdale. Showed one that no one else shows, Port Condominium Association, a private marina. However, it also highlights Nanking Asian Grill. Ok, it does show knife and fork there so it really does know.

Outside the US, we did find a couple of marinas through Google Maps that were not on AC.

 

[ksanders]

Wifey B: I respect your decision as one based on values and not enough of that in the world......but

What do you know about the owners of this site? The store you last shopped in? The last web site you visited? How many of them have abused spouses or even their kids? The stars of the last movie you watched? The producer and director?

Do you patronize all the companies out there who treat their employees poorly? Those that discriminate in hiring practices? What about Caterpillar, just had their offices raided and the IRS says they owe over $2 billion but if that holds up would owe $3+ billion now?

I admit to almost selling my Porsche the day the whole VW diesel scandal became known as I was so disgusted with them. More criminal charges last week and I love that the individual executives are being criminally charged. I may still dump it. What about Toyota and the deaths before they admitted an acceleration problem? What about Subway and their former spokesman?

I don't have the answers. Just saying, if the owner of a small web business is a jerk, an as....le, and has been petty and vindictive, then I don't like him but on a scale of business owners of 1 to 10 with 1 being a saint and 10 being the devil incarnate, as a business owner he's only about midway up the scale. Now, if he had worked for us, he wouldn't now, and, yes, we do have a strong social media policy of Thou Shalt Not's.

We do take stances. We walk away from car dealerships and go elsewhere. We would never buy a boat from one chain of boat dealerships. And, there are hotels we wouldn't stay in. Cesar Ritz was accused in 1898 of embezzling $3400 of wine and spirits from the Savoy and fired. Still staying in a Ritz-Carlton tonight. Besides Marriott owns it now and that would take more research.

It's difficult to decide and I respect any choice.

OK

Yes I try to pick and choose the businesses I support. I am not as adamant as some, but I try.

My wife picks and chooses the movies she will watch for example based on the stars that are in them, and the public stances that they make. I am not quite as stern in that regards but yes, I do take things into consideration.

I'll be honest I do not take the time to research the ownership of companies I do business with. It's when I get exposed to "issues" with a company or a person that represents them that I actively consider whether I should be supporting their endeavors.

 

[BandB]

OK

Yes I try to pick and choose the businesses I support. I am not as adamant as some, but I try.

My wife picks and chooses the movies she will watch for example based on the stars that are in them, and the public stances that they make. I am not quite as stern in that regards but yes, I do take things into consideration.

I'll be honest I do not take the time to research the ownership of companies I do business with. It's when I get exposed to "issues" with a company or a person that represents them that I actively consider whether I should be supporting their endeavors.

Wifey B: Could use AC but not tell the marinas you did. :lol: No, you'd still be in the visitor count. I understand why you're not. We do because no comparable alternative the way we cruise. We're using Comand today. Pretty good but doesn't cover the water.

 

[Capt.Bill11]

In the end, you are making things more difficult for yourself and not hurting Jeffery one bit. Is it worth it?

Sometimes one takes a stand on principle.

And people cruised for decades without AC. And it's not anymore difficult to do it now. If not easier now, between easy access to the internet and all the other cruising guide resources out there in one form or another.

Personally, I'll still use it but I won't bother to contribute. His and his advertisers/sponsors loss not mine as I see it. Based on how much time I spend on the water and how much money I spend doing it.

 

[rwidman]

I had an issue with an Exon gas station ruining a tire many years ago. I wrote them a letter (it was a long time ago) asking them to make things right. They refused.


I decided then and there never to deal with Exon again and for many years I didn't. I went out of my way for gasoline and sometimes paid more.


It seems though that somehow Exon did fairly well without my business and the only one I hurt was myself.


Anyway, if you don't use Active Captain for whatever reason, it won't affect me and I doubt it will affect Jeffery.

 

[Edelweiss]

Huh, interesting thread.
I've had no interaction with the guy, but sorry to hear of the dust up. I've worked with people like that and it's a shame they can't see the big picture.

I did try his product AC and it worked fine. But I rely on my Garmin chart plotters for cruising/fishing and just didn't find it of value for those purposes.

Maybe it's more valuable as a cruising atlas or possibly area specific where you need more feedback cruising narrow channels with constant changes like the ICW. In the PNW most of the bottoms are pretty stable. Many of the buoys and markers haven't moved in 40 years.

I was intending to use AC for trip planning. The personal information that users provide was interesting. I found several inaccurate entries though, regarding passage choices and recommendations in my local cruising area. i submitted corrections for them and they never got changed. So I didn't have confidence in it for out of area cruising and I switched back to a cruise atlas for long range cruising and OpenCPN for trip planning.

 

[BandB]

Sometimes one takes a stand on principle.

And people cruised for decades without AC. And it's not anymore difficult to do it now. If not easier now, between easy access to the internet and all the other cruising guide resources out there in one form or another.

Personally, I'll still use it but I won't bother to contribute. His and his advertisers/sponsors loss not mine as I see it. Based on how much time I spend on the water and how much money I spend doing it.

That's where the loss is. Seems to me that the reviews are less emphasized now or fewer of them. I don't know. We don't review a lot because there's no ability to assign a date, it take the current date, and we'd tend to do mass reviews, like a trip from six months ago. But then we don't review on Google or Yelp, either.

 

[rwidman]

I don't use AC for navigation and I agree that there is a lot of inaccurate or just downright strange user provided information.

Where I find it useful is having information, rates and phone numbers of marinas where I might stop all in one place. You also have a satellite map showing exactly where each marina is.

For example, you might want to spend a night or two in Solomons, MD. Active Captain lets you see all the marinas, check the rates and the amenities. Pick one you like and give them a call.

Yes, you can do this with a book also, but books get out of date. AC information is pretty current.

I use the Waterway Guides for general planning but AC when underway.

 

[twistedtree]

I don't use AC for navigation and I agree that there is a lot of inaccurate or just downright strange user provided information.

Where I find it useful is having information, rates and phone numbers of marinas where I might stop all in one place. You also have a satellite map showing exactly where each marina is.

For example, you might want to spend a night or two in Solomons, MD. Active Captain lets you see all the marinas, check the rates and the amenities. Pick one you like and give them a call.

Yes, you can do this with a book also, but books get out of date. AC information is pretty current.

I use the Waterway Guides for general planning but AC when underway.

I suspect this varies by region. I have found things like marina rates to be unreliable, let along fuel prices which are pretty much useless. I just call the place and ask. The contact info is useful, and it's definitely useful having it all located on your charts. But I really only pay attention to the most static data, and that's available via lots of sources, including printed guide books.

Like Ksanders, if I know a business is a bad apple, I'll avoid it, but not to the extent of self-harm. And I don't go researching businesses, but often you become aware of an issue through other means, like here on TF.

 

[BandB]

Here's how I normally use it. Understand we use marinas nearly every night.

I check the marinas in the general area. I see what is published on AC as far as navigation and dockage. I look at access to them on the nautical view, I look at the marina configuration on the satellite view. That confirms in my mind the reasonableness of the AC information. I glance at reviews. Then I go to the Marinas' websites from the AC link. We then book the marina by phone and confirm by email or fax if possible.

AC is very helpful in identifying them. Where it's not as helpful is dockage sizes and prices and there are good reasons for that. For Dockage, is a marina supposed to provide it's largest possible transient slip, the largest slip it normally has, the largest seasonal slip or what? We did the northern swing of the loop in a boat that measures 69'4" LOA. Had we dismissed every marina that had limits less than that we would have dismissed many. However, often just on satellite view you'd see they had a long side tie transient dock. Some that say 60' maximum could theoretically handle on 150' boat. We always have the marina on satellite view when calling to discuss where the dockage would be. We make notes as reminders as well.

As to prices of slips, electric, cable, water, pumpout, trash, and fuel. Every site has "discounts" for the marinas including US Boat and both tow providers. We don't directly use any of those, but we do use the knowledge of them. There's not a discount out there that you can't get regardless of what you're a member of. So, we'll say, 70' boat, 100 amp power, 2 nights plus approximately 500 gallons of diesel and ask for their best price. We go from there.

AC may not be accurate in some of those areas, but neither are the marinas on websites. Also, often they say slips up to 80' but they only have one 80' slip and it's on an annual lease. We've also had them to have a long transient dock but a lot of boats booked for an event. In that case, we had one ask if they could call back. The figured out they had two nearby slips that would be empty they could put two of the other boats in and give us transient dockage. For a boat that would fit, those slips were actually preferable, and the tenants were both gone for the month, cruising.

As to reviews, we look carefully. If they downgrade because of showers or restrooms, we think of that as overall maintenance but aren't terribly concerned since we use neither. However, if they talk about an issue with the quality of the dock, we ask the marina if any work has been done since that date. If they mention security we ask as well and we decide how comfortable we feel. There was one marina, we made sure someone was always on the boat and it's a good thing we did as their was a regular flow of people milling around.

It's a tool, like any other. Good, not perfect. Convenient, not required.

 

[dhays]

What do you know about the owners of this site? The store you last shopped in? The last web site you visited? How many of them have abused spouses or even their kids? The stars of the last movie you watched? The producer and director?

I go with the information I have. I have no idea about the character of the owners of TF. I do know that their behavior have never caused me concern. There are actors who I choose not to see because of their personal behavior. However that doesn't mean I research everyone I do business with.

In my professional life I have made decisions to quit doing business with some companies after corporate decisions have been made that bother me greatly. That doesn't mean that I vet every vendor on some kind of social scale.

If a company's ownership gets my attention, it better be for good reasons or I am apt to take my business elsewhere.

That is just my own personal choice. I make lots of decisions that are not necessarily in my best interests.

 

[BandB]

In my professional life I have made decisions to quit doing business with some companies after corporate decisions have been made that bother me greatly. That doesn't mean that I vet every vendor on some kind of social scale.

.

In business, I often made decisions not to deal with certain companies, often because of their ethics and lack of trustworthiness. However, that's also smart business. If they took advantage of another company, they will do the same with you.

I recall one where both the company and the individual whose name it carried were the subject of many law suits. Their response was that they were all without merit and they'd never lost any. They made sure of that, if they saw they were going to lose they settled. I said that didn't matter to me that good companies and businessmen just don't get sued hundreds of times. One of their comments was you know how the courts are. My response was, no I don't. I don't have to deal with courts.

 

[BruceK]

Not to defend the man but he use to post under the AC name on this and other sites. Members complained that a commercial member was posting as an individual and he changed his user id to his name.

John

Isn`t it your second defense?

 

[rwidman]

For all we know, Jeffery S has created a new identity himself and is reading all this and taking notes.

 

[rwidman]

............. As to reviews, we look carefully. If they downgrade because of showers or restrooms, we think of that as overall maintenance but aren't terribly concerned since we use neither. However, if they talk about an issue with the quality of the dock, we ask the marina if any work has been done since that date. If they mention security we ask as well and we decide how comfortable we feel. ...........

Keep in mind that different people have different expectations. Some people expect a restroom of a five star hotel with an attendant handing out towels while others just want to get out of sight to poop.

For me, the most important thing to remember is, this information is "crowd sourced" and nearly fifty percent of the crowd is of below average intelligence! Keep that in mind and you'll do fine.

 

[RT Firefly]

Greetings,
Who really cares about AC? I certainly don't and it has nothing to do with the late JS.

Mr. WK. Ya really think so? Well, JS...More powder to ya...

 

[BandB]

I've found the reviews on AC overall to be very helpful. They are crowd sourced. I use crowd sourced reviews of restaurants all the time. However, I also use reasoning while reading. They didn't answer a radio call. Well, that tells me to call using my cell phone. No problem. No one helped with lines. I can live with that. The music at the adjacent club goes until 2 AM on weekends. Might want to ask to be in the farthest location away. Someone downgrades because pricing is outrageous. Well, price is at it is. The adjacent shopping area is mostly closed and boarded stores. That one I've seen in at least three locations. The restaurant is closed. May or may not be important to me. I just look for information that might help me. I always read opinions as opinions, not facts.

 

[Lou_tribal]

greetings,
who really cares about ac? I certainly don't and it has nothing to do with the late js.

Mr. Wk. Ya really think so? Well, js...more powder to ya...

lol

 

[Peter B]

Greetings,
Who really cares about AC? I certainly don't and it has nothing to do with the late JS.

Mr. WK. Ya really think so? Well, JS...More powder to ya...

Yes, that is quite funny. But hey people, we don't have AC downunder either and we manage fine.

 

[Insequent]

Yes, that is quite funny. But hey people, we don't have AC downunder either and we manage fine.

Pete
Yes we do, its on my chartplotter and I recently synchronised it. You can access it online as well. But no marker for your home marina, or mine!

I previously commented on another thread that it was incomplete and in places inaccurate, thus not lot of use. JS responded and posted that Australia/NZ was soon to get better info. I have used it a little now, and see that it is easy to edit incorrect info online. I have not figured out how to add new markers to counter the 'incomplete' aspect.

I'll use it more, add reviews etc. To me its about adding useful info for other boaters. We don't have many guidebooks here, so an online resource like AC could become quite valuable. I don't think there will be many sponsors from this part of the world for a while though.

 

[sunchaser]

But if I can risk a personal opinion, if it reveals you were really blocked because of the discussion this is a very bad practice in my sense. Expressing a different point of view should not result in being banned from anywhere. L.

Well, some have been blocked from further participation on TF.

 

[dhays]

Well, some have been blocked from further participation on TF.

I am not sure, but I believe that is due to behavior, not opinions.

 

[Peter B]

Pete
Yes we do, its on my chartplotter and I recently synchronised it. You can access it online as well. But no marker for your home marina, or mine!

I previously commented on another thread that it was incomplete and in places inaccurate, thus not lot of use. JS responded and posted that Australia/NZ was soon to get better info. I have used it a little now, and see that it is easy to edit incorrect info online. I have not figured out how to add new markers to counter the 'incomplete' aspect.

I'll use it more, add reviews etc. To me its about adding useful info for other boaters. We don't have many guidebooks here, so an online resource like AC could become quite valuable. I don't think there will be many sponsors from this part of the world for a while though.

Yes, quite right Brian. I know it is available, but I guess what I meant was it has so little local stuff on it, it is actually not as helpful in that respect yet as say Navionics.

Well, some have been blocked from further participation on TF.

I am not sure, but I believe that is due to behavior, not opinions.

Correct David.

 

[sunchaser]

I am not sure, but I believe that is due to behavior, not opinions.

Splitting hairs aside, my point is that in this age of Internet (non) compliance somebody's ox is continually getting gored. The mods on this site as well as AC have an acceptance level criteria they are assigned to administer.

Facebook has just been challenged by some nut job country to publish the names of those who preach online blasphemy. It is an interesting era with web site owners and operators deciding who can play in their bits and bytes sandbox.

AC is a product. Just like Garmin vs Furuno there are supporters and detractors. OMG, is this thread becoming like an anchor dragging diatribe? Nah, we'd never cast stones at anchors on TF. That would be bad behavior.

 

[Pure pleasure]

Ya I try to get on that site could not get it working just gave up. Not worth the time

 

[rwidman]

........... We don't review a lot because there's no ability to assign a date, it take the current date, ,,,,,,,,.

You can put the date in the text of your review.

I don't review a lot but when I've done five star reviews I've often gotten a thank you from the marina.

That said, it's a shame you can't break your review of a marina down the way you can an anchorage. I know a marina that's five star in every way one could imagine and I've rated it as such. I know another marina that's five star in every way except that it's way out in the boonies and you can't walk to anything. They have a loaner car but it's time limited and you can't drive to a whole lot in the time allocated.

It's hard to take away a star from this beautiful marina but it's not as convenient as the first one.

 

[rwidman]

..................... AC is a product. Just like Garmin vs Furuno ................

Not quite. At this time, to the best of my knowledge, there is no competition for AC. Sure there are books and I use them as well, but there's nothing online that competes with Active Captain.

Jeffery saw a need and filled it. He has a great product and apparently, it's doing well for him. Yes, it's just a tool and we could do without it. It would be like doing away with my cordless tools and going back to corded tools and extension cords.

What Jeffery may not understand is that when you have a product that needs customers, it's best to keep your personal opinions to yourself so you don't offend any customers or potential customers.

Many companies have suffered losses because of political comments or support of one candidate over another. It's the same idea.

 

[sunchaser]

Not quite. At this time, to the best of my knowledge, there is no competition for AC. Sure there are books and I use them as well, but there's nothing online that competes with Active Captain.

Sounds like Kevin and many others can find their way to shore quite easily without AC. Just as hundreds of thousands are finding life after pulling the plug on cable, any on-line gizmo indeed has good old fashioned competition.

Unfortunately or not, AC and being on-line to find a buoy, restaurant near a marina or fuel stop is not a necessity for all of us. Yup, we do it without the internet. Shocking I know.

 

[BandB]

You can put the date in the text of your review.

.

Yes, you can, but then that puts it out of order and can confuse future readers.

 

[denverd0n]

Publicly disparaging their product and brand is not going to endear yourself to them.

The OP very matter-of-factly described what happened, and asked if it had happened to anyone else. I would hardly call that "disparaging their product." Not even close!

The owner can allow or ban whomever they choose for whatever reason they choose.

True. The law allows them to do that. Doesn't necessarily make it a smart business decision, and it certainly does not necessarily make it "right."