How do family members track you

For emergency rescue on land (or on the water) carry a 406 Personal Locator Beacon, inexpensive, and no monthly fee, just a registration obligation so the search and rescue people know who they are looking for.

Chris wrote:
If somebody wants us, they can call... and if they want to know where we are, they can ask during the call. We don't go really out of our way to inform friends and family of our whereabouts...

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Everybody's situation is different. Some boaters have family members who for a whole host of reasons want or need to know where other family members are. Others not so much.

One reason we bought a cruising boat is so we could do on the water what we'd been doing for years with the floatplanes-- getting as far out in the bush as we can and seeing what there is to see and experiencing what there is to experience and relying on our own skills and experience to pull it off successfully. Contact with friends and families while we're out there is not part of that experience.

While the boat does not take us to places quite as incommunicado as the plane, we still strive for the same lack of contact. As Sunchaser says, mobile phone service is not as scarce in this region as it used to be, and coverage gets better each year. So we simply leave the phones off unless we have a real need to use them, by which I mean mostly an emergency.

On the occasions we've had guests on board who for business reasons needed to stay at least somewhat connected, we'll stop somewhere with wifi every few days so they can get their messages and return calls and e-mails.

But our take on full time tracking and connectivity is similar to Chris' I think. If friends and family members want to know where we went and where we stayed and what we did, we'll show them the pictures when we get back.

But... that's just us. For the folks who like or need to take their ground-bound family members and friends along on their cruises vicariously, I think the tools being described in this thread are pretty clever and make good use of the technology available.

I understand where Jeffrey's coming from in his previous post and I think his reasoning is sound given the realities of what people are increasingly going to want.

In another thread somewhere I described what I heard in an interview with an author who's just had a book published about the fundamental differences between people who grew up and lived at least part of their adult, working lives without the internet, and the people who have never lived any part of their lives without it. I'm not going to rewrite what I wrote in that post, but I will say that I agree with the author's summary that people who have known only a life with the Internet are at a big disadvantage. I'm glad I'm not one of them and so have a much more balanced take on reality and technology.

As to the social aspect of boating, I understand Jeffrey's point and agree with his reasoning. I also find it interesting that almost all the experienced cruisers-- power and sail-- who we have come to know in this area over the 16 years we've been cruising are not social boaters. Sure, some of them are in the local yacht clubs and they get together for meetings and the occasional club cruise. But for the most part their boating is done on their own, be it local weekend runs into the islands or five-month cruises up to SE Alaska and back. They aren't recluses or anti-social people, they just prefer having their own experiences with their spouses or immediate families.

And these are mostly people who have been cruising for decades. The super-social boaters we see are generally the ones who are new or relatively new to boating.

Perhaps the heavy emphasis on the social aspects of boating is more an east coast thing, I don't know. But what we see here is even in the marine parks, while there may be the occasional club gathering or rafted pair of boating friends, for the most part the boaters at the docks and on the mooring buoys, while friendly enough toward each other, are pretty intent on doing their own thing.

Perhaps because the 1,000-mile maze of islands, bays, fjords, and inlets stretching from Puget Sound to Glacier Bay is more conducive to "solitary" boating? Where along the eastern seaboard with everyone sort of packed into a fairly narrow corridor, it's difficult to get truly "away?"

I don't know.

Jeffrey S said:

50% as a way for other boater friends to track you. This is a 2015-2016 type of thing and it might not be attractive to some existing cruising boaters. But from my 12 years of near full-time cruising, I've found that the difference between the couples who keep cruising and the ones who stop centers around the social aspects of the boating lifestyle. It isn't the sunsets or the destinations. It's the people. And as you cruise longer, you obtain a treasure-chest of friends that you've made along the way. Tracking allows you to be more active about meeting them instead of the random/happenstance nature of it before tracking. This category also includes the ability to track boats common to you in one way or another - pets, boat type, cruising club, or maybe even the forum they hang out on. All of that is possible and the future of it requires reliable tracking.

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I get that, Jeff... and we're about 100% not that kind of folks. We meet people when we're out boating, of course, but generally don't make "friends" very quickly... and casual acquaintances don't get much attention post-contact. For example, dock neighbors we've known for several years now are still in that "acquaintance" category.

I suspects that's why your eBoatCards don't ring our chimes, either; no value for us that I can see.

OTOH, all those 2015-2016 sorta people... oughta be in great shape with all that going on!



-Chris

Jeffrey S said:

I don't think the reason to let yourself be tracked has been properly described here. I realize that there are people who want to get in their boat and get away from everything. More power to you. Every one of these devices has an on/off switch and I, myself, have turned off these things at times when I didn't want to be bothered.

I think the future of these tracking devices has these breakdowns in uses:

20% as a safety device - it's hard to ignore the obvious safety capabilities of being able to access help with messaging anytime, anywhere. DeLorme, for example, has a special plan with TowBoatUS to automatically connect and provide messaging when you're in a situation when you need it.

10% as a way for friends at home and family to track you. It gives a good way for them to follow you but most of your friends probably don't really care and most family members don't understand the cruising lifestyle. It's nice to give the ones who want to check in on you a good view of where you are and where you've been.

50% as a way for other boater friends to track you. This is a 2015-2016 type of thing and it might not be attractive to some existing cruising boaters. But from my 12 years of near full-time cruising, I've found that the difference between the couples who keep cruising and the ones who stop centers around the social aspects of the boating lifestyle. It isn't the sunsets or the destinations. It's the people. And as you cruise longer, you obtain a treasure-chest of friends that you've made along the way. Tracking allows you to be more active about meeting them instead of the random/happenstance nature of it before tracking. This category also includes the ability to track boats common to you in one way or another - pets, boat type, cruising club, or maybe even the forum they hang out on. All of that is possible and the future of it requires reliable tracking.

20% as commercial enabling devices. This is coming in a big way. We've personally talked face-to-face with 200+ marinas about this. The basic idea is that if a facility can see you and where you're going, they can offer you just-in-time discounts and attractions to bring you into their facility. Dockage, fuel, bottom painting, etc. Imagine the marina with 10 free slips seeing you pass by at 3 pm. They know that you're not coming in and those 10 slips will go empty. Giving a just-in-time discount of, say, 40% might be enough to attract you in. The 40% received is much better than the $0 otherwise. Believe me - marinas are itching to have this capability and it requires the ability to have yourself tracked. And tracking systems that also provide messaging capabilities give the facilities everything they need to do this.

Yeah, there's a big brother aspect to it all. And there needs to be controls about privacy so you can select who can see the track. But ultimately, tracking is the gateway to a cruising lifestyle that will be much more social than anything we've seen before. It's also exactly the type of capabilities that 40-50 year olds about to start cruising are going to expect (and demand) as they're using tools like Four Square, Waze, Instagram, and a dozen other things that many existing boaters don't even know about.

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This thread is very interesting

TF has so many different personalities and yet in the differences many similarities

My wife and I love cruising and meeting new people I am so bad at remembering who we met in what area and look forward to learning ways to get that part of our trips organized

at the same time needing the ability to limit who gets what information

If you are in cell phone range there must be an android version of find my iPhone. Nothing extra to turn on or mess with once you set it up. Works great for me.

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We've had SPOT for the last 4 years and DeLorme inReach for the last 1 year (long before I wrote the support for it). Having one or the other is important for safety and allowing it to double-team with social position sharing makes it a no-brainer to get. The inReach is a little more expensive but the screen, keyboard, interface to iOS/Android, and two-way messaging are knock out capabilities in my opinion. I'm sure SPOT will catch up with that eventually.[/QUOTE]


Well said.
I'm going to start using boat cards now TOO.

Two big things for me:
Ability to turn off, suspend or minimize monthly plan, and
Earthmate interface to pc and Android phone. The InReach is clunky in and of itself, to send, but the interface shoes me to use my contact list like I'm just sending a text.

While I have an epirp, the InReach is far more useful in many more situations.

ranger42c said:

I get that, Jeff... and we're about 100% not that kind of folks. We meet people when we're out boating, of course, but generally don't make "friends" very quickly... and casual acquaintances don't get much attention post-contact. For example, dock neighbors we've known for several years now are still in that "acquaintance" category.-Chris

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While Chris is from Maryland, I think his post sums up what we have seen and experienced here in the PNW/BC pretty accurately for the almost 30 years we've been involved with boats here, the last 16 of which have been with cruising. And I think Murray's posts in this and the "Pacific Northwest 2015" thread paint a very accurate picture of what boating in this region is like.

While a generality for sure, I feel that based on a a long exposure to this forum there is a pretty wide gulf of separation between what boaters along the east coast (and perhaps the Gulf coast, too) are looking for in their boating and what boaters in the PNW/BC/SE Alaska region are seeking.

The reasons for these two different perspectives are probably worthy of someone's Master's degree thesis, but the difference seems quite apparent to me.

Marin said:

The reasons for these two different perspectives are probably worthy of someone's Master's degree thesis, but the difference seems quite apparent to me.

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I see that. The two environments have differences. But some of these electronics capabilities can bridge the differences especially because things are more sparse in the PNW. I dare say that GPS has made a tremendous difference in cruising through remote areas. There's no reason to expect it to stop there.

But even more important is that 40 year old couple that just looked at trawlers for the first time at the Seattle Boat Show. They're coming from a much different way of interacting than we are and all of these social networking features are something that they'll expect much like the 50 year olds in trawlers this decade don't care about paper charts, dead reckoning, or celestial navigation. They want a moving boat on an electronic display like in their car.

Jeffrey S said:

They want a moving boat on an electronic display like in their car.

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Consumers like this will eventually lead boat manufacturers to install a Facebook Update button on the console.

This is exactly why I hate new cars. "Oh, only 3 screens to shuffle to in order to turn the heater on...what happened to the knob that never fails?"

I'll tell you what killed the knob, stupid consumers needing the "infotainment" system to read text messages while driving. Who cares if they have multiple zeros to spend, they should stick to buying fancy iPhone 6's and not ruining any of my favorite industries

Jeffrey S said:

I dare say that GPS has made a tremendous difference in cruising through remote areas.....But even more important is that 40 year old couple that just looked at trawlers for the first time at the Seattle Boat Show. They're coming from a much different way of interacting than we are and all of these social networking features are something that they'll expect.....

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GPS is simply a high tech version of the sextant in terms of what it does. Capt. Cook would have loved to have had GPS, although then I guess it would have had all the charts already so there would have been no need to send him out on his voyages of discovery.

There is a difference between technology that makes boating (or flying or....) safer and technology that is simply social in nature. Not hitting a reef is important to the survival of the vessel and its occupants. Letting little Johny back home know that the sunset was pretty and the crabs you caught were delicious is not.

And while you have far more exposure to a wide variety of boaters and want-to-be boaters than I do, the 40-year olds who are new to boating and are joining our club, for example, do not seem any different than all the rest of us. In fact, their dreams of getting away from it all are even stronger than ours because they are still dreaming and haven't been exposed yet to the realities of "getting away from it all."

I don't hear these folks talking about Facebook and Twitter and connectivity. I hear them talking about how great it will be to get away from the hassles and annoyances that connectivity brings them in their everyday life. Much like the older generation talked about how nice it would be to be able to get away from the phones, newspapers, and TV.

These younger boaters are for sure interested in the technologies that make navigation easier, that make it easier to get information about destinations and what to watch out for enroute (which is exactly what Active Captain does, of course), and that make communications easier or faster in the case of emergencies. This they're very interested in acquiring or learning about.

The social networking aspect of boating not so much. At least not in my observation of the very small sample I'm exposed to.

Also, I think your assumption or implication that the "older generation" can't relate to today's social media networking is incorrect. So far as I can tell, all of the 150 or so people in my organization in my building at work-- and these folks range in age from the mid-twenties to the late sixties, with the majority being in the 40-60 range--- have Facebook and Twitter accounts. Many of them also have LinkedIn accounts. And from what I gather in talking with these folks on a day-to-day basis, they actively use Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

The difference is in how they use it, and this gets back to my earlier comments on the author's book about the differences between people who have life experience without the internet and people who have never known anything but the internet. The people I work with use these social media technologies to enable them to communicate in ways they couldn't before, but their use is layered over a sense of reality. In other words, they use the technologies when it helps them do what they want to do, but when they don't need the technologies, they don't use them. They are not slaves to it. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. are tools, not lifestyles.

And--- I found this very unexpected--- the people I hear at work denigrating the "evils" of social media and the "group-stupidity" it fosters (their term, not mine) are actually the younger ones-- the folks in their mid-20s-mid 30s. Not the older ones. The older ones use it when it makes life easier and ignore it when it doesn't. It's the younger ones who are so vocal about how social media is becoming increasingly a gigantic headache to them and is "dumbing down their friends" and stuff like that. The problem is that they don't seem to realize they can turn it off whenever they want to.

But I think the media-inspired image of the technology-ignorant 60-plus year olds is way off the mark of reality. It's just that the older folks know enough about the realities of life not to get all hung up on something that's just a tool. And from what I see, it's a lesson that the younger folks might seem to be learning, too. Which is encouraging if it's actually happening.

Bottom line is that we're not interested in connectivity from a soclal networking aspect when we're on our boat. A big reason we enjoy boating so much--- be it cruising or going out fishing in the smaller boat--- is that it give us an excuse to turn everything off. "Sorry, we didn't get your message, we were out on the boat." And from what we've observed, the 30 and 40 somethings seem to feel exactly the same way.

Again, small sample, big generality. But that's what we've observed.

Marin said:

The social networking aspect of boating not so much.
...
Bottom line is that we're not interested in connectivity from a soclal networking aspect when we're on our boat.

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My entire life's work has been about developing the things that others felt "not so much" about. I love being on that side of the curve. Some day I'll publish the few hundred emails we received about why ActiveCaptain would never take off...from 2007.

From my perspective of being in this exact same position about 4-5 times in the last 30 years, this one is obvious. My biggest fear is that it's too obvious and I won't be given the time to develop the years of technology necessary to pull it off completely before having to deal with competition. Time will tell...

Jeffrey S said:

Some day I'll publish the few hundred emails we received about why ActiveCaptain would never take off...from 2007.

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Yes, I remember the naysaying posts from the T&T list when Active Captain began being talked about.

My biggest fear is that it's too obvious and I won't be given the time to develop the years of technology necessary to pull it off completely before having to deal with competition. Time will tell...

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That's a valid concern. One of my videographers has a son who was wooed while still a senior in college a couple of years go by Facebook, Google, and Amazon. He chose Google and his starting salary (this was for a guy who just graduated with a Bachelor's degree) was $100,000 plus a $70,000 signing bonus, for an idication of what these companies think of this guy.

And his take on the direction everything is going is that soon-- by which he seems to feel is just a few years--- people will be able to do everything with just one device. Everything. Navigate, talk, video, pictures, write, conduct remote business meetings, security.... everything.

He says they are amazingly close right now, and that it's more of a marketing, branding, who's-in-control fight right now than a technological challenge. The biggies--- Google, Amazon, Sony, Apple, etc--- are the ones behind it and he believes the ultimate result will come from one or a combination of some of them.

According to him, the pace of this kind of development is accelerating at an almost inconceivable rate because every development makes it that much faster and easier to create the next development. He likens it to a tornado, where everything it picks up makes it even bigger and faster and more impactful.

Even the company I work for is part of this. Not only are we an integral component of the creation and launch of some of the satellites that will be part of this growing connectivity network but we're branching out into new fields of endeavor, including maritime connectivity and networking.

All this is fine with me. My only request is that whatever these folks come up with, it has an on-off button for each function.

Marin said:

All this is fine with me. My only request is that whatever these folks come up with, it has an on-off button for each function.

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D'accord.

Marin said:

And his take on the direction everything is going is that soon-- by which he seems to feel is just a few years--- people will be able to do everything with just one device. Everything. Navigate, talk, video, pictures, write, conduct remote business meetings, security.... everything.

All this is fine with me. My only request is that whatever these folks come up with, it has an on-off button for each function.

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And that's the rub. As people depend more and more on electronic devices, the off button will disappear.

Then when it doesn't work, we will take it to the $100k witch doctor to fix it for us.

But the real joke here is that while we don't seem able to keep classified information secret anymore, more and more people somehow expect to keep all THEIR information private, in the cloud, at Google, Facebook, etc.

Which will be kept private, until it isn't.