In recent years, the French startups have blossomed into the world of boating. UniverSail, Samboat, Hey Captain, Nauting, DoLink, ShareMySea, Boaterfly, BigSkipper, and I certainly forget. Their common denominator is to appeal to digital to implement an idea that intends to provide a unique service to boaters. How many will survive ? Hard to say, but they all have the merit of dust papa yacht aimed at the younger generation of practitioners of watersports. Community information sharing, co-location, "bla-bla-boat", as many answers to new attitudes in the practice of recreational boating.
Among them, one particularly seduced me, Navily.
A simple idea indeed : community sharing of information on the 'good' moorings and reservations online short term stops in marinas, from an application on smartphone (iOS, Android). Nothing exceptional, you could say. But wait until you see l ’ packaging…
What makes the seduction of the application, the side user, is the simplicity of its interface. It shows a reflection focused on the immediate effectiveness : a map, differentiated pins (fairground moorings, organized on mooring, marinas), simple textual descriptions illustrated by a carousel of photographic views and neat informative icons.
Ports
For marinas, are added the port services available, quality labels, appropriate lockAge schedules, overviews summarizing the tourist attractions of the place, and of course a reservation button.
The daily rate for the boat registered in your profile is displayed from the first page. The 'Send request' button leads to the selection of a date in the three coming days and for a maximum of three nights. It is therefore well requests for short-term stops, to ensure an available seat on arrival, during a summer trip.
The organized anchorages or fairground
Community sharing is not new in yachting. Implemented by Navionics in its application "Boating". (¹), the world leader in still the American network ActiveCaptain which lists tens of thousands of ports and anchorages around the world, a database permanently powered browsers, but virtually unknown in France because only written in English. That leaves the field open to Navily.
Once again the creation of a spot is simple. It is a PIN on the map zoomed to the maximum, a window to enter description of anchor icons, a possible comment. You can report an error for a place already present. When it crosses for the first time along an unknown shore, He is welcome to be able to rely on the experience of mariners past before self, While remaining cautious about the quality of the information entered (nature of the funds, protection of prevailing winds, landing facilities, etc,).
Can scroll views satellites of the moorings to discover the surrounding area and choose the following steps. Everything is simple, friendly, fast. On interface, We can only regret not having the choice of showing only a type of places both (harbours, moorings organized or fairground), and the absence of a list of ports.
What I think
Lot of good, as you have been able to guess. But the application is young. Launched in 2015 in its version 2, If it claims to this day of 10.000 users and 2.500 berthing areas shared, It identifies that some 20 ports partners who have subscribed to the reservation from the application Navily Pro service. The creators still have a big job of canvassing to achieve, because this is the major asset of Navily. As few marinas already implemented online reservations. Most of the ports of Corsica is equipped with «Laly eResa» linker Octaedra, but that did not stop the port of Bonifacio to use Navily in parallel.
Atlantic, It has everything to do, car or ports in the company of Morbihan (CPM), Neither the ports of Brittany (APPB), still less ports scattered in Manche and the Aquitaine, do not offer a stopover online reservation service. I was pleasantly surprised to see in Navily the port of Nantes (more exactly the pontoon of the Belem) managed by the CCI, and my home port of St Vaast-La-Hougue. I remain convinced that the success of this application will go through the concept of security of call, more than by the community sharing, However useful it may be in the context of recreational boating. In any case I say bravo to the creators, and I wish them good luck !
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(¹) Navionics Mobile and Community Sharing
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Yeah, I ask to see … Objectively Active Captain has a long history, There is what to fill in french, It also works, I did it, and then abroad English ? You already tried to call the freighter which will get you into in french ? ZeroSix captain, It works like this. Another advantage of Active Captain is that it will interface with for example such nav apps SEAIq, as AyeTides, therefore useless to 150 000 references, you know more she is good.
As to book in advance … There is not whether long ports was required to keep places for overnight visitors, a number of places, I grant it to you, but the notion of shelter is still … A little ? … Important ?
PS : and in addition you give your phone number, Yes you …
Therefore asked Mark how much it has active users in France. Navily is aimed initially at french browsers.
The allocation of seats for a short stopover is now governed by the rule "no reservation" – first come = first served". It is obviously very unpleasant having to hurry to not get too late to obtain a correct place. It is also a rule that guarantees a certain freedom of boating.
A booking system will be harmful in the long run, boaters could be forced to pass through tour operators who have purchased the wholesale places long in advance.
Online booking sites such as "Booking" take a significant part of the turnover of the hotel industry , try as they do not on the nights of pleasure.
It is completely impossible in a system as Navily (or same Carmel eResa). The browser to create an account with the characteristics of his own boat, and seize its bank identifiers in its reservations guarantee. Your concern seems unfounded, fortunately.
I agree, this is a good start. Not everyone however has on line access while on the water, especially when you are going for foreign countries. As an example a weekend across the English channel. So, an off line version that would cache data for a specific area with text and light photos would be welcome.
I think this is also what makes ActiveCaptain a so appealing.
Interesting as application. This will give maybe, and hopefully, ActiveCaptain ideas, because here in North America are the ones who are kings and masters. The amount of information about ActiveCaptain is impressive, but the interface is not very advanced which lengthens considerably the time needed to inform. Congratulations to the french cousins!