Boatnerd.com is celebrating 30 years online with a revamped website, including an upgraded AIS vessel map.
“Boatnerd was started in 1995 as a test of building a website,” recalls founder Neil Schultheiss. “I had the interest and it seemed like a good subject. At the time, the web was only accessible by academic institutes. In the early days there were text newsgroups that discussed boats and thought I would give this subject a try.”
“When the web opened up to the world in the mid-1990s, the site really took off,” he said.
Today, Boatnerd attracts a diverse following, from nautical enthusiasts to sailors and others involved in the Great Lakes shipping and maritime industry. We regularly have visitors from almost every country in the world.
Our mission is to enhance the general public’s knowledge of commercial maritime operations and the history thereof on the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway, which is why we’ve worked hard to create an updated website that makes it easier to share our mission.
“We’ve been working hard on creating a website that will load faster and be easier for visitors to navigate, especially on mobile devices, while also being much easier for our team to update and maintain on the back end,” according to Jason Bowler, who has been working on the redesign for more than a year.
The daily news page had been revamped to make it more user-friendly and easier to search. The Today in Great Lakes History feature will continue as before, as will the discussion forum and the winter layup list. Vessel histories are in the process of being revised with new information. Port reports will change to Noteworthy Passages, as the widespread availability of AIS has rendered the detailed reports outdated by the time they appear.
Our upgraded AIS vessel map includes several new features, including:
- U.S. and Canadian navigation charts
- My Fleet, allowing you to track individual boats or groups of vessels
- Trip plotting tools to estimate when a boat will reach various points along its route
We’ve also enhanced the Automated Vessel Passage feature. It records vessel passages and provides schedules for ports and key locations, making it easier to plan your next boat-watching outing.
You’ll also be able to enjoy all of these new AIS features directly on your phone, with dedicated mobile apps for both iPhone and Android coming out next month, including a fun bonus feature where you can play whistle signals from some of the most popular boats on the Great Lakes!
Our AIS system is completely free for all users. We have no association with MarineTraffic. Our AIS collects real-time data from privately-hosted AIS stations across the Great Lakes.
We hope you’re as excited for this new chapter as we are.
Boatnerd.com is operated by Great Lakes & Seaway Shipping On-LIne, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, which is managed by a board of directors and derives much of its revenue from advertising sales, industry support, and private donations.
