Keep up to date on all the latest happenings at Rose Point.
Redmond, WA - April 12, 2010, Rose Point Navigation Systems, today announced a partnership with Active Corporation to offer ActiveCaptain within Rose Point’s Coastal Explorer navigation software. ActiveCaptain support along with Rose Points other data offerings creates a rich user experience which enables boaters to make better decisions and have more fun on the water.
ActiveCaptain is an internet based application that boaters use to share local knowledge. When a boater sees something noteworthy they can enter it on the ActiveCaptain website where it’s shared with other boaters. There are four categories of information, Marinas and Commercial Locations, Anchorages and Free Docks, Local Knowledge, and Hazards. In the past the only way to access the information was through the a web browser, but not all boaters have Internet access while underway. Coastal Explorer makes the information available while offline where boaters really want it, at the helm in their navigation software. Rose Point is the first software company to make ActiveCaptain available to the public in this way.
“ActiveCaptain is an important addition to the Coastal Explorer Network” said Brad Christian, founder and chief software architect at Rose Point. “My original vision for Coastal Explorer was a program that could be used to help with important boating questions like: Where should I go? When should I go? What’s the weather going to be like? What are the tides and tidal currents? What does it look like when I get there? What hazards might be along my route? ActiveCaptain is a great source of user created information and helps complete this vision.” In the future users should expect to find many other guides available as part of the Coastal Explorer Network.
Jeffrey Siegel, founder and creator of ActiveCaptain has been using Coastal Explorer while cruising the eastern seaboard with his wife. Many years of experience made him realize that a lot of information is needed to safely travel from Florida to Maine. He created ActiveCaptain as a tool for boaters to share that information. “I’ve been using Coastal Explorer since 2005 - it’s a great product and it makes navigation very easy. Now that it’s combined with ActiveCaptain I have the best possible planning tool along with the information I need right at my fingertips. Rose Point does an incredible job of integrating data from a variety of sources and presenting it to the user. It’s easy to use and I rely on it every day for my cruising”.
ActiveCaptain support will be included in Rose Points 2010 software, which is expected later this year. ActiveCaptain is immediately available for existing Coastal Explorer 2009 users choosing to download and install the latest pre-release beta version of the software.
Rose Point Navigation Systems is a leading developer of PC based navigation software and produces Coastal Explorer and Rose Point ECS. The company was founded in 2003, by Brad Christian, an ex-Microsoft developer and is located in Redmond, Washington.
This is the forth article in a series on the new Coastal Explorer 2010. If you are just joining us, be sure to read the first article first!
Part of the new Coastal Explorer 2010 design philosophy involves consolidation of related information and one place that is really noticeable is the new Help menu replacement.
This is the third article in a series on the new Coastal Explorer 2010. If you are just joining us, be sure to read the first article first!
In this article we’ll take a look at the new browsers that you get to from the tabs across the new Coastal Explorer 2010 window. If you missed it, please be sure to read the first article of this series before reading this one!
This is the first of a series of articles that will introduce changes we are making for the Coastal Explorer 2010 release. Coastal Explorer 2010 includes a major overhaul of the Planning Mode user interface which hasn’t really changed that much since Coastal Explorer 1.1 was released nearly five years ago (and even it wasn’t much different from Coastal Explorer 1.0).
Redmond, WA, - October 20, 2009, Rose Point Navigation Systems, today announced a partnership with Atlantic Cruising Club, Inc. to offer Atlantic Cruising Club’s Guides to Marinas within Rose Point’s Coastal Explorer navigation software. This is the fist time an independent marina guide publisher and electronic navigation software producer have collaborated to make vital planning information easily available in an electronic format that is directly viewable in the navigation software.
Atlantic Cruising Club’s (ACC) Guides to Marinas cover all of the marinas on the US East Coast and in the Pacific Northwest that accept overnight transient boats of 25’ LOA and greater. ACC’s boater-biased Guides are the definitive source of marina and "what’s nearby" information. The Guides are known for their completeness, accuracy and impartial marina ratings and reviews. The ACC has been gathering and maintaining marina information for the last 12 years. Each marina report contains over 300 fields of information describing the marina and its facilities as well as nearby boatyard facilities, dining and lodging options, provisioning alternatives, recreation and entertainment resources, medical facilities and professionals, and transportation options. Currently there are five Atlantic Cruising Club regional volumes describing over 1,600 marinas in New England, Long Island Sound, Florida's East Coast, The Chesapeake Bay, and the Pacific Northwest. The Mid-Atlantic/ICW will be available later this year and ACC Guides to California and the Northern Gulf Coast are in development.
Coastal Explorer users have two options for displaying the ACC Marina information. A basic level of marina data is offered as a FREE download to Coastal Explorer owners and includes; marina contact information, nearest town, facility information, number and size of slips, basic amenities, and a thumbnail image showing the facility. Coastal Explorer owners can also enable ACC’s complete Marina Report by purchasing an ACC book. These reports include everything else that you might need including such items as; VHF contact channels, what’s available and where to find it, transportation and medical services listed by distance, and much, much more.
The free data is available to existing Coastal Explorer customers through the Coastal Explorer Network. Users will be able to download periodic updates of the free and paid data. Coastal Explorer users will also be able to post comments about marinas they’ve visited through the newly released Coastal Explorer Network. The comments are posted to the Community Cruising Guide and add an interesting facet to the ACC data, namely user generated comments and reviews.
"I've been working in the PC based navigation software market for nearly 20 years" Said Jeff Hummel, director of Sales and Marketing at Rose Point Navigation systems. "Many companies have tried to implement third party content like this, but for one reason or another, the business model never worked out. Now, for the first time, users will be able to gain easy access to the best marina guides available. Best of all, all of the ACC-covered marinas are represented by icons on the Coastal Explorer charts and a simple click of the icon brings up the ACC marina info in the Coastal Explorer Browser Panel."
Stop and see the results of the new Atlantic Cruising Club/ Coastal Explorer partnership at the Fort Lauderdale Boat Show, booth 433 in the Accessory Tent.
Rose Point Navigations Systems is a leading developer of PC based navigation systems and produces Coastal Explorer and Rose Point ECS. The company was founded in 2003, by Brad Christian, an ex- Microsoft developer and is located in Redmond, Washington.
Redmond, WA, - May 26, 2009, Rose Point Navigation Systems today announced that they have released a new line of digital radar products that can be used with the company’s Coastal Explorer and Rose Point ECS navigation systems. The new radar units range in size from a small footprint 4 KW dome to a 25 KW open array.
PC based radar has many benefits over traditional radar. Many users install the software at a primary navigation station and then clone the screen on a separate, sometimes exterior, screen at a second helm station. “There’s nothing quite as nice as having a large sunlight readable screen at the helm” said Jeff Hummel, Director of Sales and Marketing at Rose Point. “The low cost of large waterproof screens has made this possible at a fraction of the expense of dedicated systems. Boaters like to have all of their information on a single screen to save space. Since they have chosen PC based navigation over a plotter, it is only natural that they would desire radar overlay as a key part of their system.”
Redmond, WA – February 2, 2009: Rose Point Navigation Systems today announced the launch and immediate availability of the latest version of its award-winning navigation software Coastal Explorer and its companion Internet service, the Coastal Explorer Network, which provides users with US chart updates, weather forecasts, and more.
The new Coastal Explorer 2009 provides an even more refined and streamlined user experience both when planning a voyage and during navigation. Mark Nelson of Navsoftware.com (a leading online retailer of PC based navigation software), reviewed the software stating, “Coastal Explorer already had the easiest to use interface. With version 2.0 Rose Point has distanced themselves from others by orders of magnitude creating a whole new level (for others to aspire to)”.
Coastal Explorer’s unique Guide Book, which has always included information from the US Coast Pilot and NGA Sailing Directions, now includes photos from Google’s Panoramio web service as well as information from the Coastal Explorer Network’s community guide book. The Guide Book also makes it easy for anyone to contribute information to the community guide book about the places they know best.
Redmond, WA - November 10, 2008 Rose Point Navigation Systems today announced the release of Rose Point ECS, a new software product designed specifically for the coastal and inland commercial market. The software was designed around the consensus requirements of three of Rose Point’s launch customers: American Commercial Lines, Seacor Marine and McAllister Towing. Each of these companies has deployed the software fleet wide and have been using it in their day to day operations for between six and eighteen months.