Bloo See is a new web-based project targeted at sailors and sea-lovers in general, a place to exchange geographic data related to navigation (harbors, anchorages, dangers, navigation aids, etc.), create and share routes, as well as a social network oriented towards people with interests in the sea environment. The core of the system is a map of the world with information updatable by all registered users, thus keeping an up-to-date global navigation chart. The system will be in constant development, adding data and functionalities as it evolves into a richer source of nautical information.
Goals Of The Project
The seas and the oceans of the world are huge, open areas where sailors (and sea-lovers in general) move freely. Each and every one of them has favorite anchorages, knows the best harbors, can warn you about certain dangers. Each sailor has a partial knowledge of the sea environment (because of the areas he or she mostly sails in, because of what they have studied or have been told by others), but lacks information about unknown waters.
Most (not to say all) sailors are nowadays provided with electronic aid systems to assist them in their navigations (in the form of GPSs, route planning software, radars, depth-meters and so on). However those systems operate in an individual manner: each sailor gathers their own information (they collect waypoints and routes on their GPSs, they write notes by their physical or electronic charts, they take pictures or moving images of the places they visit) but there are no means of sharing this information (meaning this information together, in a logical form that makes sense to a sailor) with other peers (except, of course, for one-to-one exchanges). On the other hand, these devices often lack the first-hand, personal information that an experienced user can provide: evaluations, opinions, and advice, offering raw data as opposed as information filtered and edited by a peer.
Although this information can be obtained by means of pilot guides, wouldn’t it be nice if all sailors of the world could exchange geographic information much in the same way everyone can become an editor of an article in the Wikipedia? You write about what you know about, while you read about what you don’t. In the same manner, sea-lovers could publish the information they master, and get the information they lack and that is provided by others.
What Bloo See offers is a platform where all sea-lovers or professionals can either get or publish relevant information related to waypoints, harbors, marinas, dangers, touristic information, fishing information, underwater interesting spots, etc. in a clear, intuitive way. It is a web application as well as a meeting point.
Who This Project Is For
Everyone with a relationship with the sea is a good candidate to be a Bloo See user, since we want our system to be as flexible and as open as possible.
Some of our user types could be:
• Sailing yacht sailors: from racers to cruisers
• Motor-boat sailors
• Professional yacht crew, professional charter crew
• Boat builders, sailmakers, chandlers, etc.
• Inland water sailors
• Scuba divers
• Sports fishermen
• Windsurfers, kite sufers, sea-kayakers, etc.
• Environmentalists
• …
