Hi everyone & welcome to East Coast Sailing. In todays episode I'm divulging all my boating technology hacks. I personally guarantee anyone who watches the full video will learn something they didn't know or save a lot of time and money. This video is aimed towards coastal & recreational boaters.

If your just getting into sailing or been boating a while there really is something for everyone. I have been in the game for 9 years and only just discovered some of these hacks a couple of years ago since speaking to software developers for a chart plotting application I use when I suggested some improvements. I also found one hack playing around with exported files from the chart plotter, something I never have had to do until starting a YouTube Channel.

Firstly ill cover A.I.S. What is AIS & how can it be used by recreational boaters & sailors. Ill discuss typical installation hardware needed to get AIS capability as well as how you can turn your phone into an AIS receiver and transponder for £15. Saving you £1000's on hardware, no installation time & you don't need to cut any holes in your boat. I will also discuss the limitations of my proposal.

Ill also cover exporting planned navigation routes or tracks from your chart plotter. The exported navigation files typically come in 2 forms: GPX files, the most widely used for navigation as well as KMZ files which contain photometric data typically used for google earth & studio applications. I was blown away when I accidently found further uses for the navigation files when playing around with a well known weather forecast website windy.com to get the most precise weather and wave predictions against imported planned routes. This hack requires no subscription fees and is completely free, all you need is a laptop and internet signal.

Lastly ill cover AR, Augmented reality. Ill show you how you can get this technology for £8 overlaying compass information on the horizon as well as integrative information just using a smart phone.

Hopefully you will all find something useful before you go purchasing equipment specific to your boat.

These are my best kept secrets so don't pass them on ;).