Is yours a paper boat?  

24 January 2012

Is that LED light on the water temp gauge supposed to flash like that? How do I switch my GPS over to night mode? Where are the sacrificial anodes located on my engine?

The answer to these, and a myriad of other questions about your boat and the equipment on board, can be found somewhere amongst the veritable library of instruction manuals that come with every bit of gear for your boat.

The problem is first, having to locate the relevant manual and second, having to find the relevant section. Time consuming and most times not an issue but, all too often can mean the difference between an enjoyable voyage and a worrying, even dangerous one.

Now a local specialist digital technical documentation firm – Omnifile - offers boat owners a simple solution to the problem. Omnifile can take all of the your boat’s manuals and compile them into a single e-book that can reside, stand-alone, on a smartphone or an onboard tablet pc, and be immediately searchable across all content. Everything, anytime, anywhere!

Omnifile call the system a BoatBio and each BoatBio is composed individually for each boat using a structured methodology, architecture and software apps. This can be a collaborative project wherein owners can elect to produce and maintain as much or as little of the content as they desire. Involvement of family, crew and even marine services providers can add a lot of enjoyment and value to each BoatBio publication project. Photos and videos can also be embedded within the BoatBio e-book.



BoatBio provides a complete solution to the problem of manuals going missing, and urgently-required bits of information “hiding” in unlikely sections. And, while they’re at it, they can also provide for a litany of other info about the boat within the e-book. Chapters such as history, voyages journal, inventories, photos, insurance, safety & emergency procedures, performance, maintenance, notations, charts, tides, anything, and everything!



The best part is – you don’t need to be tech savvy.  BoatBio staff deal with you on a person-to-person basis.

A BoatBio stored stand-alone on an e-reader and kept onboard is an additional piece of critical instrumentation for info about the boat. It becomes part of the boat. A typical Boatbio e-book project is commissioned for around $900, so if you ever decide to sell your boat, your BoatBio will be the best-value presentation medium you can have.

Every BoatBio is securely backed up on an individual, password-protected URL (website). This can be accessed and synchronised with your nominated pc, smartphone and onboard tablet pc or e-reader.

The fact is printed publications are notorious for going missing or being poorly structured and indexed. At times they are a hit-and-miss proposition when you need to look something up. Of course, generally this is only discovered at the precise moment you need to refer to them. With BoatBio on board information is just a keystroke away.

For a complete digital biography of your boat – a BoatBio – call Mick O’Keefe on 0411 734858 or for more info visit www.boatbio.com.au

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