The Nautinet download

Recognising the increasing demands of the regatta circuit, a new software, Nautinet, has been launched as an online nautical network, providing a comprehensive central platform for making regatta crew organisation and communication efficient and easy. With yachts including Comanche, Velsheda and Firefly already using the software, TCR speaks to founder, Nicholas Cranch, about his product's evolving market place.


“Superyacht racing has evolved exponentially in the last few years,” says Cranch. “Substantial advances in naval architecture, technology, and composites have enabled the build of yachts that are ever-increasing in size, speed, and value whilst carrying more crew, more luxury, and more complex systems throughout the yacht. With the evolution of superyachts comes the growing need to invest in a sufficient number of professional crew in order to contribute to the safety and success of the yacht and crew.”

Along with this evolution, Cranch began to see the growing challenges with regards to logistics and organisation in the lead up to, and during, each event. “Each crewmember requires return flights, transfers to and from the airport as well as a room in a hotel or villa,” he explains. “Then there is the day-to-day organisation of head-to-toe uniform, the collection and allocation of clothes washing and providing three meals a day.”



While there are often dedicated managers or sometimes permanent crewmembers in charge of this organisation, Cranch developed Nautinet as a modern-day professional solution; a tool to simplify and speed up the process. The software’s features include shared event calendars, automated logistics and uniform sheets, smart-grouped SMS texting, smart-grouped email, file sharing and discussion forums, amongst others.

“Come six o’clock on any race day and the race crew are rarely to be found on the boat,” Cranch adds. “Some wander the docks catching up with old friends, others head back to the hotel or to the gym, while others find the nearest bar or beach. At this point it’s a near-impossible feat to be able to contact all the crew immediately to inform them of a change of dinner time or venue. Nautinet has a free smart-grouped SMS feature enabling a custom message to be sent automatically to all crew attending that event.”

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Besides the event logistics and organisation is the routine maintenance, repairs and optimisation to coordinate prior to or after a regatta, which is often a challenge due to race crew residing in different locations. “Because Nautinet is essentially a piece of online software, it provides a central platform accessible and editable by all regardless of time or geography,” Cranch continues. “This helps managers who might live at home with family keep a hold of things, or race crew who are involved with the optimisation of the boat keep in touch.”

Cranch’s aim with Nautinet is to give an assurance amongst crew of having easily and readily available information, increased ability for race crew to keep in touch with certain aspects of the boat between events and aid the efficiency of all communications, which, in turn, decreases the number of emails surrounding an event. “To an extent I think inefficiency has been tolerated within the industry for a long time due to vast budgets and people,” he concludes. “This is a step up in the right direction towards efficient organisation and communication for race teams.”

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