Experience of sailboat maintenance on a voyage
The Ready4Sea story begins with a family sabbatical in the West Indies in 2018. Marion Loyer-Tennant and her husband, both engineers, and their two children spent a year sailing in the islands aboard a second-hand catamaran purchased locally. Although they know how to sail, they don't consider themselves experts and sail wisely. However, the equipment requires maintenance, and the couple soon realize the importance of boat upkeep, which they keep track of with an in-house Excel file that is as accurate as possible. Back in Brittany, Marion delved deeper into the problem and decided to set up an application project, as she explains: "Seeing that there wasn't much that existed in the field, I dug deeper into the project, and came to the conclusion that an app was the best solution for keeping track of what needed to be done on board and what had been done. After a health problem, I was joined by a friend who had traveled around the world as a couple for 7 years. He too had had these needs, and brought with him a wealth of experience in navigation and application development. He reworked the project until its official release in May 2023, after a year with a hundred beta testers."
Boat maintenance checklist and follow-up
The Ready4Sea application is organized around several key points. Once the user has entered his or her boat - the application has a database of models - and its equipment, he or she will be able to use it in a variety of ways. They will be able to use the checklists provided, both for daily use when leaving port or the boat, and for maintenance, such as careening or wintering, or for regulatory equipment.
When the yachtsman carries out maintenance, whether preventive or curative, he can complete the maintenance log himself, or give access to his dealer or mechanic to record it, and even add documents attesting to it.
Automatic reminders will help you anticipate oil changes and other recurrent maintenance.
Maintain the value of your boat, whatever its size
While Ready4Sea aims to help yachtsmen sail serenely and without risk, the application also offers added value when it comes to selling your boat, stresses the founder: "Unlike other solutions, here there's no need to invest in sensors to be installed in the boat, with budgets of over 1,000 euros, for a boat that only costs a few thousand euros. So there's a real interest in second-hand, small boats. The aim is to empower the owner to carry out even more preventive maintenance, and to sail with safety and peace of mind. On resale, the archives are a form of guarantee, with a legible and synthetic export, with no possibility of backdating elements, since all entries are time-stamped."
Attracting professionals and foreign customers
For yachtsmen with a single boat, the offer is free of charge. Additional modules are available for a fee, mainly for professionals managing fleets of boats, including a back office function for maintenance and expense management.
The site attracted over 700 users in the space of a month, and its English-language version opens it up to an international audience.
