Maritime news finds new home on the Web

A new Rhode Island-based Web site, eCaptain.com, is looking to be a one-stop information and networking spot for the maritime industry, says Tory Chew, spokesman for Confident Captain/Ocean Pros, a Newport-based company that this month launched the site.
“What we’re trying to do with the Web site is create a Web-based, all-things-maritime portal,” Chew said. “Now, there’s definitely a void on the Internet for someone to go find everything maritime.”
Launched on June 12, the site draws stories from international media – many are filtered to Confident Captain through RSS feeds – that include newspaper and magazine articles, educational material and blogs. By bringing together as much material as possible, from as many sources as possible, the Web site should appeal to everyone in the “maritime world,” Chew said.
And along with RSS feeds, much of the material is found through Web searches and daily visits to other Web sites. “We do a lot of milling around on the Web,” she said, “and a lot of it is just from being in and around the industry – these things come through our inbox everyday.”
The Web site is set up for visitors to scroll through stories with introductory paragraphs. And it’s broken into three sections: Powerboating includes sport fishing, gear and recreational cruising; Sailing includes racing and cruising; Professional Mariner includes fishermen, merchant mariners and yacht crews.
But at the center of the Web site, there’s a mission statement, which says that the goal is to be a “comprehensive source of information” by putting together an “easy to use” Web site. And that easy-to-use look and comprehensiveness will hopefully draw advertisers to the Web site, Chew said.
The flagship item so far has been The Charlie Foxtrot Report, a blog that’s dedicated to “accidents, mishaps and rescues.” Chew declined to offer the hit counts and site statistics last week. “As the site has just been launched, we can say that the numbers have been very impressive thus far, but we will wait to release any figures,” she said.
The Web site now is run out of the Confident Captain office with the same staff, but as advertisers start buying space on the site, it could become a self-sufficient subsidiary of the other company, she said. New staffers have not been hired for eCaptain.com, but an outside Web designer, Burnard Web Design, based in Massachusetts, was brought in to design the site. In the future, the site will hopefully turn into a professional and recreational networking site, she said. “We’d like to add forums and create a more community aspect to it,” she said. “That’s definitely something that will be in the not-too-distant future.”
The business also hopes to attract more original content by local and national writers, she said. “It’s geared toward the 73 million boaters in America,” she added.
And Confident Captain is also doing well, Chew reported. Started almost five years ago, it has three full-time staffers and depending on the time of year, a few part-time workers.
Out of the Seaman’s Church Institute in Newport, the company offers various classes, which can qualify students for a captain’s license or yacht-master certification. It also offers an array of safety courses – including personal survival, fire prevention and CPR – and a general, 40-hour “able seaman” course.
President and founder Kent Dresser – who had worked for Safe/Sea, a Wickford-based sea towing and assistance business – is the primary instructor for those courses.
“We get a couple hundred people who go through the program every year,” Chew said. “And they’re from all over the world. They may be people traveling through Newport on a mega-yacht; they may be tugboat guys from New York harbor. It’s a diverse group.”
The busiest seasons so far have been the spring and fall, because people in the maritime industry are too busy during the summer, Chew said. The “Master 100 Gross Ton” license course, the most common, costs about $1,000, Chew said.
Creating eCaptain.com was the next logical step for the company, which for about six months has been sending weekly e-mail newsletters to its clients, Chew said. That newsletter, The Captains Weekly Dispatch, has been growing in popularity and Dresser was looking for the next step, Chew said.
“That had been very successful and it had generated a lot of buzz,” Chew said. “And it’s also provided a lot of the inspiration for eCaptain.com, the content and the type of stories.” •