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Introducing Safety Hub
March 17, 2022 • 3 min read
Safety is important at sea, and as your co-pilot, Orca is built to ensure that you’re safe while you and your crew are on the water. This week’s update is designed to make boating safer and give you the confidence to go further.
The Safety Hub is a collection of three new features:
Man Overboard helps you track the location and time of a Man Overboard incident
Search and Rescue Direct Calling puts you in contact with your local Search and Rescue organization instantly
Live Sharing lets you share your location, route, and ETA with anyone
The Safety Hub is accessed from the Main Menu – and it is where all of these features and future safety-related features will be found.
Let’s dive into them in more detail.
Man Overboard
If a crew member was to go overboard, press the Man Overboard button located at the bottom left corner of the Safety Hub. Two things will now happen:
The coordinates and time of the incident will be locked on-screen, so they can be easily relayed to a SAR entity or other assisting vessels.
A man overboard marker will be dropped on the map and a line will be drawn from the man overboard marker to your current location – making it easy to head straight back to the location.
Man Over Board makes it easier to keep track of an incident.
Search and Rescue Direct Calling
In a stressful situation where every second counts, remembering the phone number of your local Search and Rescue authority can be hard – especially if you are boating outside your home country. You need the right contact information, and you need it right now.
The Safety Hub monitors your boat’s location and automatically displays the name and contact details of the Search and Rescue organization that is nearest to you.
Your local Search and Rescue Organization is a tap away.
In the case of an emergency, press Call Now to call your local Search and Rescue organization. Direct Calling is available via all your devices, even the Orca Display when a SIM is inserted and you are within cellular coverage.
More than 90% of the trips made by Orca users are within the range of cellular networks – so we expect that the ability to call directly from your Orca Display will be not only useful but also usable in the vast majority of situations.
Having said that, we wish to emphasize that this is not a replacement for a VHF radio or AIS system.
Search and Rescue Direct Calling is designed to simplify and speed up the process of contacting your SAR organization. Instead of you or your crew wasting time looking for your mobile phones and taking your eyes and attention off a potentially critical situation, the nearest Search and Rescue authority can be easily contacted with a simple button press from your main navigation device.
Please keep in mind that Search and Rescue Direct Calling is only to be used in the case of actual, genuine emergencies.
Live Sharing
Many of you are familiar with the concept of sharing your location via various applications and services.
Whether you’re permanently sharing your location with loved ones, close friends, or simply an associate awaiting your arrival, location sharing functionality has become something that many of us are not only familiar with but also actively using onshore.
Today, we’re bringing you location sharing that is tailored for boating.
Located prominently at the bottom right corner of Safety Hub, you’ll find the new Live Sharing experience.
Hit the Share Location button – and select how you want to share your location, via text, e-mail, or your favorite social media. It’s instant, encrypted and safe.
Live Share is a secure and reliable way to share your location, route, and ETA with others.
Your recipients do not need the Orca app or an Orca device to use the link.
They simply click on the link and it will open a browser with a map showing your shared location, upcoming route, and ETA. This is how it looks for a recipient.
The recipient of a Live Share can follow your progress along a route
The shared link works until you stop sharing or turn off your Orca Display or close the Orca application on your personal device.
Sharing your location gives your recipients the peace of mind, in real-time, that you, your boat, and your crew are safe and sound, or alternatively, safely on course to your destination.
There are, of course, other reasons you might want to share your location.
Perhaps you wish to share it with the person responsible for collecting your trailer and driving it down to the slipway so that they can plan their own departure time to arrive there when you do.
Or maybe you need to inform the marina or some other responsible party of your pending arrival at the dock. Share your location with them and they’ll know exactly when to expect you.
No constant phone calls back and forth.
No guessing.
No worries.
Get the Orca Core today
The Orca Core is a navigation processing device that powers the Safety Hub and many other groundbreaking features in Orca.
The Core is a truly modern navigation device – with a professional-grade GPS receiver, a nine-axis gyro, and a bi-directional NMEA2000 connection that integrates with all of your electronics aboard.
It’s exclusively available through the Orca store, right here.
Got questions about Safety Hub or Orca, don't hesitate to reach out via hello@getorca.com
