About

ShoreMeter — a simple aid for safer coastal boating

ShoreMeter is a mobile application intended for captains of smaller vessels, such as boats, speedboats, and rigid inflatable boats that are capable of planing. Its primary purpose is to improve awareness of how far a vessel is from the nearest coastline and whether, according to configured rules, planing is permitted at the current location.

Many smaller vessels do not have advanced radar, nautical, or professional navigation systems. In practice, a captain often relies mainly on personal visual estimation of distance from shore, and that estimation may be inaccurate. As a result, a vessel may plane too close to the coast, bathing areas, divers, other vessels, or other sensitive zones.

A number of professional nautical applications are available with extensive functionality, charts, navigation, and additional data layers. ShoreMeter is designed differently: as a simple and clear aid that primarily presents one key piece of information - the approximate distance to the nearest coast - and relates it to vessel speed and basic configured planing rules.

The application enables display of current speed in knots, calculation of approximate distance from the coast, and an alert indicating whether planing is permitted or prohibited according to selected or configured values. The user may define, for each country, the coastal distance and speed threshold that separates slow cruising from planing.

The application may also include basic rules or reference values for individual countries. These rules are collected from publicly available online sources and are intended solely for initial orientation. Because legislation may change, and because rules may differ by country, local area, port, natural park, bathing zone, or other special regimes, the user must always verify and follow applicable local regulations and instructions issued by competent authorities.

The objective of the application is not to avoid penalties, but to promote safer and more responsible boating. ShoreMeter is designed as an aid for better spatial awareness at sea, which can benefit all parties: vessel captains, other boats, swimmers, divers, sailors, paddlers, and everyone near the coastline.

The application is in an early stage of development and has not yet been tested in all possible conditions, areas, and usage modes. Coastline data is obtained from open-source and free geographic sources, and therefore deviations, simplifications, or missing details may occur. Data may not include all small islets, reefs, rocks, man-made structures, local specifics, or other important maritime elements.

Accordingly, ShoreMeter is not an official nautical chart, not a professional navigation system, not safety equipment, and not a legal instrument. It is intended as an additional informational aid and not as the sole source of information for navigation or decision-making on where planing is allowed.

When boating, the user must always act responsibly, monitor surroundings, comply with local regulations, official markers, buoys, bathing areas, weather conditions, sea state, and instructions of competent services and authorities.

Contact and support

Operator / application provider
SINUS IKS D.O.O., Slovenia

Email: [email protected]
Website: shoremeter.app

For questions regarding the application, Terms of Use, privacy, coastline data packages, or technical support, please contact us by email. We will respond as soon as reasonably possible.