Trawlerfest Baltimore · September 24–26

Explore the dream
Choose the right boat
Prepare for what comes next

NAVOPLAN helps aspiring cruisers, boat buyers, and owners turn the dream into better decisions—from lifestyle exploration and boat selection through ownership, readiness, and passage planning.

Dreamers, buyers, and owners Two live seminars Booth demonstrations

See NAVOPLAN before Trawlerfest

Join a live Wednesday walkthrough to understand the platform before meeting us in Baltimore.

Reserve a Walkthrough Seat →
What NAVOPLAN is

A continuing cruising decision and planning platform

NAVOPLAN is an online platform that helps individuals and crews explore the cruising lifestyle, choose the right boat, manage ownership, and prepare for safer passages.

Members use NAVOPLAN to make better-informed decisions at every stage of the journey. NAVOPLAN FIRST-MATE carries forward critical information about the cruiser, crew, vessel, priorities, plans, and past decisions so support becomes more relevant as circumstances change—around the clock and around the globe.

DREAMERS

Explore the lifestyle

Understand what each crew member wants, identify concerns and priorities, and decide whether—and how—the cruising dream fits.

BUYERS

Choose the right boat

Turn cruising goals, crew needs, financial boundaries, and intended use into clearer requirements and better acquisition decisions.

OWNERS

Operate and prepare

Organize vessel information, readiness, maintenance, planning, and the decisions involved in cruising farther and more safely.

Start where you are today. NAVOPLAN retains the information, priorities, decisions, and context developed along the way, so its guidance becomes more relevant as your cruising journey advances.

Built from real cruising experience

Dwain Craddock brings approximately four decades of experience in technology, learning, decision support, and human performance. Throughout his career, he has helped apply emerging technologies to communication, education, and complex decision-making. In 1995, he helped develop museum exhibits for the opening of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, including early applications of streaming technology.

He is also an experienced long-distance solo cruiser, with approximately 18,000 nautical miles aboard his Nordhavn 40 trawler, Amarok. His experience includes extended coastal and offshore passages, vessel systems management, passage preparation, troubleshooting underway, and making consequential decisions under stress with incomplete information.

Cruising decisions are closely connected. Lifestyle goals influence boat choice, while boat choice affects cost, capability, maintenance, route options, and passage readiness. NAVOPLAN was created to preserve that context and help cruisers make better-informed decisions as their plans and circumstances evolve.

How AI fits

AI is a capability within NAVOPLAN—not the definition of it

NAVOPLAN combines structured information about the cruiser, crew, vessel, plans, priorities, and current situation with AI-assisted analysis.

✓Identify missing information and open questions
✓Compare tradeoffs and organize complex decisions
✓Prepare better questions for brokers, surveyors, mechanics, and other professionals
✓Generate more relevant briefings and decision support using accumulated context
The seminar program

See the ideas behind NAVOPLAN in two live sessions

1

AI for Cruisers: From the Dream to Safer Passages

See how AI can help future and current cruisers explore the lifestyle, think about the right boat, prepare for departure, plan passages, and make safer decisions underway.

  • Practical ChatGPT prompts you can use immediately
  • Lifestyle exploration and crew decision support
  • Vessel acquisition and readiness questions
  • Passage briefing, departure planning, and arrival preparation
  • Emergency readiness and safety support
  • Why boat, crew, route, and system context matter
AI can be a helpful second set of eyes, but it does not replace seamanship, official sources, weather judgment, emergency procedures, or captain authority.
2

AI as a Second Set of Eyes: Better Decisions for Boat Buyers and Owners

Buying and owning a cruising boat involves decisions that are expensive, emotional, technical, and sometimes safety-sensitive. Learn how AI can help organize the problem before you act.

  • “Is this the right boat?” and “What are we not considering?”
  • Questions to prepare before an offer, survey, or sea trial
  • Organizing maintenance and troubleshooting decisions
  • Deciding whether to monitor, investigate, or escalate an issue
  • Preserving decision history and open questions
  • Preparing better discussions with qualified professionals
AI can support better thinking, but it does not replace brokers, surveyors, mechanics, technical manuals, official sources, emergency procedures, or captain judgment.
Visit the NAVOPLAN booth

See NAVOPLAN working with real cruising context

Visit the booth for a live demonstration of how NAVOPLAN supports dreamers, buyers, and owners—and how information gathered in one phase can improve decisions in the next.

Bring a question about your own cruising plans, boat search, vessel, crew, or next passage and see how NAVOPLAN organizes the context around it.

What you can explore at the booth

✓Dreamer, buyer, and owner journeys
✓Individual and Shared Helm crew decision support
✓Boat requirements and acquisition planning
✓Vessel information, readiness, maintenance, and planning
✓Passage, destination, port, and anchorage briefings
✓FIRST-MATE support for complex questions and evolving situations