LRC Consulting Solutions (LRC) of Kelowna has been awarded a two-year Search and Rescue New Innovation Fund (SARNIF) grant to create a new Sailing PlanTM mobile app and dashboard to meet regulatory and safety requirements for small commercial vessels.
Today’s announcement of SARNIF funding of $595,000 to LRC was made by The Honourable Ralph Goodale, Minister of Public Safety Canada and Emergency Preparedness and by Kelowna-Lake Country MP Stephen Fuhr for its project, Improving Marine Safety: Building a New Sailing Plan Mobile Application and Dashboard.
“The Government of Canada’s Search and Rescue New Innovation Fund supports the development of modern tools like today’s announcement of LRC Consulting Services’ coordinated mobile sailing plan technology,” stated Minister Goodale. “This SARNIF grant will help ensure that important work is completed to enhance and support marine safety for all Canadian boaters. Creating and submitting a sailing plan, will never have been easier or more efficient.”
SARNIF is managed by Public Safety Canada – National Search and Rescue Secretariat in partnership with other federal, provincial and territorial SAR organizations, including the Department of National Defence, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Parks Canada, and the Canadian Coast Guard. SARNIF provides annual funding for projects that will enhance the National Search and Rescue Program.
“For the last three years, LRC and its partners have been assessing the opportunity to develop an easy-to-use mobile app for boat captains to use that provides, in the event of an emergency, essential information for search and rescue professionals to search for an overdue vessel”, according to Nelson Jatel, CEO of Limnology Research. “We were surprised that no mobile app existed to file a daily sailing or float plan and realized an opportunity to harness new technology to improve Canadian boating safety.”
Kelowna-Lake Country MP Stephen Fuhr stated, “As a pilot, I understand the safety requirements of filing a flight plan and filing a sailing plan should be no different. “Having the Sailing PlanTM app being developed in Kelowna by one of the leading innovators in our high-tech community will make it easier for commercial boaters to meet their small vessel regulatory aspects and provide recreational boaters with a great new, easy to use, app to increase boater safety for all Canadians.”
Statistics from The Lifesaving Society indicate that approximately one-third of all water-related deaths in Canada occur while boating, with the majority caused by capsizing, collision or falling overboard.
“The development of the Sailing PlanTM application will provide an intuitive, usable and robust sailing plan solution for all Canadian boaters,” according to the project’s technical lead, Dr. Jon Corbett. “The new app will make the completion and submission of sailing plans easier and faster for boat captains and in turn make the large quantity of data more accessible and actionable by search and rescue staff.”
Minister Goodale concluded, “small vessel regulations make sailing plans mandatory for guided excursions, but it can be a challenge to effectively and consistently connect data with Search and Rescue incidents and activity management.”
Insurance providers are also supportive of this new initiative. Tom Amirault, President of Nesika Insurance Services Inc., believes that encouraging boaters to post a plan using the new app will improve health and safety for everyone, including first responders who are called in when an incident occurs.
LRC is a Canadian professional consulting company based in Kelowna, British Columbia. The company focuses on solving challenging technical governance problems, and delivering projects and products that promote marine safety and save lives on and off the water. LRC designs, develops and deploys intuitive, user friendly technology that makes boating safer and rescue more efficient. LRC’s team of qualified professionals is dedicated to providing innovative tools to ensure boater compliance with marine regulations and is committed to supporting and improving emergency response operations and decision-making through the provision of timely and relevant information. For more information about LRC visit www.limnologyresearch.com and for more information about the exciting new Sailing PlanTM mobile app and its progress, please visit www.sailingplan.ca
For more information please connect with Tyler Galts
