June: Summer is here

Hi everyone 👋

The summer holidays are here but the wheels aren't taking a complete break here at Maritime Optima. While some colleagues are on their well-deserved holidays, others are diligently working, to ensure our momentum is maintained throughout the summer. We are also excited to announce we have begun expanding our operation beyond the borders of Norway. Stay tuned for more updates in our upcoming monthly newsletters.

Here's what you can look forward to in this issue:

Product Updates:

ShipAtlas: Our users have expressed their desire for a streamlined, user-friendly ship tracker that is both affordable and ad-free. In our commitment to becoming the premier ship tracking service for individuals, we are excited to announce a major upgrade of the ShipAtlas application which comes without any increase in the subscription prices.

ShipIntel: Aim to empower people involved in maritime business to unlock their digital potential. Our strategy includes the provision high quality and trusted data, and user-friendly software. We believe in collaborative product development, allowing the users and customers to actively participate in shaping our offerings. Together with building partnerships, hard work and being patient, we think we have a formula for success.

In June we conducted numerous workshops where customers provide valuable feedback on the design and user experience. This feedback has shaped our summer roadmap, and we are currently working on significant upgrades set to be launched in mid-August.

Company news: June has been an bustling month filled with internships and memorable events, and in beautiful weather we explored Oslo through a well organised scavenger hunt  ☀️

FAQ: We have gathered some of June's most asked questions ⁉️

June recap 🌸⏮️

🛳️ ShipAtlas

As mentioned above the ShipAtlas community is growing, and we now have more than 360 000 registered users around the globe. ShipAtlas is now only growing organically. It is of utmost importance to us to continuously develop ShipAtlas based on user feedback.

You will soon be able to check out the improved user interface, the smooth loading of map data and ships (cross-platform), a refreshed design, some new features and adjusted features according to user feedback. Instead of increasing subscription prices or introducing ads, we have introduced one new subscription plan, to better meet the users around the globe's needs.

Register a free user account at ShipAtlas, and join the growing ShipAtlas community on our voyage of becoming the premier ship tracking service for individuals.

🚢 ShipIntel

Small and medium sized ship brokers, ship and cargo operators: Take a look at ShipIntel! Features you might have thought you could not afford is now available to you! We want all companies involved in maritime business to unlock their digital potential.

Throughout June we have developed many new features. Here are some :

Make live position lists like these:

• Find vessels in ballast condition able to meet a laycan window in a specific port
• Find vessels just left a port in laden or ballast condition with a set destination
• Find vessels in an area “just now” and find when they will be in a specific port or region.

Create unlimited number of these live vessel lists and add them as layers in your map.

Tailor-make alerts, keeping you notified about changed in your lists.

Find historical AIS data attached to each vessel and find whether they were loading or discharging in the visited ports.

Predicting the vessels' destinations While some vessels set a destination, others don't. So we have transformed a master thesis into a practical feature and developed a predictive model which forecasts where the vessels will sail. This model's accuracy is evaluated by comparing its prediction with the actual destinations, so it is improved continuously. We are pleased to make this feature available to you and we are committed to continuously enhance its performance and accuracy.

Improvements to the Sea routes with constrains and emission calculations where you can do sea route calculations (from a vessel live position-to-any port or port-to-port (s)) and add optional information layers. Minimize the sailing distance within ECA zones? Want to avoid ice? Avoid canals? Check it out.

Improvements of the Port and area search, monitoring and statistics

Monitor vessel traffic in ports, areas and passing specific lines and receive alerts when vessels arrive or depart or passing the lines in different compass directions. Average time in port, vessels waiting at anchorage or do some cargo operation in a port. And much more.

Save hours each day with the AI driven Cargo handling and voyage calculations. Track and tag emails from they received in you email inbox until you have done the pre-voyage calculations, negotiated, fixed the vessels or cargoes on subs, and failed or become fully fixed.

Contact us for a chat and a demo, so we can welcome you onboard ShipIntel so you can start making better decisions today with tomorrow's maritime solution.

💪 Customer feedback

Recently, Kristin Omholt-Jensen, Bjarte Klyve Larsen and Morten Omholt-Jensen had the pleasure of visiting one of our customers, Oslo Bulk. We're incredibly grateful for the opportunity to engage with them directly and gain valuable feedback in real-time. Such interactions are vital for us to understand their needs and ensure we're always delivering the best possible solutions!

Want to learn more about our products and services? Check out our webpages and book a demo today.

🧑🎓 Meet our summer interns, Frederik and Fredrik!

We're pleased to introduce you to Frederik Stalheim Hellstenius and Fredrik Hansteen. They are both students from NTNU (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) and are the first student team working with us. Over the past few weeks, they have been getting a taste of what it’s like to work for a maritime tech start up and gaining experience we hope will create value for them in their future career, which we hope will be in shipping.

Later this summer we'll also catch up with Daniel and Line. They are the 2nd student team this summer. They have been interns 3 years at a row. Daniel is working as a part of the tech team and study at the NTNU (Norwegian University of Science and Technology), while Line is working with marketing and study journalism at the University of Bergen.

🪅 Summer celebrations

On June 26 we gathered the team and our board of directors for a summer celebration! After some speeches, snacks and drinks at the office, Ragnar Gladsø Wibe and Thea Wold sent the team out on a scavenger hunt in the neighbourhood, looking for weird attractions, ants and stones as tall as our CEO, and getting challenged to take a swim and build human pyramids 🏊 After the hunt we all gathered at a restaurant where we were served good food and enjoyed the great company 🌷

⁉️ FAQ

As usual, we have gathered some of our most asked questions that we believe everyone should know the answer of!

❓ Sometimes the ETA is not updated frequently, e.g. with an hour delay, why is that?

We update the vessels live positions every 2nd minute, but it might be that the vessel is trading in a region with poor satellites or terrestrial coverage, meaning the vessel's position is not picked up by the satellites. It might also happen that the vessel has turned off their AIS or that the area where the vessel is, is attacked by spoofing

❓Do I need to work in a team to start a ShipIntelSubscription?

No you don't. You can be a "one-man" team in ShipIntel if you prefer.

❓ Do I need a Microsoft 365 to get started with ShipIntel?

No you don't. You can login to your ShipIntel subscription with a username (email) and create a password.

❓ I am working for a small shipbroker company with 5 employees, is ShipIntel an alternative for us?

Yes we would say so, since ShipIntel has the features listed above and is a very affordable software compared to alternative software. We also have many small and medium sized company as customers alreday and they are very happy. So to any of you who might be looking for an artificial intelligent driven software taking your company and yourself into the future, reach out to us here