My unit of the RCMSAR had 87 calls in 2015, making it the busiest volunteer marine SAR station in Canada. It's a situation that motivates a tech enthusiast and advanced crew member like myself to think about better tools and procedures.
I'd been following this boat project for years, knew that it motivated Kees's valuable CANboat work, and given that CANboat helped birth Signal K, I figure that Merrimac may earn a special spot in marine electronics history.
Digital Yacht was understandably hesitant about developing a gateway for Signal K apps and services that hardly exist yet, but the Signal K universal boat data concept -- open source, entirely free, and created by unfunded volunteers -- needs a commercial level NMEA gateway.
