Digital Yacht Ltd.’s BOATraNET, a wireless server for onboard navigation networks, took top honors as winner of the National Marine Electronics Association (NMEA) Technology Award for 2011. Three members of Boating Writers International (BWI) selected the winner from 13 entries, based on innovation, benefit to boaters, practicality, and value.

The NMEA Technology Award was presented at the 2011 NMEA International Marine Electronics Conference & Expo held last week at the Sanibel Harbour Marriott Resort & Spa in Fort Myers, Fla. The four-day event was attended by representatives of leading marine electronics manufacturers, dealers, and distributors, along with media and others from the United States and abroad. Introduced in 2009, the Technology Award recognizes recently introduced products that advance technology within the marine electronics industry.

In presenting the award to Digital Yacht’s Nick Heyes, BWI Awards Chairman Ben Ellison said, “We saw many amazing technologies that will be making boating better for years. But one product seemed to define a new category in marine electronics. It’s a small power-efficient server designed to deliver information and services to any platform on a boat with WiFi and a browser or app that understands HTML5. It can, for instance, store and serve a yacht’s entire set of owner’s manuals. It can also control multiple media being output from the server to a marine stereo or serve the same media to the individual device in the boater’s hand. It includes a light charting application and can display NMEA 0183 instrument data, with NMEA 2000® in the certification process. It can also be a boat’s own Internet hotspot when connected to a high-power WiFi client, cellular modem, or satellite communications system. And, finally, the protocols it uses to broadcast NMEA data over WiFi are open source, so companies and individuals can develop their own apps on top of the system. In short, the product offers a lot of valuable services right out of the box, and its future is nearly unlimited.”

Ellison writes the marine electronics blog Panbo and is senior electronics editor of the Bonnier Marine Group of publications, including Yachting and Cruising World. The other judges were Tim Queeney, editor of Ocean Navigator and Ocean Voyager magazines, and Bill Bishop, who writes the blog The Marine Installer’s Rant.

Other NMEA Technology Award entries in the highly competitive field included:

ICOM IC-M24 Handheld VHF
Raymarine e7D Multifunction Display
FLIR First Mate MS Thermal Imaging Camera
Intellian i6W WorldView Marine TV Antenna
KVH TracPhone V3
Geonav G12 Multifunction Display
Sea Tel ST24 Stabilized Marine TV System
SI-TEX SP-110 Autopilot System
Simrad BSM-2 Broadband Sounder
C-MAP by Jeppesen 4D Cartography
KEP Marine KEPM GB Dual-Touch Glass Bridge Display Series
David Clark U9921-GUV Universal Gateway

“Selecting just one product for the Technology Award from so many worthy and innovative candidates is a monumental task,” said NMEA Chairman David Gratton. “We very much appreciate the time and effort that Ben, Tim, and Bill put into sorting through the background information and doing the hands-on research which the process requires. We thank them and BWI for their help and support in making this award possible.”

Also presented at the annual conference and expo were the always popular NMEA Product and Manufacturer of the Year Awards for 2011. For this series of awards, marine electronics dealers from around the country select winners in several categories through a mail-in voting process.

“We’re delighted,” said Gratton, “ to once again share with boaters the products that marine electronics dealers consider to be the best in seven categories—the annual NMEA Product Awards.”

The winners were:

Autopilot
Simrad AP24/AP28 Autopilot System
Fish Finder
Furuno FCV295 Digital Fish Finder
Radar
Furuno NavNet 3D DRS Ultra Hi-Def Radar Series
Communication
Standard Horizon Matrix AIS+ GX2150
Entertainment
KVH TracVision M1
Navigation
Furuno NavNet 30 MFD12 Multifunction Display
Marine Specialty
1st Place, FLIR M-Series 324XP Thermal Imaging Camera
2nd Place, Furuno SC30 Satellite Compass
Manufacturer of the Year
Furuno USA

Founded in 1957, the NMEA has led the way in establishing technical standards for data exchange in marine electronics, with the widely accepted NMEA 0183 data protocol, NMEA 2000®, and certification standards for marine electronics technicians. NMEA standards and programs focus on ensuring that the boating consumer is provided with reliable products and professional service. For more information, visit the NMEA website at www.NMEA.org or call 410-975-9425.

Photo caption: BWI panel chairman Ben Ellison (left) presents the 2011 NMEA Technology Award to Nick Heyes of Digital Yacht Ltd. for the company’s innovative BOATraNET product.