Boston Maritime
The intelligent operating layer for every vessel.
A permanent, hull-resolved record that turns vessel knowledge into AI powered real-time decision support for the owner-operator.
Know more. Do more. Make better decisions.
Mission
Our mission is to create an AI powered intelligent operating layer for every vessel. It knows the vessel completely and helps its owner make the correct decision in real time.
Product promise
Owner-operators get real-time decision support and knowledge. They manage and operate the vessel with the confidence of an expert who understands every system aboard.
Outcome
More time on the water. More confidence underway. More control ashore.
The problem
A modern vessel is more complex than any owner can fully know.
A modern vessel is a network of hundreds of components from dozens of manufacturers. Each component has its own manual, maintenance schedule, troubleshooting guidance, and warranty. An owner needs months to learn the vessel correctly. Most owners never do it. So the vessel performs below its capability and gets too little maintenance for years.
A modern 35+ foot vessel can include Simrad, Volvo Penta, Garmin, FLIR, Seakeeper, Onan, Czone, Dometic, and many more. Each has separate manuals, interfaces, maintenance schedules, and warranties. At delivery, the founder received a duffel bag of more than 100 manuals. The bag weighed more than 45 pounds.
of paper manuals at delivery
Interconnected, not modular
Different manufacturers make the components of each system. Each manufacturer gives different installation and operation guidance. No single party holds the whole picture.
Configurable, and situationally so
Correct configuration unlocks the performance that the owner paid for. The correct setting changes with conditions. For example, the Volvo Interceptor system needs a different configuration in head seas than in following seas. Few owners find this out without help.
Interfaces that fight back
User interfaces are poorly evolved and hard to use. To find a setting, the owner must know that it exists and what it does. The owner must also know which of several networked displays hides it.
Documentation that is hard to read
The manuals are on paper, in many locations, and not searchable. To understand the systems fully takes hours with manuals and screens. Most owner-operators do not give that time. So capability that they paid for stays unused.
The structural gap
A modern vessel has no persistent memory of itself.
Each participant holds one fragment. No one holds the complete, transferable record.
Builder
It transfers only part of its as-built knowledge.
Dealer and yard
Ticket history and service knowledge stay in the business.
Component OEMs
Each knows one system deeply, not the integrated vessel.
Surveyor
The survey gives the observed condition in a PDF. Then the data stops.
Owner
Manuals, photos, emails and the economic risk.
The product
Give the vessel a memory. Give the owner an expert who never leaves.
Boston Maritime combines a permanent hull record with an intelligence layer that acts on it.
The vessel's permanent memory
- Installed components
- Configuration SOPs
- Manuals and bulletins
- Survey findings
- Maintenance requirements
- Defects and repairs
- Service history
- Communications by email and text
The expert in the loop
- It retrieves the evidence that applies to this hull
- It reconciles conflicts across documents and history
- It explains what happens in plain language
- It recommends the next action and when to escalate
- It records the event so the next answer starts ahead
- It creates an information advantage with service and warranty providers
How it works
Every answer deepens the vessel's record.
Inputs
Capture
Read photos, documents, communications and owner input.
Hull record
Resolve every fact to the installed vessel and its history.
Intelligence
Reconcile evidence, detect conflict and assess applicability.
Decision
Explain the situation and identify the next move.
Action
Operate, troubleshoot, maintain, escalate and document.
What the expert covers
An expert in the owner's corner, across the whole of ownership.
Operators need help in three arenas. These are the vessel itself, the environment around it, and the urgent moments that involve both. The expert covers all three from one hull-resolved record.
The vessel
- Configure
- Situational setup unlocks performance.
- Operate
- Each system aboard has a plain-language procedure.
- Troubleshoot
- Each alert gets a triaged next step for this vessel.
- Maintain
- Every interval goes into one reconciled schedule.
- Repair
- Documented fault trees identify the parts for the yard.
- Upgrade
- Compatibility and configuration are checked before purchase.
The environment
- Navigation
- Rules of the road and aids to navigation, with USCG Light List and COLREGS integration.
- Planning
- Passages are timed to tides and currents before departure, for example a canal transit with a following current.
- Situation assessment
- The expert reads weather, sea state, and traffic and suggests a next move. Live weather integration is on the roadmap.
Urgent and emergent
- Emergency management
- The expert gives the procedure at once when the vessel or people aboard are in danger.
- Situation management
- Decide to continue, curtail, or turn back when equipment is degraded.
- Radio communications
- The expert coaches an effective VHF call at the time of need.
- Unexpected weather
- For an inbound squall, decide to anchor or run in time to act.
Proof in practice
The platform is prototyped today. Two vessels, 17 months, more than 750 exchanges.
The founder built a working prototype. It assembles vessel documentation into a knowledgebase, and frontier models give the assistance. It operated on a 41-foot offshore cruiser and a 45-foot Azimut.
Operating and seamanship
Navigation, weather, and passages
Systems, service, and the record
Rules, credentials, and charter
Purchase and negotiation
We used it in real-world conditions. The evidence base of the prototype supported hundreds of real-world scenarios. These include navigation, trip planning, system configuration, system identification, and optimization. The prototype created the fully integrated winterization checklist and procedure in August 2026. It generated the complete winterization procedure in minutes.
Documented session · July 17, 2026
Radar error 1015 at the dock, an answer in minutes
The radar posted error 1015, High Modulator Temperature, while it transmitted at the dock on a hot Boston morning. Guidance arrived in minutes. It said to set the dome to standby, let it cool, check for obstructions, and retest. It gave the escalation ladder and the Volvo-only update rule for this hull. The event was logged with conditions, and the vessel kept its day.
Documented session · August 29, 2026
The expert explained two hoses on one engine
Two hoses ran off the front of the port engine, with no counterpart on the starboard engine. Nothing aboard explained the asymmetry. The prototype ran photo assessment against the hull's registry, ruled out candidates by pressure rating, and read the builder and OEM documentation together. It identified the hoses with high confidence as the calorifier loop, the coolant supply and return for engine-heated hot water underway.
Owner value
What the owner gets.
More time on the water
Problems are answered in minutes instead of seasons. Maintenance is reconciled into one schedule. Fewer trips are cut short and fewer days are lost to the yard queue. The vessel is ready when the weather is good.
More confidence underway
An expert that knows this hull watches for every alarm, error code, and unfamiliar behavior. It plainly names the next move, to continue, curtail, or turn back, and states the reason.
More control ashore
The owner walks into the yard with the same facts as the yard. Warranty claims arrive with evidence. Service arrives with documentation. The record follows the vessel at resale.
Design principles
Trust is a product capability, not a disclaimer.
Boston Maritime engineers trustworthy decision support for a physical environment where a wrong answer carries real risk. The owner controls the record.
No autonomous control
The platform advises the operator. It never actuates or controls the vessel. Every event, answer, and decision writes into the permanent record.
Exact-hull applicability
Every instruction is judged against the installed component, its revision status, and this hull's configuration before it is offered. Applicability is computed, not assumed.
Explicit uncertainty
Conflicts in the evidence are shown, not silently resolved. Confidence is stated. Professional escalation is a first-class outcome.
Source authority, by question
A survey is strongest for observed installed condition. The current service manual is strongest for procedure. Bulletins supersede manuals. Later repairs supersede older observations.
The owner controls the record
The owner controls the full hull record. Access is owner-granted, revocable, and logged.
Transfer at sale
The record follows the vessel when the owner chooses. Transfer is an owner decision that is executed at closing. The prior owner's private communications do not transfer by default.
The industry side sees aggregate only
It sees consented, normalized, de-identified aggregate fleet intelligence. It never sees one owner's record without explicit permission.
Professional access by scope
Surveyors, yards, and dealers work inside owner-granted scopes. Custody sits with the owner, not the professional.
The founder
Forty-one years on the water. Twenty-five years in data businesses.
I already built three data businesses that use technology platforms. This time I am also the customer.
The operator
- USCG Master, 50 GRT inland and 25 GRT near coastal.
- 1,500 documented sea service days from 1985 to 2026.
- Master aboard Tramonto, the 2025 Azimut Atlantis. FAA Private Pilot.
- More than 750 documented AI-in-the-loop exchanges across 17 months of ownership.
The builder
- Founder and CEO of CuriMeta. CuriMeta is a health technology platform for compliant exchange of privacy-protected clinical data between health systems and buyers in biopharma and clinical AI.
- Built the HIPAA-compliant platform that obtained HITRUST and SOC 2 certification.
- Built a genomics and precision medicine business and a patient engagement business.
Contact
Boston Maritime is in development.
The prototype operates today on two vessels. We talk with vessel owners, marine surveyors, dealers, builders, and investors.
davis@bostonmaritime.com