For more than 20 years, YOTREPS has provided a free and open position and weather reporting service to anyone, anywhere in the world.
It has provided radio net controllers with a program for logging reports and forwarding them to a server for checking, encoding, forwarding to MET.
Forecasters and plotting on a web page chart along with a text for news and comments. This has been shown to be an enormously popular feature and the reason that many use the service.
The first YOTREPS report was received in 1996 and now has several hundreds of thousands of reports. Many complete circumnavigations and expeditions have been tracked.
Now YOTREPS is seeking a new manager.
Mike Harris said: ‘The original php script that I wrote for YOTREPS has, except for some brief breaks while upgrading, operated for some 20 years with very little need for attention.
‘Within the past few weeks I have re-written the scripts to run under current versions of PHP, MySQL and Nginx and should be good for some time to come.
‘However a deteriorating health condition has shown me that now would also be a good time to look for a new manager and place in cyber-space for YOTREPS.’
Requirements for the new enthusiast, who is advised to be familiar with the website www.pangolin.co.nz/yotreps_intro, are:
- A deep and committed interest in all aspects of long distance sailing.
- A good depth of technical experience in radio communications, and computer technology.
More below…
Sailing weather apps and websites
We delve into a plethora of sailing weather apps and websites in an attempt to discover which ones offer the…
How to understand French VHF méteo weather forecasts
Understanding French VHF weather broadcasts
Hackles rise over weather forecasts
Download our in-depth feature, 'Weather forecasts: can you rely on them?' free
An alternative future could be with an organisation such as a yacht club or radio station. Here the management and technical details could shared and in all probability the computer components installed as an adjunct to an existing web site.
Mike added: ‘You do not need to be a member of any particular club or have any special license to take part.
‘If you think it could have a future with your club or cruising organisation or fit within your own cruising lifestyle as it did with mine, I should very much like to hear your ideas.’