NAVOPLAN Launches AI Decision-Support Platform for Bluewater Cruising

ONE MAN WHO WAS A PIONEER IN VIDEO STREAMING AND ONLINE MEETINGS JUST LAUNCHED AN AI FIRST MATE FOR OFFSHORE SAILORS — BUILT OVER 18,000 MILES AT SEA

NAVOPLAN Brings Structured Decision Support to Bluewater Cruising, With FIRST MATE — the AI Platform 40 Years in the Making. Because Safer Passages Begin With Better Decisions When Tension Is High and Time Is Critical.

Anacortes, Washington — March 21, 2026 — When Dwain Craddock studied Management Science: Computer Based Decision Support Systems at Virginia Tech in the 1980s, rule-based AI was barely more than a concept. When he later helped shape the early internet at Starlight Networks — the Silicon Valley company that invented streaming video and online meetings before the rest of the world knew it needed them — he understood, viscerally, that technology is only good if it solves real problems. That conviction drove decades of work in the corporate world. But it was on the water, alone, that he realised technology could make bluewater cruising genuinely safer — and far more enjoyable. He was right. It took forty years. But FIRST MATE is here now.

Craddock today announces the commercial launch of NAVOPLAN (navoplan.com), a three-phase lifecycle decision support platform for bluewater cruisers, anchored by FIRST MATE — an AI decision co-pilot purpose-built for offshore sailors facing high-stakes decisions in complex, unforgiving environments. NAVOPLAN is not a chatbot dressed in nautical clothing. It is structured decision support — built by a performance technologist who logged 18,000 solo miles from the Chesapeake Bay to Vancouver, Canada, aboard a Nordhavn 40 Trawler, and who spent four years constructing the platform while actively living the life it serves.

“I didn’t start building NAVOPLAN for a market. I built it for myself, because nothing like it existed and I was spending too much time second-guessing my decisions. Every call I made in port or offshore — about weather windows, vessel readiness, emergency protocols — I was making alone, without a structured framework, relying on experience I was still accumulating. FIRST MATE is the decision partner I needed and didn’t have. Now every bluewater cruiser can have it.” — Dwain Craddock, Founder

A Platform Born From Forty Years of Convergence

The architecture of NAVOPLAN reflects the full arc of Craddock’s career. After Virginia Tech, he moved into human performance work at major Silicon Valley corporations, developing expertise in how to improve the way people perform — sometimes under significant pressure. At Starlight Networks in the 1990s, he helped lay the infrastructure for what would become the modern connected world. He built the technical infrastructure for four knowledge-based exhibits at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for its landmark 1995 opening.

Then he retired early, bought a Nordhavn 40 Trawler he named Amarok, and pointed it offshore.

What followed was 18,000 miles of solo ocean passage — from the Chesapeake Bay to Vancouver, Canada, via the Panama Canal — during which Craddock discovered that the bluewater cruising world had a decision-support problem no existing platform was equipped to solve. The explosion of AI technologies made a solution possible. NAVOPLAN, built iteratively over four years of active offshore cruising, is his answer.

Three Phases. One Integrated Platform. One AI Foundation Running Through All of It.

Exploration ($1,495, one-time) serves the dreamer — structuring the decision of whether bluewater cruising fits their life, relationships, finances, and risk tolerance before a dollar is spent on a vessel.

Acquisition ($1,495, one-time) serves the committed buyer — grounding vessel selection in the priorities and comfort thresholds established during Exploration, reducing costly mismatches and easing the transition from land to sea.

Helm ($49–$129/month, tiered) serves the active liveaboard — vessel management, crew and systems oversight, passage structure, the Digital Float Plan, and Emergency Assistance Coordination with Active Tracking. Helm tiers are named Securite, Pan-Pan, and Mayday — the maritime emergency call hierarchy. Built on off-the-shelf technology including Starlink, implementation rarely requires new vessel systems.

NAVOPLAN’s knowledge foundation runs deep. The platform includes more than 200 Bluewater Briefings covering the full spectrum of offshore cruising topics and country entry/exit protocols — from seamanship and provisioning to systems management and passage planning — and two books under the Bluewater Living series, written by Craddock and aligned with the Exploration and Acquisition phases. Both books and a curated selection of Briefings are available to users as part of their NAVOPLAN engagement.

When There Is No One Else to Ask

Eighty-five miles south of Acapulco. Two in the morning. Calm seas, mild winds — until, without warning, the temperature dropped thirty degrees, winds exceeded sixty miles per hour, and a microburst tore the bimini and solar panels from the flybridge and deposited them in the bow. Instruments would later record gusts of ninety-three miles per hour. Lightning was continuous. Craddock had no framework, in that moment, for what to do next.

FIRST MATE was built for that moment.

Running through every phase of NAVOPLAN, FIRST MATE is available anywhere a sailor can access a signal — in the middle of the Pacific, in a remote anchorage, at two in the morning off the Mexican coast. It has been described as ChatGPT for boats — but it is considerably more than that. Every FIRST MATE case draws on vessel, crew, current and local weather, systems, and maintenance data housed in NAVOPLAN to generate specific, contextual guidance rather than generic responses.

The process is structured: FIRST MATE clarifies the request, works through a series of diagnostic hypotheses via multiple-choice reasoning, narrows to the two most probable paths forward, and presents options. Once the captain chooses, FIRST MATE delivers a clear, actionable plan — one the captain can interrogate until confident in its execution.

FIRST MATE does not tell a captain what to do. It helps them think clearly when thinking clearly is hardest.

Every challenging scenario Craddock encountered aboard Amarok — from mechanical failures in rough offshore conditions to navigational decisions in deteriorating weather — has been tested against FIRST MATE. The system reflects not theoretical risk management but the specific, hard-learned decision points of a solo offshore passage-maker who chose to document them rather than simply survive them.

NAVOPLAN’s purpose is captured in a single phrase: achieving safer passages.

The Live Test: Hawaii, July 2026

In July 2026, Craddock departs for Hawaii with crew — the most demanding real-world validation of the platform to date. FIRST MATE will be running. The Digital Float Plan will be live.

“The bluewater cruising community doesn’t need another app. It needs a platform that understands that going offshore is a systems problem — human systems, vessel systems, decision systems — and that getting any one of them wrong has consequences that follow you out to sea. NAVOPLAN is built on that understanding. FIRST MATE is the co-pilot who never leaves the helm.”

NAVOPLAN is available now at navoplan.com.

About NAVOPLAN: NAVOPLAN is a bluewater cruising decision support platform built for every stage of the cruising lifecycle — from first dream to active passage. Founded by Dwain Craddock, a Virginia Tech-trained decision systems specialist, Silicon Valley technology veteran, and 18,000-mile offshore cruiser, NAVOPLAN integrates four decades of human performance expertise with the realities of life at sea. Its AI co-pilot, FIRST MATE, provides structured decision support across three sequential phases — Exploration, Acquisition, and Helm. The platform includes 200+ Bluewater Briefings and two Bluewater Living books. NAVOPLAN’s next major milestone is a crewed Hawaii passage in July 2026. navoplan.com

Media Contact: Dwain Craddock	dwain@navoplan.com	navoplan.com

Contact Information:

NAVOPLAN

7901 4th Street North, Suite 19706
St. Petersburg, FL 33702
United States

Dwain Craddock
+1 (925) 895-4581
https://navoplan.com