Salty Podcast #79⛵ From Disaster to Innovation: the Storm that Inspired PredictWind

A thousand miles from Hawaii, the chainplate ripped out and the mast went over the side. That sleepless night in the Transpac didn’t just test seamanship—it planted the seed for a weather platform that now helps a million sailors make safer choices at sea. Olympian and two‑time America’s Cup winner John Bilger joins us to share how a jury rig, a weatherfax, and a hard-earned finish turned into PredictWind’s mission to bring pro-grade forecasting to everyone.

We dig into what John learned running Alinghi’s Cup‑winning weather program: why multiple models beat gut feel, how high‑resolution data reveals local effects, and where new AI models are already outperforming traditional physics in short‑to‑medium range winds and rain. John explains AI polars that learn from your boat’s actual performance, motion simulation that flags roll, vertical acceleration, and slamming risk, and how those insights flow into routing that feels like Google Maps for passages. We also get practical about safety tech that matters offshore: over‑the‑horizon AIS with 300‑nm visibility, an anchor alert system that watches wind, depth, and shift while you’re ashore, and a forthcoming man‑overboard feature that turns a lost watch connection into an instant waypoint and alarm.

This conversation is part story, part field guide. You’ll hear about camper‑van regattas across Europe, a credit card read over SSB to hire a tug, and the high‑stakes America’s Cup call that flipped a race. More importantly, you’ll get a blueprint for using ensembles, CAPE for thunderstorm potential, and model agreement to reduce surprises—even in tricky zones like the Gulf of Mexico’s Big Bend. John’s closing advice is simple and actionable: start learning your tools months before departure and aim to avoid the first five days of bad weather entirely. If this helped you plan smarter passages, follow the show, share it with your crew, and leave a review so other sailors can find it too.

Chapters

• 0:00 Host Intro From Longboat Key
• 0:31 Meet Olympian And Cup Winner John Bilger
• 1:21 Growing Up In A Sailing Legacy
• 4:40 Grassroots Campaigns And Early Olympics
• 6:40 America’s Cup To First Offshore Navigation
• 7:40 Transpac Dismasting And Survival
• 12:40 Finishing Under Jury Rig And Lessons
• 15:10 Records, Modern Boats, And Speed
• 16:50 From Crisis To Creating PredictWind
• 19:20 Inside Pro Weather Programs At Alinghi
• 23:40 Making Pro Tools Simple For Cruisers
• 26:10 Boat Motion, Safety, And Seasickness
• 30:20 Polars And The DataHub
• 34:20 AI Polars And Real-World Performance
• 37:00 Model Quality And Why ECMWF Leads
• 40:10 AI Weather Models: A New Approach
• 44:10 Strengths And Limits Of AI Forecasts
• 47:20 Growth, Team, And Product Philosophy
• 50:10 Over‑The‑Horizon AIS And Safety
• 53:40 Man Overboard And Anchor Alerts
• 57:10 Global Tracking, Sharing, And Upgrades
• 1:00:10 Support Culture And Customer Feedback
• 1:03:30 Career Shift To Weather Leadership
• 1:07:40 High‑Stakes Calls And Cup Stories

Transcript

Capn Tinsley: 0:04

For tonight's sailing story, I'm coming to you live from Longboat Key, Florida, aboard Salty Abandon. Tonight's guest is joining us all the way from New Zealand. He grew up in the world of elite sailing. His dad was a three-time Olympic sailor, and by age eight, he was traveling the globe to regatta's. He didn't just follow the legacy, though, he expanded it. John Bilger is an Olympian, two-time America's Cup winner, and New Zealand national champion in multiple classes. Tonight we're going to talk to him about a moment in the middle of the Trans Pact that tested everything John knew about sailing and survival. And now and how that experience eventually led him to create Predict Win, bringing professional grade weather forecasting to everyday sailors. But first, if you like these sailing stories, please smash that like button, subscribe, and share the video. I'm Captain Tinsley. This is the Salty Podcast, episode 79. And so please help me welcome John Bilger. Good evening, John.

Jon Bilger: 1:04

Good evening. Thanks for having me on the show. Really appreciate it.

Capn Tinsley: 1:07

Yes, thank you very much. And I appreciate your patience with the time changes and everything or the day changes. I've been on the move, and it's a little tougher to keep on schedule. So thank you for being patient with me.

Jon Bilger: 1:19

No problem at all. No problem.

Capn Tinsley: 1:21

So um let's start at the beginning uh where you were growing up around your dad. Tell me about that. What is did what at what point did you think, yeah, this is what I want to do? I mean, that's pretty your dad's is pretty incredible.

Jon Bilger: 1:35

Yeah, yeah, he was a sort of a legend in the sailing scene here in New Zealand and um obviously representing New Zealand in three Olympics. Um, so we used to travel around as a young kid, travel around Europe, he'd be um sailing the Flying Dutchman, which is the Olympic class boat, and um, you know, I'd be always always watching him um get out in the water and you know win all these championships. So it's kind of like uh kind of the best role model you can have in terms of you know wanting to get out sailing. I remember one day, um one evening, um, we're at home and um he was talking to his crew, Murray Ross, at the time, and um and Murray said to him, you know, when when are you gonna get John into sailing? I think I was like about you know 10 years old, and and he just flippantly made the joke that oh well, you know, he's a bit too young, and besides, he doesn't have any money, you know. And so and so I said I came out. So I came into the next day and I said, Dad, I've got 300 New Zealand dollars saved up in the bank. Can you build me a boat? And so he was quite taken back by that, and he he sort of said, Okay, well, that's that's pretty impressive. And and so yeah, she went out and bought the plywood that that week and and started building us uh uh building me an optimist. Um so yeah, that was kind of the start of my sailing journey.

Capn Tinsley: 2:52

Wow, okay. So um, so it I think the the what I read it was when you started traveling with them when you were eight to regatta.

Jon Bilger: 3:01

Yeah, well even younger, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Capn Tinsley: 3:03

Oh, really?

Jon Bilger: 3:04

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, so we traveled around Europe a lot, um, and a lot of regettas over there that he he did, and uh was sort of all very basic in the camper van, um, my other and myself and him, and and so yeah, it was uh really a shoestring budget campaign, not like we have these days, the Olympics where you have you know coaches and coach boats and staying in flash hotels. Um it was very uh you know, you do it all yourself. You'd you you know he had his crew was a sail maker, so they used to make their own sails and and build their own, you know, build the boats, you know, maybe with the help of a boat builder, but they'd be certainly in there building the boat. So very much grassroots sailing, um, which is kind of a little bit lost these days. It's all very professional. Um, in fact, back in those days you weren't allowed to be a professional, you weren't allowed to get an income from it or have any money coming from it.

Capn Tinsley: 3:53

So it's what year are we talking about here? What what what year?

Jon Bilger: 3:56

Oh, this is you know the in the uh in the 70s, and so you did yeah, three three Olympic campaigns in that in that period. So you had Montreal and Kiel and also in Russia. Um Russian mum was actually boycotted um because of the the political situation, right? But um, yeah, so three Olympic campaigns. And then we went after that he went on and did um another two or three and as a coach, um, not for myself, but for the flying Dutchman. Um so actually the 92 Olympic games that I did, he was not coaching me, but he's coaching um the Flying Dutchman class. So it's pretty special to go to Barcelona and be in the opening ceremony with your dad right beside you, so it's pretty cool.

Capn Tinsley: 4:35

Wow, wow. Um, and there was no GPS back then.

Jon Bilger: 4:40

Yeah, yeah. Well I think that GPS had uh it come in, but and when we did the Trans Pack, um, you know, that was quite, as you mentioned, quite a memorable trip because you know we had GPS, um, but the uh the rules of that race is quite traditional. We use you could have a GPS, but you also had to do the sextant navigation as well as a backup and prove that you've done the calculations. Um and then you know, we never had anything like predict wind, no weather routing software. We just had a weather fax, you know. So the weather fax, and you know, obviously the Trans Pack is all about avoid, you know, avoid avoiding the high pressure system. The closer you go to it, the less distance, but you're more likely to get into less wind. Um and yeah, so we we um I mean I was very new to offshore sailing at that stage. I'd done the America's Cup as a navigator, and I'd never done any offshore navigating, so that was quite the adventure to be navigator on board this boat.

Capn Tinsley: 5:39

What what year did you do America's Cup?

Jon Bilger: 5:41

Uh that was 95, yeah.

Capn Tinsley: 5:43

Okay. And then the Trans Pack was when?

Jon Bilger: 5:46

Yeah, that was basically that same year or the year after, I think. Yeah, so okay. And uh, and um so yeah, that it's on on the sled, the same foot sled. We actually it was myself, two other kiwi guys from the from the um the the the tag who America's cup campaign, and um I think a whole pant campaign cost back then was for the America's Cup was like 10 or 12 million dollars, you know, it was very shoestring budget. Um but yeah, we we basically ran, we had this boat and it was a Japanese owner and all Japanese crew, so we had all Japanese food. I think they stipulated we're gonna have a you know European breakfast, but that never happened, so we had you know rice and seaweed for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Capn Tinsley: 6:29

Oh my gosh.

Jon Bilger: 6:31

Oh the big thing was we, you know, as you sort of get closer to Hawaii, we get you know more you know rain schools coming through, and we we um I remember just doing my had just finished my um done my shift and and you know I was just yeah, tired and it's about two o'clock in the morning, and I just hoist myself in the bunk and I'm just getting off to sleep. And then um we got a big rain school hit us, and and it was it pulled the whole chain plate out of the out of the side of the boat. And so the mast was over the side of the boat, and yeah, it's chaos, it was you know, it's carbon mast, and and that was you know in a couple of pieces. Um, and we're we're you know, I think a thousand miles out from Hawaii. Um, and yeah, the the guys I was were very very competent seamen that done uh volve ocean races before and managed to get a jury rig together. And um, you know, we obviously pretty much a downwind race, so we actually um yeah, managed to be doing 10 knots. Um but yeah, it was yeah, but um what was going through your mind? Uh yeah, well I mean it was it was we got a thousand miles to go with yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I think it was more what was going through the owner's mind because the owner was basically we had an incident a few days before one of the crew members um cut himself on the cheek. And um he impaled himself in a lifeline where he's holding on the holding on to the Jinnica. And um anyway, he they're worried about him.

Capn Tinsley: 8:06

Tell me again what he did to his cheek.

Jon Bilger: 8:08

Yeah, he he cut himself, he was basically pulling in the I think it was the the Jenica at the time, and and basically the um he got a he um managed to I don't know, somehow managed to cut himself on the lifeline that hit hit the lifeline pretty hard when the thing was flogging. So uh he had a cut and they're worried he was worried about him him you know getting infected. Um and then by the stage that the uh we lost the rig, the owner was like, um I'm out of here, you know. I just want to get out of here. So we had to we call up the um the race committee, and I was I was doing this because I was the navigator, and um he wanted to get get off the boat, so you know it's too far for a helicopter. Um he so he ordered this this tug uh to come out and collect them off the boat along with a lot of the crew. Um but the tug can only do like 12 knots, and we're doing like eight knots, so I think he only saved a day or two, but yeah, I was giving the the the owner's credit card over the over the SB radio, which is quite a bit amusing too, really. But um, yeah, so it wasn't to say my best uh best race that I've ever done, that's for sure, but it's certainly a very memorable experience. Um, and you know, I think when you're any sort of offshore event, just completing it, you're doing you know, without getting rescued, um, and you arrive in Hawaii and you get that amazing welcome, uh just kind of um yeah, kind of uh how did you rig how did you jury rig it? Yeah, so basically the bottom section of the mast, we could actually um sort of just basically tie that up with ropes, and then we had um yeah, we had some of the sails we sort of um yeah, basically could just make a small, small little sail plan. And because we're going downwind, it was and it's a 70-foot boat. We we could actually in you know 20 knots do about eight knots, well, six to eight knots of of boat speed.

Capn Tinsley: 10:00

So so yeah, it was um is that how fast is you that's how fast you were going with yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jon Bilger: 10:07

Because it you know, it's a that's a very you know uh you know, a good racing boat in the 70-foot sled, and and then you got downwind 20 knots behind you. I think we're doing six to eight knots. Um but um yeah, um not something I want to re not something I want to repeat, no it's made it made a good story, that's for sure. Yeah.

Capn Tinsley: 10:27

Well, and uh what what um what place did you did you come in?

Jon Bilger: 10:33

Oh well the placing was gone because we obviously broke the mask, but just completing it uh on our own stain was trying to stay alive and get to the end, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Capn Tinsley: 10:42

So I I did a little research on the Trans Pack, I wasn't familiar with it. I've I'm still not that familiar with it, but um, is the new record five days?

Jon Bilger: 10:51

Yeah, exactly. It's incredible. I mean, it's the yeah, these new boats they're just so fast, um, and yeah, just so high performance. And because it's primarily a downwind race, uh, what is a downwind race? It's um amazing to get some incredible um records for sure.

Capn Tinsley: 11:08

Yeah, there was one record that stood from 1979 to 1999, and it was like, I don't know, I can't remember, seven or eight days. And then somebody more recently, I guess it was 1999, yeah, did it five days. I know that um I've never made that sale, but I know sailing with Phoenix made it in 21 days. So five days sounds incredible.

Jon Bilger: 11:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're bearing along at a very fast speed. This it's uh you'd be like in a tin can, everything rattling around. But yeah, I mean five days, it's um yeah, it's incredible. It's incredible to see what what's possible now, you know. The you know, with the you know the ocean race during the ocean race Europe, which we're sponsor for, and we're gonna be sponsored for the transatlantic next year and the and the one that goes around the world. I mean, those boats for the foils, how fast they can go, um, and sustain those periods of long periods of time is it's truly it's really exciting, it's exciting for the sport, you know, to see where the and I know that that you're doing that now also.

Capn Tinsley: 12:13

Um but uh well I was gonna ask you a question about the so you did it with in an injured boat. And is it 10 days?

Jon Bilger: 12:25

Uh yeah, well, I think it took us um uh two weeks because we obviously had broken our rig. So I think it was about two weeks the time we we completed the thing. So um yeah, but um, but yeah, it's it's just good to get there and and and just it'd say what looking back, it really makes me appreciate of what we've developed with Credit Wind. Because you know, we just back then we just had a weather fax. And if I had those tools um back then, I'd be you know, you really makes make you look makes you look good.

Capn Tinsley: 12:53

So when did you yeah, when did you start thinking I need to come up with something that is a little bit better for forecasting? What what how did that process happen?

Jon Bilger: 13:02

Yeah, well, I ran the um weather program for the Lincoln America's cup team for 10 years. Um so we had um, you know, it was big budget weather program back in those days. I mean, now you're not allowed to have a weather program. Um, it's all very much you can't, you can't, there's the rules are very strict. But we back then we had um yeah, we had a large team, you know, so at least 10 people, um, sometimes up to 15 people. We did three uh three America's cup campaigns uh with Lingi. In fact, the last one we did was the Dita Gift match, which is the crazy one with a catamaran versus the triumran. And you know, we had the courses so large, I think a 20-mile course or something like that. Um, we had um, you know, basically paragliders with with engines going up the course, and we had weather boats out there that had satellite equipment to send all the data back, weather stations all around the coast and further afield. Um, so yeah, it's we had access to all this technology and especially on the the weather modeling side. And um, you know, sailors and our team would go around, do different regattas around the world, and then say, Oh, can you, you know, can you use can we get the weather model going for this regatta we got in in you know in Miami? And you'd spin up the model for that, and and that you know, they'd really appreciate it and get a lot of value out of it. And we thought, well, you know, a imagine if we could actually have this technology available for for anyone, you know, anyone in the world. Um like me. Exactly, exactly. And you know, and yeah, and I naively thought at the time, you know, you know, accurate forecast, start up a company, how hard can that be? But it's obviously what harder um and you know, and you figure out you know, the the user interface may get you know, because a lot of people don't really understand the nuances of the accuracy of the forecast, or they might they just they look at the graphics and is the graphics good and is it easy to use? And so the ease of use is a big part of what we've um you know improved a lot over the years. I think we've still got a long way to go, but I think we have taken things like you know, what was uh you know, weather routing tool, which is used by top offshore you know racing navigators and made that accessible to any cruising sailor in the world. So it's like Google Maps, you just put your start and destination. Once you've got your boat's polar set up, it's very simple to use and gives you some incredible information. Um, like we even now we we even simulate the actual motion of your boat. Yeah, you can put in the parameters of your boat, the length, the beam, the draft, um, the weight, and we can predict with some very good accuracy how your boat's gonna roll, which is you know very a big safety thing, the vertical acceleration, which is related always to seasickness, and you can make any like proven in the navy, you can make anyone seasick with us vertical acceleration, and then slamming, which is obviously very dangerous. So those sort of things, because it's often the the waves that will get you, not the wind. And and if you can predict that, you know, not just it's gonna be two-meter swells, but there might be two-meter swells from the primary direction, but you might have secondary and tertiary swells that are really confused, and you can see how that's gonna affect your boat. Um, and you know, you know that okay, it's gonna be really unsafe for the next 24 hours. So you need to take that precaution on your boat, you know, reef early, um, and just make sure that you're really clipped on when you're on on deck. Um, so those sort of things are really exciting for me because you know, I've got a lot of friends in the industry and they kind of use the product, and you know, you get some great feedback, so it's really um awesome to see those tools um being used by making it user-friendly.

Capn Tinsley: 16:53

Yeah, um, so uh I learned what uh I learned the term polars when I was interviewing Karen from your company. Um I didn't know what that was, and then one of the people that were watching, who's I have an island packet, he he said he has all the island packet uh polars. And I was like, oh, and and Karen said just to send it to her. I I don't know if we ever did that part, but that that's how it knows your boat on how it's gonna react and like when you should reef and all this crazy stuff that it's not I could see definitely see. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jon Bilger: 17:29

So it yeah, so the polars is just really the performance curve of your boat. So for any any wind speed or you know, um, and for every wind angle, you know, whether upwind or downwind or reaching, um, it'll tell you it's describes the performance, you know, what boat speed are you going to be doing. Um and we've taken it a step further. Um, we have this device called the the data hub, and it's a bit of electronics you can install in your boat. It it's got an NMEA 2000 feed so you just connect it up to your instrumentation system, and it gets all the data from your instruments and and um automatically um averages it and sends it back up to our server. And so one of the features this does a lot of different things, but one of the features it does is what we call AI polars. So it basically learns not only just for your wind speed and the wind angle that you're sailing at, what your performance is, but also we put in the wave forecast in there because you know, a boat will perform totally different in flat water versus a swell. You're punching into a three-meter swell, you're gonna go a lot slower than you are with the you know, with a with a flat water. So it'll learn how you're sailing the boat, not not in your boat, but how you sail the boat generally, and so your performance curve of your boat is really accurately matched how you sail it, so that when we do a weather routing, we can actually know where your boat's gonna be given the forecast. Because if you know you can have an accurate forecast, but if you don't have an accurate polar of how you sail a boat, then you we you won't know where you're gonna be in two, three, four days' time. So that's a really good thing.

Capn Tinsley: 19:07

It's it's reading how I handle the boat as well.

Jon Bilger: 19:10

It it's reading how you ha handle a boat, how you sail a boat, and then ultimately what boat speed you'll do, say in you know, for example, you know, 20 knots with a three-meter swell, you know, and downward sailing, what what you would what what performance you're gonna get out of the boat. Um so yeah, so not it's not a theoretical thing, it's an actual reality of how you you will sail a boat. And so that means that we when you actually run a weather routing, um, we we can get some very accurate data of where you're gonna be. Um and you know, people are arriving doing you know, sort of 10-day passages, and they're arriving within an hour of of our predictions. So that's that's how good it can be.

Capn Tinsley: 19:50

Yeah, yeah. Well, I need to learn how to use it better, but I have used it on this trip, and uh, I don't know if you're familiar with the Gulf of Mexico. Sure. In the Big Bend, it's uh very unpredictable. Well, to me it is, I always seem to get caught out there.

Jon Bilger: 20:07

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think the thing is with uh Predict Wind, I think that's what we've worked really hard on, is and this is the basis of it, it's not just uh a um you know user-friendly, good-looking program, it's basically that we have the best possible data that you can get access to. So um we've got a you know a slew of uh eight models. Um, three of them are own models. Um, one of them is a European model, which is sort of the benchmark for of accuracy from and why is that?

Capn Tinsley: 20:36

Why is the European model always there's I think that's with hurricanes too, isn't the European model?

Jon Bilger: 20:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They've put a lot of um I guess research and time into it. Um and I guess at the moment, well, they have in the last 10 years been sort of winning that race. Um, I mean, it is um not just one country's um model, but it's a collection of the whole European Union. Um and that, you know, if it to give you an example of how much resource they put into it, they you know, they have actually they modeled their thing at nine kilometer resolution around the world, which means basically the whole world is like nine kilometer Lego blocks in terms of mathematical equations, whereas you know the the ECNW F one is in like 25 kilometer resolution. So they've really put a lot of money into it, a lot of resource into it. Um, and um, so yeah, we use that. We've got the UK Met Office one, um, we've got the German icon model, and um and so we we have all these models, and um, and then the two new ones we've added recently is our own AI weather model and also the AI weather model from ECMWF. So this is it's a kind of a complete revolution in terms of predicting weather. In the past, uh, weather models have used physical equations, so here's these they call Nabia Spokes mathematical equations. You divide the whole world into these cubes, and then you say, well, based on these mathematical equations, this is what's going to be the wind speed, you know, for the next day, for the next hour, um, and temperature and pressure and so on. Um, and they've been built up over you know 30 years and they've done an incredible job. They've just you know that they've improved immensely over the last 30 years. Um, but the AI is a completely different approach, doesn't use any physical equation, mathematical equations at all. It just purely looks at the observational files that we feed into the model, and which is from where? Yeah, so the obsol, you see basically how the observations work is you have the World Meteorological Organization gets data from you know satellites all around the world from different countries, they have to submit their data, aircraft data, land-based station, all that data puts into this WMO, and then from that, it's quite a science in itself to create what they call the observational file. And that's a large file, which is sort of the Earth's atmosphere. It's like a photographic snapshot in time of what the Earth's atmosphere is right now. And so the AI models grab that observational file and they look at and you know each for each um update, each each updates every six hours, um, they look at the patterns and they just do pattern matching. So just pattern matching. So well, this given situation in the past of the last five years, this is what's normally likely going to happen. So, you know, it's um a completely different approach. Um, and I you know, to be honest with you, you know, talking with the meteorologists I work with America's Cup, they said you know, no doubt this is going to be any better than the other approach, but it actually has proven to be actually producing more accurate forecasts than the traditional physical models.

Capn Tinsley: 23:50

So when so when you were thinking of this, um AI probably wasn't around yet, right?

Jon Bilger: 23:57

No, no, no, no. This is AI models. We just add these in the last few weeks. So this this model AI is is a new one, and and the ECMW AIFS model has just literally been added to to predict wind in the last month.

Capn Tinsley: 24:11

So uh what what what it's I mean that's kind of uh to think that you could do that, like I'm gonna do this, that's amazing. And you did it, and I know you have like uh engineering degree. What made you think that? And did you get help? Did you ask people to help you design it? How did that go about?

Jon Bilger: 24:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So just to be clear, I mean I'm I'm on the I can't take credit for that. I've just got a very clever um software development team, and we had one.

Capn Tinsley: 24:41

Well, you're like Steve Jobs, he's like, This is what I want, do it, right? You said make it happen.

Jon Bilger: 24:46

Yeah, yeah. That's what it's easy, easy to carry this is what I want, but it's actually harder to actually do it. So the the actual doing is done by some we got some very clever software engineers.

Capn Tinsley: 24:55

Well, that's what Steve Jobs was. I think he had his guys and he made them stay there all night until they did it or something.

Jon Bilger: 25:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't make them stay all night, but yeah, I they work very hard, they're very self-motivated. And and so we have this um uh AI expert. He he's been working on this for the last uh almost year. Yeah, and um we invest a lot into it because to train these models it takes a lot of computing power, so it's you know been a very expensive process. Um, but yeah, it's been amazing. And he's this model is not it's actually a combination of a of a few models, so it's using the ECMW AI model, it's using the ECMWF classical model, using the the Feng Wei um Chinese one and the Google Kraftgas model. So it's a it's using the the I guess the the best of all of them to train train it.

Capn Tinsley: 25:43

Um have you seen the AI got involved? Do you think that it has made it more accurate?

Jon Bilger: 25:50

Yeah, yeah, well that's what the the um results are showing. So when you compare the the AI forecast versus the initial conditions, or we call the observational files, it actually is showing better results for rain, uh better results for wind speed and direction. And you know, we we kind of we've only just released it, so obviously we're gonna learn more. There are some, I guess, some shortcomings with it because it's only at 25 kilometer resolution, because that's the resolution of the observations files, it doesn't do as good a job with geographic geographic effects like around your wind around headlands or sea breezes.

Capn Tinsley: 26:26

Yeah, you know that it's the wind's gonna be less because being blocked by the land, but it's not gonna show up. Uh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jon Bilger: 26:33

So if you've got a model, a G even the GFS model, which is say 25 column resolution, is not going to have those effects um as well as say a high resolution model. We have like well the PWG, which is our predict wind model, at one column resolution because it does have all those sea breeze effects in there, but it's still doing an amazing job for you know short to medium-term, you know, synoptic winds. And um, yeah, we we're um very um I guess very uh optimistic of of the future of it. And it's only better as you get more data, and um, also these observational files are going to get higher resolution in time. So um so it's exciting, it's a really exciting time to be in because you know basically this technology wasn't available as of you know a few months ago, and and now we have you have this when you got predicted when you're looking at these eight models and you can see them all tracking doing the same thing. You can go, well, pretty confident we got the right forecast here.

Capn Tinsley: 27:31

And you've got about a million users now.

Jon Bilger: 27:34

Yeah, yeah, so a million millions. I mean, uh unfortunately, yeah, a lot of them on the free version, so that's um yeah, because they were paid. Um, but uh, but no, it's it's really exciting to be um you've been going now for 15 years, and you know it's uh you know, good things take time, great things take longer. And um, we've sort of just we started off. We probably we did this journey. Um, not that you know, probably the right way to do it, you get you know, you know, basically funding, um, and venture capital and get a massive team. We we started off just you know organically, you know, one developer, you know, one marketing person, and my wife and myself, and and we, you know, we've just grown organically, but we've been very fortunate, very blessed to be you know, growing very rapidly with average 30% growth every year, and and um yeah, now we have a team of you know, there's about 40 people contributing to Brittany Wind um within that our team.

Capn Tinsley: 28:30

So we have did you have any idea it was gonna grow like this?

Jon Bilger: 28:34

Uh no, we had no idea. We're just naive. We thought we were gonna make this app and we just basically you know develop it over a few years and then just it'll just run by itself. But yeah, it's a technology game. So so you've got to be on top of the technology, and um, you know, if you're if you're not developing, you're going backwards. So um yeah, we've we've had a massive probably push in our company and ethos of of research and development, and um and and that's but we we enjoy doing what we're doing. We really love coming up with new features, new ideas, and pushing the envelope.

Capn Tinsley: 29:07

So that's like what I was I was gonna ask you that. What what kind of features are you thinking that you you've imagined them, but you haven't figured it out yet?

Jon Bilger: 29:16

Um, yeah, I mean, there's there's a lot of things that um that we're very proud of. I mentioned the weather routing. One of the things that we do do is not even weather related, is AIS. So you'd be familiar with AIS. Obviously, there's a you know, VHF system to transmit your position, and um, and all commercial vessels um have to have an AA system that's mandatory. So you know if you have an AA system on your boat, you'll better see any commercial vessel within you know roughly 20 miles of your boat, um, which is great. So you can see you know there's a container ship coming directly at you. Um you better make sure you're out of the way of it. Um but the problem is you know, if you've you know, say you're doing eight knots or so and it Container ships coming directly at you, you know, you've got about eight minutes before you know you're in trouble. Um, whereas we have this thing called over the horizon AAS. So the AIS signal, not only when it goes directly up, it can go up to the satellite, and we get access to all that data. And so we have all the AAS targets in the world. And so we have a product called Over the Horizon AAS. So with the data hub, you can have that data automatically downloading and displaying on your chart plotter so you can see all the vessels within the 300 nautical mile.

Capn Tinsley: 30:32

How much is this thing cost that you're describing?

Jon Bilger: 30:34

This so the data hub's only 300 US dollars, so it's a pretty, you know, fairly cheap device.

Capn Tinsley: 30:40

And you're you're going like this, so it's small?

Jon Bilger: 30:42

Is it yeah, small as a size, you know?

Capn Tinsley: 30:44

It's uh okay, wow.

Jon Bilger: 30:45

Yeah, yeah.

Capn Tinsley: 30:46

And so 300 bucks, huh?

Jon Bilger: 30:47

Yeah, yeah. And then you you plug that in, you got uh, you know, long as you obviously need an internet connection with style like these days, that's very, very, um, very achievable. And um, yeah, then you've got basically when you're doing your you know your your shift at night. Um you you you actually should know, we will know how many vessels are going to be, you know, on your path.

Capn Tinsley: 31:11

So this is like this is like even better than radar.

Jon Bilger: 31:15

Yeah, oh way better. Yeah, because it goes further. It goes 300 nautical miles. So yeah, I mean, we we could we could have done the whole, you know, the whole globe, but you know, you really need to know 300 nautical miles.

Capn Tinsley: 31:25

No reason for that, yeah.

Jon Bilger: 31:27

Yeah, yeah. Um, so yeah, so it really means when you're doing your you know your watch, you can okay. Well, I've got there's a few container ships I need to keep an eye out for. Um, but you just there's no surprises, you know.

Capn Tinsley: 31:37

So that's a really good set set the alarm and and take an app. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jon Bilger: 31:43

One thing we realize, yeah. One thing we realize as a company is we're really into safety. You know, obviously weather's a big thing for safety, and AS is a big thing for safety. Um one of the products we're developing at the moment, um, which we are very excited about, is a man overboard feature. So um, you know, we've just had custom feedback from customers who have um yeah, been very, you know, consider that's kind of the worst nightmare, right? You you know, a crew member falls overboard and and then no one knows, and then oh my goodness, we've lost the crew member. So and everyone has a watch on board, you know, whether it be an Apple watch or be an Android watch or Garmin watch. And this watch can have an app on it which pings the data hub, you know, every every few seconds. But if that the watch is disconnected, i.e. you're falling overboard, then it automatically send a man overboard um waypoint to your chart plotter, so that you'll get a it'll and that obviously sets off an alarm. So that the idea there is that um yeah, you you'll you won't if if there's someone does by chance fall overboard, you get alerted immediately, and there's a waypoint on the chart plotter, and so you can go back and pick them up. So that's that's another sort of safety feature we're we're developing at the moment, which is it's very exciting. Um we have a we you know sort of fairly recently launched an anchor app, which which we're very um very proud of, and that basically uses the data hub again, and then when you're anchoring, it'll give you an alert. Um, not only just if you're because the data hub knows your wind speed and direction, it'll give you you know, if the wind speed increases a lot, if the direction changes, say 180 degrees, um so it really gives you you know, even on the depth. If your depth changes too much, it'll give an alert. So it'll give you alert on the boat, but also it'll give you alert if you're on shore, so you can be sitting and you know, maybe getting some groceries, and you just oh my goodness, you know, you're dragging anchor. Well, maybe the boat isn't dragged anchor, but the wind direction has changed 180 degrees. Um, I'd better get back to the boat before I do drag anchor. Um, so so those sort of yeah, safety things I think are uh really exciting for a for a product range.

Capn Tinsley: 33:55

Um is that that's those things are still in development.

Jon Bilger: 33:59

Yeah, so the anchor app is actually available now. So that's that's that's that's you can download that app right now. Um uh the man of wood feature is is something that's coming um early next year. And um yeah, so there's there's um there's always an the other thing that we're working on is we've probably been the biggest um uh provider of GPS tracking in the world. Um, so we because the data hub that's one of its primary functions is to actually you know send a position through those servers to show friends and family where you are because that's a really huge safety thing, is you know, you you can be going along and then friends and family can see the boat stopped or it's turned around, and you know, we've had calls from customers, what's what's happened, you know, because they can't get hold of the what's happened there, you know, and they go just leave me alone, we're just gonna do some fishing here. But uh, you know, it's a really good thing to see the boat is still on track, and you can see we've got the weather forecast overlaid on top, so you can see what weather conditions are in. Um, and then uh the boat can also do some blogs along the way, put photos on there and upload that. Um, so yeah, it's it's um it's a big part of what we do. We're just we're just upgrading the interface at the moment in the next few weeks um to really um it's got some really really cool features in the case.

Capn Tinsley: 35:18

So, who's the ideal person? Is that you? Uh obviously jobs kind of like no.

Jon Bilger: 35:26

I'd like to say again, it's the team. I mean, in the early days of the company, it was it was purely me um because there weren't many people in the company, but now we have um you know we've got about 13 people in our in our support team. They're all very accomplished sailors. I think we've got four people have done Volvo.

Capn Tinsley: 35:43

Isn't that a requirement? Isn't that a requirement for you?

Jon Bilger: 35:45

Yeah, yeah, pretty much is you gotta be a sailor. Yeah, yeah, you gotta be a sailor. And um, so they're all really pat being out there on the water, they know what it's like, and they obviously we we really pride ourselves on good support. So you know if you have problems getting the the you know software up and running, we you know some great help articles, we actually have you know AI um help assistant, but more importantly, you can actually get hold of a human and we will help you you know get up and running and get going. Um and the in the interaction with the customer, there's always feedback, you know, like, well, you know, found this good, what about this? And so we really do spend we have a meeting every week, um, around at my house, actually, and we basically talk about customer feedback for most of the meeting. Wow, what is going to be the next big thing? How can we improve this? And we we just always think about that how we improve this, how can we make this better? And yeah, because we a lot of our friends are doing it, we it's kind of a real passion rather than a job, you know. So so that's that's um that's where the ideas come. It comes from the sort of collective pool of knowledge um of our support team, talking to the customers, and then obviously we can't do everything, but we try and do probably more as much as we possibly can.

Capn Tinsley: 37:05

That's amazing. You just don't hear that from companies anymore. That that's amazing.

Jon Bilger: 37:10

Yeah, we really we I mean we see this the real passion, you know. So it's um and I think what I think it says shines through in a product line that we you know have accomplished a lot of different things. Um just and that's because of the team, not because of me.

Capn Tinsley: 37:26

Um so let me see. Uh I have some other questions here. Oh, you moved from sailor to navigator to weather team manager for America's Cup? Is that right?

Speaker 1: 37:40

Sure.

Capn Tinsley: 37:41

So how did that transition happen? So you were uh when you were a weather team manager, I guess you were off the boat. You were more behind.

Jon Bilger: 37:48

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So when I had the um the job, my first job, America's Cup job, I was a navigator on Chris Dixon's takeaway boat. And then that was I mean, there's a little lot through that. Um the the next job I had was to run the weather program for for the Swiss America's Cup team. So it wasn't an on-the-boat role, um, that was off the boat, and that was kind of the I guess the the proving around the kind of the the background for predict win. So I didn't know it at the time, but that was where I learned, you know, I learned, you know, because we had a few meteorologists on the team, and you know, I myself I was not a meteorologist, I was just an I had a mechanical engineering degree, I'd done sailing to a high level, and I thought, wow, I need to find some really good people to make me look good. So I found these meteorologists, and and this Jack Catsby was a head meteorologist, he was head of uh the the modelling division and and CSRO, which is a government organization in Australia, and he'd run that for 20 odd years. Um so he was an extremely talented meteorologist and extremely talented in running the modelling division, and so you know, I could talk to him, I found out how reliant he was on these high-resolution models for creating a good forecast. And we would have you know 20 forecasts, and we look at the you know, look at them all, and that was the whole idea of Credit Wind. If we can just get a uh a great accurate forecast to our customers, um, and and uh get access to these models, the cut you're 90% of the way there to have to making good decisions, you know.

Capn Tinsley: 39:27

Um that had to be pretty stressful being in charge of the weather team for a whole group of people on a boat.

Jon Bilger: 39:34

Uh incredibly stressful because you know, before the start of the race, you know, these races were you know three nautical miles, a lot of them they're 25 minutes long, and they would say to you basically, all right, is the left side favored, the right side favored by how much, you know, big or small, and what's your confidence level? And they, you know, because you can only see like a scale of one to ten, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're just the medium, low, high. And and if you you know, basically they can only see like a mile and a half, even with a man at the rig. And so you uh that they really rely heavily on on which side of the course to go to, and you know, obviously you get it right, you're hero. If you get it wrong, you're zero. So um, fortunately, we got it more right more than wrong. So yeah, yeah, that's good.

Capn Tinsley: 40:20

It would be bold for me to okay. Uh your safety's in my hands. That's pretty bold.

Jon Bilger: 40:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was very it's very stressful, but it was very rewarding. And we really, I think, pushed the envelope of of all the technology we had access to, and that's what that was just the the genesis of Predigwind. Okay. Just make trying to make that technology available for everyone. And obviously, we've developed a whole lot of tools along the way in the last 15 years. So um, so yeah, but I think that sort of America's cut um ethos of always pushing the limits has been something that's very much been the you know the um the culture of Predigwind.

Capn Tinsley: 41:02

So um, you know, I've talked to two people, one who won the uh Golden Globe race, and one that's participating next year. Now, what do you think about those races? So, yeah, so the total retro race, yeah.

Jon Bilger: 41:18

Yeah, yeah, you don't you have no no weather technology, right? Yeah, yeah. So I think, you know, I mean, obviously it uh it's a great challenge, right? You're going back to basics and you're just really seamanship. Um, but I what I would say is the best form of seamanship is not getting caught out in bad weather. And I'd say for the first five days of your passage, there should be no excuse for getting caught out in bad weather with the technology we have. I mean, obviously there's exceptions, there's rules, and we're not you know going to be good at always getting thunderstorms. That sort of you can have the chance of thunderstorms, but actually knowing whether you're gonna be in one or not is very hard. But generally, the first five days of your passage should be trouble-free, you know, if you're looking at all our models and and and looking at our extreme weather alerts that we automatically um put onto the weather routing. So, yeah, I think it's a little bit well, certainly for the average sailor, you know, use the technology, you know, it's come a long way, and in the last city, yes, and and kind of as I said, you know, best former seamanship is not to get stuck out in bad weather. It's bad for your equipment, it's dangerous, and and and even when you're out there, say after five days when you maybe don't have a chance to avoid the bad weather, at least you know it's coming, so you can prepare for it. Um, so yeah, I'm not a big fan of those races. I think it's in this day and age, I think we should be using the technology. I mean, maybe maybe having it some sort of limitation to one source, so no one has an advantage, but but to kind of you know, I mean you're looking at the the Vendy Globe and uh the ocean race, they have access to to everything, and we're we're we're sponsor for those.

Capn Tinsley: 42:59

I think they're allowed to call a ship and ask them. I think they're allowed to to use the radio to ask for weather. I think.

Jon Bilger: 43:08

Right. So you have to be lucky to make sure you're next to a ship that you yeah, I don't know. Maybe maybe maybe maybe they've got predict winds so they can really tell what's gonna happen. Yeah, exactly.

Capn Tinsley: 43:18

But I can't imagine being in the southern ocean. Well, yeah, it's not a place I would want to go anyway, but but just the the with the with no forecasting, that just seems very frightening.

Jon Bilger: 43:31

Yes, yeah, and I agree. I agree with you. I think it's um yeah, it's a little bit foolhardy. Because yeah, I mean it's all very well and good if you you know no one loses a boat, but if you lose a boat or a crew member or whatever because of bad weather you didn't know about, well, you know, this whole Corinthian going back in time thing no longer becomes a good idea.

Capn Tinsley: 43:52

I see your point. Yeah. And and the Gloden Golden Globe is solo.

Jon Bilger: 43:58

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.

Capn Tinsley: 44:00

That's really pushing pushing the limits of a person. Um any behind the scenes story from the America's Cup you're allowed to tell.

Jon Bilger: 44:19

Yeah, lots of stories. I mean, I think um, you know, like going back to the you know, the um, you know, making the call. I think one of the races we had in the America's Cup, um, we're we're very famous for this in terms of was a weather call that we made that the opposition didn't make. Um, you know, our weather model showed there was going to be a split in the breeze, you know, more left on one side, on the left-hand side, more right on the other. And and we could tell that was that was a possibility, but you know, like with all the weather models, it's all about with the placement of the model, is it in exactly the right position? So you get the models give you the hint of what's going to happen, but they you know, until you actually see it in the observations, it's not something you can make a call. And anyway, we made this. We had we had um you try and get as many weather boats out there as you possibly can, and and we were we had the option to buy this really old weather boat, we call it the black duck. Um, and we had this young French guy on it, and he was way above the course, and he and he got this, you know, this wind reading that showed this the shift. And if we hadn't had that, we wouldn't have been able to make that call. And we, you know, it was it was high pressure call. We made it because we had it in the model, and we had the weather boat out there, and um, yeah, we got famous for it. But um, but yeah, that's I guess one of the success stories we had, but it's because we had this old, really old weather boat we managed to get our hands on, um, along with all the new ones. Um, but yeah, it was it's um it was a great, a great time to to get really really exciting to get that call right.

Capn Tinsley: 45:56

Um so you've described predict when is the lighthouse keeper of the world. Is that right?

Jon Bilger: 46:03

Yeah, well, I think I think it's one thing we talk about internally within our company because you know, we are 24 hour a day, seven-day a week operation. Um, and so we're providing these forecasts which really are really important for you know people going offshore, and quite often these most of our customers now are cruising sailors, um, taking the whole families offshore, and you know that you're taking family offshore, you want to make sure that you're safe, and you you know, these our website's got to work 24-7. And um and so in that way, we are like a lighthouse. You need you don't want a lighthouse to break down, you want it to be working the whole time, and it's it's a big safety feature. So I think that that's an analogy we use um certainly within the support team, but you know, the importance of what we do and just the the safety aspect of predict wind. Um and that's why we think you know, a lot of companies, where the companies just have a few models, we use eight, and we believe our models are by far and the best available around the world, and and it's it's why it's not good just to rely on one model, but you've got to have eight so you can see because it's every model has its day, and and with that information you're unlikely to get caught out in a bad situation.

Capn Tinsley: 47:22

Okay. Um, now was there any pushback or any uh any discussion or about when you wanted to go and give it to the public like this?

Jon Bilger: 47:33

Um, yeah, no, so I had to get a license from CSRO, which is a government organization, and if initially I was going to set the company up, I was gonna be a 50-50 um partnership with Jack Catsley, who is from the CSRO, but he because he is an employee of the government, the the government regulations said that you can't actually start a private company. So he he graciously bowed out of that thing, and you know, he actually he's not a sheet, still not a shareholder within the Predict Wind. Um, and though he's done all his work for free, you know. Um so he, you know, so I'd say pushback, I'd say from them allowing us that ex technology, no, but it was certainly a a big, huge challenge, you know. And I think the biggest thing was, you know, probably, you know, look back when we started the company. Started the company, we reached the company in 2007. We didn't go online until 2010, so that's three years to get you know, get our website up and running, uh getting the model working all around the world. In fact, I've I put um I look back when we first bought the uh computers, we bought I think 120,000 US dollars worth of Dell servers and put them in a server place in the US. And I think I sold them four years later for 10,000 US dollars. Um wow. And and you know, then we moved to Amazon, which is you know, it was early days Amazon, and we was the best move we ever made because you didn't have to worry about you know service breaking and we had access to all this technology.

Capn Tinsley: 49:02

But there was there was a problem, was it last week?

Jon Bilger: 49:06

Yeah, that was that was so stressful for us. We we got off very lightly. Uh fortunately our website worked the whole time. We had it we had some outage with our with a routing service for a few hours, but um but the the actual website itself stayed up.

Capn Tinsley: 49:21

Um so we were very fortunate with I think I think there was there was problems with AIS for a day, wasn't there? Just with AIS in general, yeah, yeah.

Jon Bilger: 49:30

There's a few problems here and there, but yeah, we've got to be able to do that.

Capn Tinsley: 49:33

I noticed some some irregular behavior when I was using it. It wasn't there was some things that just didn't look right, and I was like, Oh my AI, maybe my it's broken, maybe maybe I need a new antenna, but then it started working again.

Jon Bilger: 49:47

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it was very stressful. I mean, there's another name for Amazon Web Services because you know it's yes, the other name is uh what we call it all websites, it does all websites in the world. So, you know, if we if that goes down, pretty much half the world goes down. Um it's a scary thing, but um, you know, fortunately they got it sorted out. And um, you know, how long have you been?

Capn Tinsley: 50:12

How long have you had it with their with them? The servers?

Jon Bilger: 50:16

Oh, we've you know, we've been with Amazon for at least I'd say at least 10 years. Yeah. Okay.

Capn Tinsley: 50:23

Maybe um and that was the only time that there was an issue with the they have had one other issue in 2017, um, which is got a big artist.

Jon Bilger: 50:34

Yeah, long time ago. So no, they've been they've been a very good part. We've you know, we can't sing their praises high enough. They've done a great job for us and give us given us access to a whole lot of database technology and cloud fronts and all sorts of things that as a small company we wouldn't better provide, um, you know, uh you know, able to you know do ourselves. So it's been a great choice for us, you know.

Capn Tinsley: 50:55

I just want to say hey to Presh DeSalte that she just said good evening. So we got we got some live people here. Um, so well that is fascinating. Um so were there any was there any pushback uh from the the professional sailing world about you going?

Jon Bilger: 51:16

Uh no, no, I don't think any any pushback at all. I think you know that the big thing is like you know, we found in the America's Cup it just takes time. So look, we um you know, even within the America's Cup team, you know, we found when we first started the program, you know, everyone in the team's a weather expert. I mean, you know, from the designers to the boat builders, everyone's like looking at the you know the weather map and going, Oh, I know what's gonna happen today.

Capn Tinsley: 51:41

And you know, and when you say they're that everybody's a weather expert, you're kind of saying that tongue in cheek.

Jon Bilger: 51:46

Yes, yes, yes. So they're basically even if they're not a weather expert, they think they're weather expert, and and they'll tell you what the forecast is, even if they don't have no clue. And yeah, they're basically but the sailors here have been sailing in New Zealand for all their life and they you know to read the local signs, and that you know, Russell Coutts, I mean, Murray Jones, I mean they're very good sailors, and but in the end, after using the model for six months, they would trust the model more than their own interpretation, and that for me was like a you know a big thing for thinking, wow, this has really got a lot of value. Um, you know, especially then when we the boats back then, you can only sail them in above seven knots and less than 19. So you take you like a couple of hours to get the boat, you know, um in the water and out to the race course for two and a half hours and two and a half hours back. So if you went out there and it was less than seven knots and more than 19 knots, there's five hours of waste of time with looking at you going, What happened here? So yeah, it's I think it's um just gaining people's trust. Um, because you know, weather's weather, right? It's impossible to get it right all the time. Yeah, but if you have it, you know, if it becomes something that you trust is very reliable, um, then then you've really got people's trust. And you know, we we we're very proud of the fact we've got a lot of customers out there who are not just customers, they're really big fans of Predigwind and they really promote the service for us. And that's made the company great because you know we we don't have a huge marketing budget, but these customers are out there doing the selling for us, yeah.

Capn Tinsley: 53:24

Yeah, and uh, you're sponsoring a lot of races, aren't you?

Jon Bilger: 53:28

Yeah, we're sponsoring some for sure. We sponsor some of the cruising rallies. Um, yeah, we like to give back to the to the community and um and help out, and um yeah, we obviously do what we can to get the name out there. Um but yeah, I think our biggest marketing thing is our customers because they they use the product, they get a lot of confidence with it, and then they tell other customers.

Capn Tinsley: 53:51

Well, what Karen Karen, uh, I I'm sorry, I'm no one, I'm no one not pronouncing that right. I want to say Karen.

Speaker 1: 53:58

Kieran, yeah, Karen.

Capn Tinsley: 53:59

Kieran, Kieran. She she I gave her the link to my InReach Explorer, and she made that trackable on Predict When for me.

Jon Bilger: 54:09

Yes, yeah, we support pretty much all the Harvey devices. You know, if you got a Data Hub, you know, which is our device, or Garmin Enreach or Bibby Stick or Zolio, or you know, this or uh Ridium Go or Gamma Ridium Go exec. We we we basically have we can track use tracking with anything.

Capn Tinsley: 54:27

That's amazing. So you can use you can get the little $300 thing, or you can use any of those other devices and send the link to predict wind. And uh and like I was telling you offline when I first saw that was with sailing with Phoenix, he uh he gave people that link, and you could see him sailing within the the waves and the the the whole interface, and I was like, wow, and I uh I hadn't I you know I'm on the Gulf Coast, so I'm not familiar with the Pacific, and he was talking about the trades. You go that he sail south and goes far, and then start when the trades start going towards Hawaii, that's when he'd hang a right turn, and you can actually see him doing that from within your interface.

Jon Bilger: 55:14

Totally, totally. Yeah, and we've got basically now the new um tracking we're gonna supply is you're gonna bat it at the moment you can just see real time right now, but we're gonna record all the weather. We've done this for the ocean race, record the weather from you know the whole year, and you can go back in time so you can go back with a time slider and see the boat sailing through the weather from the beginning of your trip up till now, and then we're also gonna do a weather routing from that position forward until the end of your trip, and you can see what the boat will experience for the rest of the trip.

Capn Tinsley: 55:49

And how how do you account for those pop-up storms that just like I I have weather XM on my chart plotter, and you can see them forming on the chart, you know, it'll turn green and then it'll get yellow and then orange. I mean, can you account for that? I'm I'm probably asking myself impossible.

Jon Bilger: 56:06

Yeah, they are they're very hard to predict that sort of thing. I mean, and especially getting the location of them exactly right is almost impossible. But you know, we have a few things that in Predict Wind, which um you know will help you sort of prepare for that sort of thing. One is the CAPE, which is CAPE stands for convective available potential energy. And if that you see a spike in that within the within our data, that'll give you the you know the possibility of that sort of thing happening. In fact, we'll actually give you automatically give you an alert within the weather routing or on the tables.

Capn Tinsley: 56:39

I need to learn you have some videos on the site to learn that.

Jon Bilger: 56:43

Oh, totally, totally. Yeah, we can okay.

Capn Tinsley: 56:45

And tell me what it's called. Can tell me what it's called again?

Jon Bilger: 56:49

Uh CAPE, yeah, C A B E. Yeah, okay. Yeah, the other thing too is we which is we're the only ones in the world that basically um convert um GMDSS forecasts. Um, GMDCS is a global system called Global Marine Distress System, and and that is um they have weather forecasts for the whole world from meteorologists, and it's a text-based forecast, which is quite hard to interpret, but we do is we grab that text and using AI, we convert it to a graphical element on the on the chart. So that's like meteorologists around the world telling you of thunderstorm areas, you know, about storms popping up, and they're so they're they're basically safety warnings, and we put that as a graphical element on all our maps. Um, so yeah, so that's um I think that's a really critical thing to to look at.

Capn Tinsley: 57:39

Um is asking, can you work on importing of routes between Ray Marine and Lighthouse? And then she said, and Navionics, it's not intuitive. So are you saying are you saying that which thing is not intuitive? That's what I'm asking.

Jon Bilger: 57:57

Yeah, we're a little bit limited with um Raymarine in terms of what we can do. Um, it's it obviously we don't control their software, so we you know, and with the Navionics thing as well, we but we are actually in contact with with Garmin about um about doing that better, and we hope to have a better system with them. Um so yeah, uh watch out for some improvements there. But we are limited.

Capn Tinsley: 58:21

Would that be like it would be on the chart plotter? Is that what you're saying?

Jon Bilger: 58:23

It would be yeah, so the export there is you get you get a a weather route, and then at the moment you can export that weather route as a GPX format, which is a you know a standardized format to import into your Navionics or to your Ray Marine chart plotter. Um so we've got to work in with their limitations, what they do to to basically make that a better process.

Capn Tinsley: 58:46

So that's that's another thing you're working on?

Jon Bilger: 58:48

Yeah, yeah. Well, with as I said, with with Garmin, we've been contact with them directly, their management to actually do a better job there. Um with Ray Marine, I don't think we have any any uh yeah, I'm not a Ray Marine fan, but I'm a I'm a Garmin gal.

Capn Tinsley: 59:02

But um, so how many projects are you working on?

Jon Bilger: 59:07

Lots, lots. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Capn Tinsley: 59:12

Oh, she says Orca can do it.

Jon Bilger: 59:13

I don't know what Orca is, but yeah, yeah, familiar with Orca, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, we'll have we'll have a look into that, see if we can improve that for sure.

Capn Tinsley: 59:21

Okay, see there, fresh to salty. You're talking to the director here, he's gonna take it to the team. But so would you say you have hundreds of ideas that you're working on?

Jon Bilger: 59:32

Or uh yeah, we we got a project development list of thousands of features. We I mean it's not just big features, there's lots of little improvements. Uh this one's a classic, classic example. So we're always looking to improve things, and and you know, there literally the list of a thousand things, or more than a thousand things that we can we can do improve the software. And it's just about prioritizing that um because obviously, you know, we don't have unlimited developers. Um, but yeah, we've we've grown the team. You know, as I said, from one developer up to about 13 now. So that's um really we're getting through a whole lot more work than we did, you know, five years ago, that's for sure.

Capn Tinsley: 1:00:10

Um okay, so Fresh the Salty says, I would love to be a part of the product development.

Jon Bilger: 1:00:16

Well, you are. I mean, yeah, you're already giving me feedback already. So I think we gotta listen to our customers and um always looking to improve it. So just be just be patient though, things take time. So it's not like um it's not click your fingers and it'll be none tomorrow. It's um yeah.

Capn Tinsley: 1:00:32

So are uh you've got I think two daughters?

Jon Bilger: 1:00:36

Yes, yes.

Capn Tinsley: 1:00:38

Are they involved in any of this?

Jon Bilger: 1:00:41

Uh yeah, my older daughter, she spent a year um just out of school. She did uh one year working at Predict Wind, and she headed up the logistics for a satellite product that we sold, and she yeah, it was pretty good. It was the making first. She had didn't report to me, she had to report to Karen, as you know, and so it was great. And so she she learned a lot and uh really grew a lot in that that year. Um, and they're um they're both doing Olympic campaigns, so following in you know, myself's footstep and my father's footsteps.

Capn Tinsley: 1:01:11

Um yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jon Bilger: 1:01:16

He lives just down the road from me. I mean, he's he's 88 now, so getting on a bit, but uh he's still good health.

Capn Tinsley: 1:01:22

And you said this he's got the Predig Wind hat on there.

Jon Bilger: 1:01:25

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Big promoter of Predic Wind, huge promoter. So um that's a great friend of him, actually. Yeah, yeah.

Capn Tinsley: 1:01:31

I mean, it was he thinking, wow, I wish I had that when I was oh totally.

Jon Bilger: 1:01:36

Yeah, well, actually, that's one of the stories of Predict Win, is because you know, when we're in the America's Cup, um you know, we my dad was doing a regatta, a master's regatta, um, in a in a small town out of and down out of you know down south, and he um he had to choose, you're saying the lazy had to choose between the big rig and the lady or radio rig. And so we spun up a weather model for the regatta, and all of the Met Service Forecast and National Weather Center said you know should you should go for the um smaller rig anyway. When he used our forecast, chose the right rig, and he won the regatta. So so that's um yeah, it was a great story. It kept me happy, and uh you're very proud.

Capn Tinsley: 1:02:19

So is this you?

Jon Bilger: 1:02:21

Yeah, I wouldn't believe it, but it is me just a few years ago.

Capn Tinsley: 1:02:26

What a face, what a precious face. So, how old were you here?

Jon Bilger: 1:02:31

Uh I'd say in my 20s, I'd say, yeah, yeah.

Capn Tinsley: 1:02:35

So you were you were hot in the you were well on your way into sailing.

Jon Bilger: 1:02:40

Yeah, no gray hair there, so it's supposed to be before I started Predictman. A few more gray hairs here, so actually that's that was just in the beginning of predictment.

Capn Tinsley: 1:02:49

Yeah, that was around 2010.

Jon Bilger: 1:02:52

Yeah, I'd say so.

Capn Tinsley: 1:02:54

Is this a picture with your with a team or something? I tried to find a picture of you with the team. You how do you what did you do? Scrub the internet of all your pictures.

Jon Bilger: 1:03:07

It's just the ones that we took for ourselves.

Capn Tinsley: 1:03:11

This is not then this is uh I think this is uh 2025 or some recent picture of the of the the uh trans pack.

Jon Bilger: 1:03:20

Oh wow, okay, yeah, awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Capn Tinsley: 1:03:23

So you were on a boat that looks something like this, right?

Jon Bilger: 1:03:26

I mean, it's kind of a yeah, there's a uh 70-foot sled, so yeah, yeah.

Capn Tinsley: 1:03:30

Okay, sleds. That's okay. And this is you racing a dinghy.

Jon Bilger: 1:03:35

Yeah, that was uh with my daughter, I think. Um we raced the Widder Triamran. Um, I think she's on there somewhere. Oh no, that was the Masters, World Masters Regetta, so um yeah, that was uh so you raised everything, yeah. Done a few things, yeah, definitely. Yeah, and here's somebody using actually that's using Predic Wind, yeah, on the iPad, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Capn Tinsley: 1:04:00

And um, I think that's all the pictures, but uh and you you're you're doing the foiling also?

Jon Bilger: 1:04:08

Yeah, yeah. So I've done my daughters are into foiling, um older ones doing kite falling, so it's Olympic sport, and the other one's doing windfalling, which is a windsurf with a foil. Um, so I've done done that as well. I've done the kite falling, I've done the windfalling. My latest thing is uh uh winging, so it's um what is that? Just a surfboard with a foil, and you hold on to the inflatable wing. Um in the early days I did manage to beat my uh Lucy in the kite falling, and then it's a bit of a joke. Then I moved on to the windfalling and bit my uh younger daughter, but you know, they're both of them are way better than me. In fact, my younger daughter, she uh Stella, she just won the under-23 world championships in the windfalling, so it's an amazing achievement.

Capn Tinsley: 1:04:54

What a it must be tough to be part of your family. You've got to go out and win a lot of championships and Olympics and invent things and they're quite accomplished.

Jon Bilger: 1:05:06

Well, yeah, we're just very fortunate. But um, yeah, and that's um you've been very fortunate.

Capn Tinsley: 1:05:12

You've worked very hard.

Jon Bilger: 1:05:13

Yeah, well, yeah, growing up with the gourd at the doors, uh family jokers. They you know said to them, Look, you know, you you can do you can do any sport you want. You can you know, you can do you can do sailing or sailing or sailing. And I said to them, Well, you know, because they weren't that keen in the first few years, and I said, Well, you can give up once you've you know you've mastered it when you can actually get around the race course and sail properly, but you can't give up until you can do it because you know learning's tough and it's it's a hard sport. So anyway, and they they really obviously love it now that of you know of their own volition, and so that's just you know, what about your wife? Is she like yeah, no, she's she's into into it as well. She does the winging, so she did kite surfing, you know, got proficient on that. Yeah, not falling, but twin tipping, and now she's winging, and um yeah, not as uh quite as competitive um as I am, but definitely loves the social side and um really into it.

Capn Tinsley: 1:06:08

So do you guys cruise?

Jon Bilger: 1:06:11

We had a cruising boat for seven years. Um it's a 31-foot uh Ferrier trimarine, it's quite a famous New Zealand design design, it sort of folds up, goes onto a trailer. Um we jokingly called it the luxury family cruising boat, but it was a all carbon fiber, very light thing. And then when we go, we put all the cruising gear on it for two weeks of the year and go cruising um around the Harake Gulf here. And um, so we had some great times as a family. Um, great times and some tough times too, because it was such a small boat, it was like camping on the water. Um, but uh no, it was we'd learned a lot, and um, yeah, it was it was fantastic. So yeah, I've you know experienced.

Capn Tinsley: 1:06:55

Any aspirations to go around the world or anything?

Jon Bilger: 1:06:58

Um, yeah, I think yeah, it's at some stage, but um, yeah, I think at this stage, um, you know, we're pretty busy with the business, and um yeah, that'd be kind of sure. Yeah, yeah. So I think you can't do too many things at once, but we really enjoy the foiling um as a family. You know, we go to you know, the Cook Islands, Ata Tucky every year for two or three weeks, and um yeah, we also really enjoy doing the local competitions here, and um yeah, so it's it's we've been on friends cruising boats um in the Pacific, so yeah, it's been uh it's we're very fortunate to be able to do that. Yeah.

Capn Tinsley: 1:07:35

Well, let's let's uh one more question and then we'll this will be the last question. I have more, but we've been on here an hour. Um best piece of advice that you'd give to someone nervous about offshore weather, offshore thing.

Jon Bilger: 1:07:51

I mean, obviously I'm completely biased here because I'm you know in the company, but I I do really think that you you you make a massive head start by um you know getting predict win. But the biggest thing, the frustration we have with a lot of our customers is they get the product a few days before they're about to depart, and then they're trying to try to learn it, trying to learn it as they go, and that's really stressful because you know, when you get a boat, you know, it's like running a small city, right? You're generating your water, you're in power, you're doing the safety, there's just a huge amount of things, it's just a mile long. So, you know, weather often gets pushed to the bottom of the pile. Um, so my advice to people is to try and you know learn the weather, you know, the predict wind tool um early if you can, try and get at least three months before, even if you're just looking at the forecast, running a weather route, just getting familiar with the tools. And you know, you can go online and look at our help, and you can go and ask questions to our team. Um, but if you just become familiar with that and really know how to use it, I mean it really will help you getting out there. Um, I'd say 50% of our customers um have seen the thing on YouTube and they just really don't have a much of a selling background and they're kind of and good on them, they're going out there living the dream, but they kind of really, you know, they really do rely on it very heavily to make sure they don't get things. The other other half will be quite proficient and experienced. And but both camps, you you know, if you have those tools and you use them well, honestly, you know, we hear story after story of people coming back from the uh you know around the world trips saying, Thank you so much. You know, you basically kept us safe. And so for us, that's a that's a huge thing of why we do it.

Capn Tinsley: 1:09:34

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's great. Okay, well, thank you so much for coming on and telling us your story. What a fascinating story, and thank you for developing it.

Jon Bilger: 1:09:44

Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you for those nice kind words, and uh yeah, thanks for having us on the show.

Capn Tinsley: 1:09:51

Thank you so much. Hope to see you in the near future. And at that, we'll say salty abandon.