Have you experienced situations like these?

• The yacht owner's grandson took the WaveRunner out a while back. Where is he now? Is he is on the way back? When can you expect him to return?

• The owner and his guests took the 27' tender out for an afternoon at a secluded beach. You need to be alerted 15 minutes before their return to get ready to receive them.

• An inexperienced guests has sustained rudder damage with a tender and pressed its “Pick-Me-Up” button. You need to direct the chase boat to the scene.

These are quite common situations. SeaCAS' Rendez-vous Tender Information System excels in helping you respond to such events quickly and effectively. Sure you can use a mobile phone or a VHF radio, but that requires a two-way call (and that the tender is within mobile phone coverage or within VHF range). Rendez-vous doesn't require the tender operator to respond at all. Rendez-vous not only sends you the tender's whereabouts and status silently and automatically, it also displays it as a “target” on the navigation screen on the bridge.

On the navigation display, a tender target shows its name, where it is, where it is going and how fast it is going (COG and SOG vector). On this sample navigation screen (see below), the tender TERRIER is 15.92 NM away from ANTARES and seems to be heading back to the yacht at 11.6 knots. The TERRIER has pushed its “Pick-Me-Up” button so LABRADOR, the 27' chase boat, needs to be dispatched to respond. If the chase boat has a small, AIS-ready, chart plotter then it will show where TERRIER is and where it's going, making it easier to rendezvous with TERRIER, even in the dark of night.