As innovators in the marine insurance space, Safe Harbor finds value in companies who improve efficiencies of maritime communications. Continue reading to learn more about HubLink.

Every day, boat owners and operators communicate in roundabout ways. They use word-of-mouth, phone conversations, and email lists to find available vessels and negotiate charter arrangements. This increases costs and decreases sales. Additionally, the process of reporting offshore emergencies is slow and inefficient. No matter how significant the event, emergencies are generally reported via email, phone, radio, and other word-of-mouth resources.

Increasingly, industry leaders are turning toward digital solutions to boost efficiency and improve safety. HubLink is a new enterprise application that streamlines asset management workflows and helps users communicate rapidly.

“I have a lifetime's worth of experience in the offshore energy market,” says Grant Hillman, CEO and Founder of  HubLink. “For years before we started development, what became HubLink's leadership team and I had been discussing an application that would help charter companies and offshore operators work safer and more efficiently. After we connected with Quimby Melton, our CMO and CPO, we began development in May of 2016.”
 
“Later that year, in August, Harsh Choudhry at McKinsey & Company published an article titled ‘The Next Frontier for Digital Technologies in Oil and Gas.’ In it, he argues ‘the effective use of digital technologies’ could help oil and gas companies reduce capital expenditures by 20% and cut operating costs 3-5%. Those figures are too large to ignore, and his thoughts really sum up why we built HubLink: to help charter companies and offshore operators reduce costs, recapture time, and operate safer.”

Here’s how HubLink helps boat owners and offshore operators:

Boat Owners

Charter companies can use HubLink to access customers and share real-time vessel availability information with operators twenty-four hours a day:

• See your entire fleet on a single screen.
• Set each vessel’s availability and make real-time updates.
• Get visibility into daily fleet earnings.
• eSign and archive charter agreements.

Offshore Operators

Operators can quickly browse their vendor networks’ inventories, find exactly what they need, and electronically send, sign, and save agreements:

• Browse and quickly sort vessels available for charter using a range of selectors.
• Review vessel spec sheets.
• Charter a vessel in one click, or message the owner for more information.
• See all active charters on your “My Fleet” screen, including spending by day.

Alerts & SOS

HubLink also offers users a range of important notifications. These include offers and messages from operators and charter companies, notifications that new operators have joined the system, and—most importantly—SOS drills and alerts.

In the event of an offshore emergency, HubLink’s SOS feature can help you rapidly notify other users and get assets and response crews in the field faster. As a result, risks to people, property, and the environment decrease substantially.

“As we began sharing early versions of HubLink with marine underwriters, charter companies, and offshore operators, we discovered something important,” Grant says. “Even in the 21st century, the process of reporting offshore emergencies is slow and inefficient. No matter how significant the event, oil and gas professionals generally report emergencies via email, phone, radio, and other word-of-mouth resources. Even the United States Coast Guard uses little more than a telephone hotline, email alerts, and enormous, static spreadsheets.

Even after Deepwater Horizon, a simple fact remains: It’s far easier to marshal a response to the abduction of a single child and inform people about weather events than it is to alert the oil and gas industry about substantial maritime disasters. We began asking ourselves how we could use smartphone adoption trends and other technology advances to improve the process of reporting and mobilizing responses to offshore emergencies.”

“The solution we created is HubLink's SOS feature. It allows users to rapidly notify the oil and gas community about well-control emergencies, platform fires, persons overboard, vessels in distress, and other emergencies that pose significant risks to life, billion-dollar risks to property, and overwhelming environmental damage.”

To help with prevention and compliance efforts, the SOS feature also allows users to run drills. This technology modernizes and improves the process of preparing for and reporting offshore emergencies.

Interested in learning more about HubLink? This :01 video overview can help. You can also email info@usehublink.com for more information.