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WorkBoat Ramps

Turning local knowledge into a useful public map

A free directory of boat-launch ramps in Greece, built to make community knowledge easier to find, contribute to, and keep up to date.

A pin answers "where." It does not answer "what will I find when I get there?" For someone planning to launch a boat, that second question matters. What condition is the ramp in? Will they need a 4×4? Is there a charge? What have other boaters reported? Much of that knowledge already existed among the people using Greece's ramps. We built Boat Ramps to give it a home: a free, public map where visitors can find locations, read community reports, and contribute their own experience.

Year
2026
Services
Product development · Custom Software · AI Assistants

Visuals · Boat Ramps

The challenge

The problem

A first season on the water in Greece made the need concrete. Having learned to sail in Denmark, the practical questions were different: getting a boat from the road to the water, finding space for the car and trailer, and understanding what to expect at an unfamiliar launch.

Weekends watching launches at Glyfada brought those details into focus. Choosing a place on the map was only the beginning.

The boating community was already sharing useful information. Many of the first locations came from the Facebook group Αποδράση με φουσκωτό, whose members had collected and exchanged launch spots. Their contributions gave the project its starting point.

The opportunity was to make that knowledge easier to use beyond the conversation where it was first shared. Someone planning a trip should be able to find a ramp and its reported conditions without searching through old posts or knowing whom to ask.

We developed Boat Ramps as our own community project, with free access and modest running costs built into the brief.

The solution

The solution

The map is the main way into Boat Ramps. Visitors can explore a stretch of coast, open a location, and see the information available for it. They can also share the location or open the same point in the Navionics Boating app.

The details reflect the decisions people make before towing a boat somewhere: ramp condition, whether a 4×4 is reported as necessary, whether payment is required, and any written notes from the community.

Where information is missing, it stays missing. A blank field is not turned into an assumption.

A map built around the launch

Markers distinguish locations with reviewed community details from those still awaiting more information. Those details are reports from contributors, rather than a guarantee of current conditions or suitability for a particular boat and vehicle. The purpose is to give visitors a more informed starting point.

No account is needed to browse or suggest a contribution. Keeping that friction low matters for a resource that depends on people sharing what they know.

Making contributions manageable

Opening a directory to contributions creates an ongoing responsibility: useful additions need a route onto the map, while spam, irrelevant text, and duplicates need to be kept out.

We built a separate queue for new locations and corrections. A submission enters that queue and triggers an email notification. It does not change the public map directly.

Before publication, an import process checks for required coordinates and screens for potential duplicates near existing pins. AI assists with screening new names and notes for abusive, spam-like, or unrelated content. Flagged submissions wait for a person to review them.

These checks help manage the quality of incoming contributions. They do not verify physical conditions at a ramp, so the distinction between submission screening and on-site knowledge remains important.

Publishing is a deliberate step, run manually. At this scale, that gives the project a straightforward way to accept public input while retaining control over changes to the directory. It also keeps maintenance practical. The community can contribute through a simple form, and the published data remains separate from the incoming suggestions.

One source for the map and directory

People find launch locations in different ways. Some explore a coastline on a map. Others search for a ramp near a town or browse a region before deciding where to go. We built both routes around the same dataset.

The records behind the map also generate the directory: pages for Greece, individual regions, and named ramps with enough information to warrant their own page. Each ramp page links back to its location on the map.

That shared foundation reduces the work of maintaining the site. Adding a location does not require someone to create a second, separate directory entry, and updates can flow through to both views.

We also accounted for incomplete records. A useful coordinate can remain on the map while it awaits a proper name or further detail. It does not need a finished editorial page to be useful.

The interface is available in Greek, English, and Italian, with language-specific page information to support discovery through search. Practical guides on preparation, launching, and choosing a ramp sit alongside the directory. Automatically translated guides are labelled, with links to the English source text.

The approach

Approach

The first release focused on the essential task: finding a ramp. It offered a map in Greek and English, a way to suggest locations, and a feedback channel.

As the dataset grew, we developed the contribution workflow, duplicate checks, and content screening. Condition reports and written notes gave locations more context. Marker states and the Navionics link made that information easier to use.

The directory, additional language support, and guides followed, extending the ways people could discover the information already collected.

Throughout development, we kept the operating model in view. This is a free community resource with a few hundred locations. Its infrastructure and publishing process need to be affordable and manageable over time.

Hosting and domain costs are approximately €100 a year, supported through voluntary contributions. The manual publishing step remains part of that approach: a small, understandable process suited to the project's size.

Impact

Impact

At the time of writing, Boat Ramps brings together 615 mapped ramps, up from an initial set of 119; 496 locations added through the contribution review process; and 306 ramps with community descriptions.

Those contributions turn the map into something more useful than a collection of coordinates. Visitors can see what others have reported, add a missing location, or suggest a correction based on their own experience.

For Deep Tail Tech, the work extended from identifying the need to designing the interface, building the application, and establishing a manageable way to maintain its content. The map, directory, and contribution workflow were developed together so the resource could continue growing after its first release.

Boat Ramps gives local knowledge a wider reach. Someone who knows a launch well can help the next person arrive better prepared.

Technologies

Stack

  • Next.js
  • TypeScript
  • LLM APIs

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