Fishing Charter Booking – Smarter Charters

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Smarter Charters

Coretechs partnered with Smarter Charters to bring a fresh idea to life: a platform designed specifically for marinas and charter boat operators. While this was our first project together, the vision was clear from the start. We needed to build a clean, purpose-driven system to replace the patchwork of spreadsheets, calendars, and phone calls used across the industry.

There was no legacy system to migrate or optimize — just a blank canvas and a client who deeply understood the problem and was ready to build the right solution from the ground up.

The ask was simple but ambitious: make it easy for marinas and charter boat operators to manage their bookings  without the chaos. At the time, scheduling a trip relied on juggling paper calendars, text messages, and crossed fingers hoping that double bookings wouldn’t happen.

Scenario

A customer wants to book a sunset cruise. The marina admin checks a paper calendar, texts the captain, to confirm availability over a phone call and then updates a spreadsheet. Meanwhile, another customer is inquiring about the same time slot — and there’s no instant way to know if it’s already booked. Not good!

Decision Time

With the vision in place, we got to work choosing the stack, mapping the architecture, and assembling the right team at Coretechs to build it.

At Coretechs, before we write a single line of code, we ask a few key questions:

  1. Who’s using this system every day, and what do they actually need?
  2. Which parts of the app need to move fast, and which need to scale quietly in the background?
  3. What tools will help us deliver quickly, without painting us into a corner later?
  4. Are we building a platform that evolves? Or is it a one-time solution with limited scope?
  5. What third-party tools (payments, notifications, analytics) need to plug in smoothly?

For Smarter Charters, Coretechs knew the answer had to serve multiple audiences — marina admins, captains, and customers — each with very different workflows. 

For Smarter Charters, we had to serve three distinct audiences: Marina Admins — need a clean, mobile-friendly dashboard, Captains — need self-serve tools to block dates, confirm trips, Customers — need simple booking interfaces that just work

This is what we decided on and why for this project:

Technology Choices

Our Reason

PostgreSQL

Structured, scalable, and rock-solid. Great for managing bookings, timezone handling, and preventing conflicts across multiple marinas.

Stripe + ACH

Secure, automated payments. Stripe Connect allowed revenue splits between marinas and captains, and ACH enabled direct bank deposits.

Vue 3 + Quasar Framework

Vue gave us flexibility, and Quasar gave us polish. Perfect for mobile-ready admin tools captains could use right from the dock.

Vue ChartJS

Visual dashboards for revenue, bookings, and performance — no spreadsheets required.

Twilio + SendGrid

Automated SMS and email alerts kept everyone — admins, captains, and clients — informed in real time

Where does the stack live?

Once we finalized the technology stack for Smarter Charters, the next step was figuring out where everything would live. Hosting isn’t just about speed or storage. It’s about reliability, growth, and making sure the platform works every single time someone opens it to check their bookings.

For this, we chose Amazon Web Services. It’s flexible, dependable, and gives us room to grow as more marinas and boats come online.

  • EC2 instances run the PHP backend, manage the APIs, and serve the admin dashboard. They’re load-balanced and kept healthy with rolling deployments and constant monitoring.
  • S3 storage is used for boat images, manifests, and documents. Everything is organized and easy to retrieve, whether you’re on a laptop or a dock with your phone.
  • CloudFront CDN helps media and assets load fast everywhere. So captains and customers aren’t stuck waiting for booking details or images to show up.
  • PostgreSQL is the database of choice. It’s structured, reliable, and handles time zones correctly. That’s important when you’re managing boats across different coasts.
  • Monitoring and backups are built in. CloudWatch watches for issues. Snapshots run on a schedule. The system is designed to catch problems early and keep the data safe.

With this foundation, Smarter Charters is ready to grow confidently. Whether it’s one marina or one hundred, the stack can handle the pressure.

Implementing strategies with our development:

 

This part doesn’t always get the spotlight, but it’s critical. At Coretechs, we don’t just build features  we align development with how clients actually work. Smarter Charters brought deep industry insight. They knew where the bottlenecks were, what was manual that needed automation, and what just needed to work better. Our job was to translate that into custom software.

We started by mapping real workflows  from booking to manifest to payment. That informed the first sprints: real-time booking, automated alerts, and shared calendars. From there, we prioritized based on operational value. If captains needed an easier way to block off time it fell in that spring. If admins struggled with late manifests Coretechs automated them asap.

Between major releases, we polished flows, fixed edge cases, and improved performance on mobile. Internal builds were shared with real users  captains, owners, marina teams  so we could gather real-world feedback early and often. That loop helped us fine-tune everything before full rollout.

 

Where we are today

The Smarter Charters platform is live and used daily by charter operators, marina staff, and captains up and down the coast. From simple 4 hour charters to 5-day manifests, the system powers real-time operations at scale.

Coretechs continues to ship updates, improve the UI, and build features based on real-world use. What started as a scheduling tool has evolved into a command center for trip management, payment automation, and communication.

Up next? Seasonal pricing tools, deeper analytics, and accounting integration. As the charter industry evolves, Smarter Charters is staying ahead — and we’re proud to help lead the way.

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Gil Austin

President of Coretechs

Talk to Gil

Gil has over 39 years of experience in software development, project management, and business development. He’ll provide an on-the-spot assessment, critical feedback, and determine the level of effort required for your project.

202-540-0002

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Gil Austin

President of Coretechs

Talk to Gil

Gil has over 39 years of experience in software development, project management, and business development. He’ll provide an on-the-spot assessment, critical feedback, and determine the level of effort required for your project.

202-540-0002