Vesper Marine Cortex Nominated for Coveted DAME Award

Auckland, New Zealand – Vesper Marine, a leading provider of innovative marine hardware and software, announced today that Cortex has been nominated for the highly prestigious DAME Design Award, in the marine electronics and marine related software category. The announcement of the winner of the DAME Design Award 2019 will take place during the METSTRADE Breakfast Briefing in the Forum of RAI Amsterdam on Tuesday, November 19, 2019. Look for Cortex at the Vesper Marine booth, stand 02.214.

The DAME Design Award is a fiercely contested marine equipment accolade, which for 29 years has focused on the art and science of equipment design in all aspects, from styling, functionality and innovation through to integration, practicality of use and presentation. It is judged by a panel of leading boat, interior and industrial designers, as well as user experts. A nomination is recognition of a product being top standard of design for marine equipment.

Cortex provides unparalleled safety by alerting boaters of collision risks, providing key information about the situation and making it easy to communicate. Unleashing the full potential of VHF, AIS and DSC, Cortex is the world’s first VHF radio with wireless touchscreen handsets, built-in Class B SOTDMA smartAIS transponder and remote vessel monitoring.

“We are so excited that Cortex has been nominated for a DAME Design Award,” said Jeff Robbins, founder, Vesper Marine. “We set out to reimagine what VHF and AIS could be. Starting with a blank sheet of paper, we were relentlessly focused on making safety communications more effective and easier to use. Cortex is the result.”

Cortex fundamentally changes how boaters interact with communication systems by making typically complicated functions very intuitive and easy to use. Simply touching a vessel on the handset screen and pressing “call” initiates a direct DSC call while continuing to show crossing situations, navigation light sectors and trial maneuvers on the handset display. Pressing the dedicated MOB button activates a track back mode on all handsets and marks the MOB waypoint on NMEA 2000® connected multi-function displays.

Cortex makes other vessels aware of your boats position and heading through the integrated heading sensor, GPS and SOTDMA smartAIS transponder. It combines navigation sensor data and AIS information with intelligent alarm management to prioritize alerts for the most urgent response. Instead of ambiguous tones, Cortex sounds the alarm with voiced alerts that escalate until acknowledged on wireless handsets or a connected speaker.

Cortex combines built in sensors and NMEA 2000 with cloud connectivity for free remote monitoring. View twice-daily updates of power, location, wind, depth, bilge and more on a smartphone. A premium subscription unlocks real-time vessel status, alerts and device control for boat systems like refrigerators, air conditioning or lights.

Whether sleeping onboard at night or away from the boat, Cortex gives owners the confidence that their boat is safely anchored through Anchor Watch. On board alarms are via Cortex handsets and WiFi connected smartphones. While ashore, Cortex alerts smartphones via the Cortex Monitor app.

The tethered H1 and portable H1P handsets have 4-inch Gorilla Glass multi-touch displays that are wet and glove capable, and optically bonded for wide-angle and sunlight viewability. One-handed operation is easy through ergonomic design and a click-wheel. Up to 10 wireless handsets can connect to the M1 hub, each providing up to 85 dBA of crystal-clear audio. The M1’s 10W speaker output provides alerting even while handsets are turned off.

For more information on Cortex visit www.vespercortex.com. For more information on Vesper Marine or its entire product line, visit www.vespermarine.com. 

About Vesper Marine

Based in Auckland, New Zealand, privately held Vesper Marine is a global provider of marine safety products for commercial and recreational vessels, aids to navigation and marine asset protection solutions. Since 2007, Vesper Marine's award-winning collision avoidance systems, transponders, shore stations and aids to navigation have been designed for performance, reliability and ease of use and are backed by outstanding technical support. Committed to rigorous R&D and innovation, the company designs and manufactures practical electronic solutions that enhance safety and proactively protect marine assets from vessel damage.

Contact:
Andrew Golden
Rushton Gregory Communications
617-413-6521
agolden@rushtonrgregory.com