Operator guide
How to use NauticGrid end to end
One playbook for the dashboard, intelligence rail, ports, lanes, and billing — so you can brief clients with confidence without hunting a dozen tabs.
Overview
Start at the dashboard
Ticker + hero, WTI impact, disruption feed, then the right-hand intelligence rail.
Zoom to ports
Port pages combine congestion, weather, and stories for each LOCODE.
Stress-test lanes
Lane health aggregates origin, destination, chokepoints, and benchmarks.
Account & access
Sign in with Google or a magic link to your email. Without an account you still get a preview: the first few disruption stories on the home feed and a limited port index preview — enough to judge quality before you commit.
Free (signed in) keeps the home dashboard: full disruption feed, Daily Intel, and the intelligence rail widgets on /. Ports and Lanes stay in preview mode until you upgrade (same blur pattern as anonymous visitors on those routes).
Harbor Pilot is the one-time paid tier (USD 20 via Stripe): every tracked port, lane detail, lane watchlists, and full story rooms — billed once, not as a subscription. Customer service: info@nauticgrid.xyz. See Pricing, Terms, and Refunds.
Dashboard (home)
The main column is your narrative arc: positioning, then operational widgets (WTI and friends), then the disruption feed. **Personas:** on a wide screen the strip stays in the hero above WTI; on a narrow screen it moves to sit **directly above the feed** so it is obvious which stories you are filtering. Use personas to filter stories by role tags when you are under time pressure.
WTI freight impact
Near-term bunker-pressure context: spot level, short window stats, and plain-language implications for quotes.
Daily Intel
AI-ranked synthesis from live RSS signals — headline, impacts, and operator actions. Cached and versioned for consistency.
Dashboard — 60 seconds
Scan the live ticker and hero. On desktop, the persona strip sits in the hero above the WTI card; on a phone it appears below WTI, directly above the disruption feed it filters — pick a role and the headlines below change. Note Breaking Alert (if any), then Disruption Index and chokepoint widgets. Elevated network risk means prioritize customer comms before chasing spot rates. Available on every signed-in plan (free dashboard included).
WTI & macro context
Use the WTI freight-impact card for bunker-pressure context on quotes. Pair it with the macro freight widget (e.g. BDI or lane benchmarks) when explaining why tenders feel firmer.
Daily Intel & feed
Daily Intel synthesizes top RSS-backed signals into a single brief. Skim it, then scroll Top disruptions — severity and tags tell you what to escalate first. Signed-in users get full AI summaries on cards. Optional badges show free GDELT-based news corroboration (see the guide section).
Ports that touch your cargo
Open /ports and drill into origin and destination. Check congestion trend, weather, and port-scoped stories. Without Harbor Pilot you see a preview (anonymous or free dashboard); Harbor Pilot unlocks the full story list and every region.
Lanes before you promise ETAs
Use /lanes for corridor-level pressure: composite health from disruption index, chokepoints, and rates. Harbor Pilot unlocks live scores and detail pages; watchlist lanes you run so they surface under “My lanes” on the dashboard and account.
Snapshot & brief
Below the feed, Today’s Digest / lane snapshot summarizes posture for your role. Combine with email capture if you want the weekday brief in inbox.
Intelligence rail
The right column stacks specialized cards. Order can vary by data availability (e.g. active crisis), but you will typically see:
- Daily Intel — top of the intelligence rail; AI-ranked synthesis from live signals.
- Your lanes — watchlisted corridors when you have Harbor Pilot access and have watchlisted lanes.
- Disruption Index — global score plus ranked ports; tail-risk blended so the headline matches hotspot stress.
- Ahead of market — quick statistical signal on how early stories tend to run vs lagging outlets.
- Crisis / congestion / chokepoints / affected ports — situational blocks when data is present.
- Macro freight — e.g. BDI or lane benchmark series for market context.
Reading the signals
- If the headline Disruption Index and several hotspot ports disagree, trust the blended headline — it is tail-risk aware — but still read the port list for where pain is concentrated.
- If chokepoints worsen while the index is only moderate, assume schedule risk on exposed lanes before rates fully reflect it.
- If a port is elevated (watch/high) and congestion trend is worsening, expect dwell variability before carriers publish new schedules.
- If stories are severe but the network index looks calm, treat as early warning: monitor the next refresh cycle instead of over-correcting quotes.
- When destination stress and oil or freight volatility rise together, flag low ETA confidence and offer routing alternatives early.
News corroboration badges
Some story cards show a small badge under the summary. It reflects open global news overlap (GDELT — no paywall) plus, when available, whether your Disruption Index for a linked port is elevated. It is not satellite proof or a claim that a headline is false — it helps you see when independent outlets are clustering on the same themes as the RSS item.
- Signal + news aligned — GDELT cluster plus elevated index for an affected port.
- Open news corroboration — GDELT shows a meaningful article cluster; treat as extra context, not verification.
- Weak news cluster — few matching global articles in the recent window (or data not yet computed).
Ports & stories
/ports lists the global network — good for SEO and quick scanning. Click through to a port for congestion charts, weather, and a disruption story list.
Without signing in — or on the free dashboard plan — you see a preview of stories and regions. Harbor Pilot unlocks the full feed for every port. Use severity and tags to prioritize which delays to mention first on customer calls.
Lanes
/lanes shows composite health for major trade corridors once you have Harbor Pilot access. Without it, you see the same gated preview as anonymous visitors. With Harbor Pilot, sign in and watchlist lanes you operate — they feed "My lanes" on your account and surface on the dashboard.
Pair lane scores with chokepoint and oil context from the dashboard — clients hear a coherent story instead of isolated data points.
Plans & pricing
Two public paths: Free (lifetime home dashboard — disruption feed, Daily Intel, widgets on /; ports and lanes stay preview-only) and Harbor Pilot (USD 20 one-time via Stripe — full ports, lanes, watchlists, and story rooms for the life of that product tier). No subscription for Harbor Pilot.
Early accounts may show a Harbor Pilot founding cohort badge on your account when you are in the first tranche of signups; we do not publish live signup counts. Legacy monthly subscribers, if any, still manage billing through Stripe; receipts and refunds follow /legal/refund.
View pricing & Harbor PilotDaily checklist
Before the first client call
Ticker → index + chokepoints → your top ports → any CRITICAL/HIGH stories touching active shipments.
Before you lock a quote
WTI card + lane health + destination congestion trend + force-majeure language if geopolitical stories spike.
Quick links
Jump back into the product or review commercial terms.