Everything your boat's record can do

ReadyHelm is where you keep your boat's full record — maintenance, service history, safety checklists, equipment, and documents — in one place, and share exactly as much of it as you want with crew, family, or your boatyard.

Creating an account

You can sign in two ways:

• Sign in with Google — one click, no password to remember.
• Email + password — enter your name, email, and a password on the sign-up screen.

Every new account starts on the Free plan (see Your Plan & Upgrading).

Forgot your password? Use Forgot password? on the sign-in screen. You'll get an email with a reset link that's valid for one hour. If you originally signed up with Google, this also lets you set a password for the first time.

Welcome: owner, crew, or both

After you sign up, First Mate welcomes you aboard and asks what you'd like to set up first:

• Boat Owner. Track maintenance, documents, and service history for your boat. This takes you to adding your boat (below).
• Crew Member. Log hours toward a captain's license and help out on a boat you don't own. Search for the boat by boat name or owner email and click Request Access. The owner gets your request to approve. If the boat isn't on ReadyHelm yet, you can invite the owner to join (see Timeline & Your Crew).

Pick one or both. Anything you skip can be picked up later from the Finish setting up your account banner on Home, so nothing blocks you from using the app.

Some new accounts get guided setup instead: First Mate asks I have a boat or I crew on someone else's boat, takes your boat's basics, asks where it lives, and lets you choose a simple or full Home. See Simple Mode & Guided Setup.

Adding your boat

You have two ways to add a boat:

• First Mate. Upload documents you already have (a HIN plate photo, registration, insurance, a survey, receipts, and more) and First Mate fills in the boat's details for you to review. See First Mate.
• Enter details. Type in the basics yourself: name, make, model, year, type, engine hours, and location. As you type the make and model, ReadyHelm suggests matches from boats it already knows. The suggestions are optional, and anything you type is kept as-is.

If you don't have a boat and only want to track your certifications, choose Skip — I don't have a boat, just track my certifications.

The HIN

Every boat is identified by its Hull Identification Number (HIN), the alphanumeric code stamped on the hull, usually on the starboard transom. HINs are permanent and belong to the boat, not any one owner, so ReadyHelm uses them to keep a boat's history together across ownership changes.

You don't need the HIN to get started. Leave it blank and the boat is created right away, with its HIN shown as "Pending." Add it later from Edit vessel. Everything you've logged in the meantime moves over to the real HIN automatically.

When you do enter a HIN (up to 12 characters, capitalized automatically), what happens depends on whether ReadyHelm has seen it before:

• Brand-new HIN. The boat is linked to you as its owner.
• HIN with no current owner (for example, logged by a boatyard before you signed up). The boat is assigned to you, along with its existing history.
• HIN already owned by someone else. ReadyHelm sends a transfer request to the current owner instead of taking the boat over. You'll see "Claim submitted" and get access once they approve it.

Adding more boats

Once you have at least one boat, use + Add New Vessel from the vessel switcher at the top of the sidebar (or the vessel name dropdown on mobile). You get the same First Mate / Enter details choice.

How many boats you can add depends on your plan. See My Account, Plans & Upgrading. If you're at your limit, you'll see an upgrade prompt instead of the add-boat form.

Finding your way around

The left sidebar (desktop) or the header and bottom icons (mobile) are your main navigation. The 🔔 bell at the top of the sidebar shows notifications (see Messages & Notifications).

At the top, available from anywhere:

• 🏠 Home. Your whole fleet at a glance (see Home & Vessel Summary).
• 💬 Messages. Conversations with your crew and boatyard (see Messages & Notifications).
• First Mate. Chat with the AI assistant about your boats (see First Mate).

Crew Corner (covers all of your boats):

• 🕐 Timeline. Everything with a date, across your fleet (see Timeline & Your Crew).
• 🧭 My Trips. Every trip you're on, plus crew invites waiting on you (see Captain's Log).
• 🎓 Safety & Certs. Your certifications and emergency info (see My Account, Plans & Upgrading).
• 👥 Your Crew. Everyone with access to your boats, and crew requests to approve (see Timeline & Your Crew).
• 🛟 Float Plans. Safety check-ins across your fleet (see Float Plan).
• 🟠 Berths. Your moorings and slips (see Berths: Moorings & Slips).

Vessel (the boat selected in the vessel switcher):

• 🏠 Vessel Summary. This boat's status at a glance.
• 🗂️ Vessel Records. Sharing & Ownership, Insurance, Registration, Ratings, Identifiers, Specifications, and Documents (see Vessel Records).
• 🔧 Equipment. Your gear inventory (see Equipment).
• ⚓ Checklists. Before/After Trip, custom checklists, and the USCG safety checklist (see Checklists).
• 📝 To-Do. Freeform tasks (see To-Do Items).
• 📋 Service Log. Maintenance tasks and service history (see Maintenance Tasks & Service Log).
• 💰 Expenses. Fuel, dockage, and other running costs (see Expenses).
• ⚓ Captain's Log. Trips, crew hours, and USCG sea-service tracking (see Captain's Log).

On mobile, the header keeps search, messages, First Mate and the bell, and the ☰ menu holds My Account, the Pro portal, the User Guide, Give feedback and Sign out.

At the bottom of the sidebar, 📖 User Guide opens this guide and 💬 Give feedback reports a bug, requests a feature, or asks for help (see Giving Feedback). Your name is shown below it. Click it to open My Account (see My Account, Plans & Upgrading).

If you're also part of a business on ReadyHelm Pro (a boatyard, mooring service or brokerage, for example), 🧰 Pro portal at the bottom of the sidebar (in the ☰ menu on mobile) switches to it without signing in again. Your boats stay on this account. See the Pro Portal guide.

If you own more than one boat, use the vessel switcher to move between them. Everything in the Vessel section updates to that boat.

Some items only appear if your plan includes them. Others show an upgrade prompt when you open them.

Installing ReadyHelm on your phone or computer

ReadyHelm can be installed like an app. In your browser, use Add to Home Screen (iPhone/iPad: Safari's Share menu; Android: Chrome's menu) or the Install icon in the address bar (desktop Chrome and Edge). It then opens in its own window with the ReadyHelm icon. The installed app loads its screens even when your connection is patchy, but you still need to be online to load or save your data.

Two different things share the word "dashboard": 🏠 Home, a fleet-wide sidebar item above the vessel switcher, and Vessel Summary, the first tab you land on for whichever boat is currently selected. Home is about your whole fleet; Vessel Summary is about one boat. On mobile both live on the Home tab: a switch at the top flips between All boats (or Overview with one boat) and the selected boat. It remembers your choice, and starts on All boats if you have more than one. Tapping a boat on the fleet view opens it.

Home

Your fleet-wide dashboard: its own item at the very top of the sidebar, above Crew Corner and the vessel switcher.

Finish setting up your account

If you skipped part of the welcome flow (adding a boat, or finding a boat to crew on), a banner at the top of Home offers to pick up where you left off. Dismiss for now hides it. See Getting Started.

Simple view and setup cards

If you chose Keep it simple during guided setup, Home is one card per boat instead of the tiles below: what's due, how ready it is, and Log something. Show me everything switches to the tiles; Switch to the simple view switches back.

In the full view, guided setup adds Get more ready (readiness per boat plus one setup question), Suggested maintenance, and an occasional one-step nudge at the top. Owners from before guided setup see a Tune my dashboard offer. All of this is covered in Simple Mode & Guided Setup.

What's New

A banner at the top surfaces the latest ReadyHelm announcement, if there is one — title and body, collapsible. It only appears when something's been published and you haven't hidden that tile; there's no way to write one yourself, it's ReadyHelm-authored.

Tiles

Below that, a grid of independent tiles, each show/hideable and reorderable:

• Your fleet — every boat you can see, with its photo, score ring, and "Ready to sail"/"Needs attention" headline.
• Action needed — the worst overdue maintenance tasks across your whole fleet (top 5, sorted worst-first), each showing the vessel, system, task, and days overdue, with a "+N more" tally. Click through to that vessel's Service Log.
• Coming up — the same treatment for tasks due soon, before they tip into overdue.
• Quick links — shortcuts to start a trip, add a to-do, add a service entry, or add a receipt.
• Float Plans — a count of your open Float Plans still awaiting a "we're back safely" close-out, plus the most recent one. See Float Plan.
• Your Crew — everyone with access across your fleet, by name.
• USCG sea service — pick your target license (OUPV or Master, Inland or Near Coastal) and see a progress bar toward that license's sea-day requirement, aggregated across every boat and trip you're on. It's informational only — a raw day count, not a validation of every USCG rule.
• Costs this year — your Service Log costs plus Expenses, year-to-date, summed across the fleet.
• Days on water this year — calendar days spanned by your logged trips this year.
• Weather — current NOAA conditions at each boat's home port: wind, gusts, waves, and the next tide. A boat appears here once its Location is linked to a known marine location (see Marine Locations & Weather).
• First Mate — a shortcut into the AI assistant to ask about maintenance or upcoming trips, or to set a reminder (see First Mate).

Note: Action needed/Coming up on Home cover only scheduled maintenance tasks — checklists and to-dos have their own status badges on their own pages.

Some tiles belong to features your plan doesn't include. Those still show, with an upgrade prompt, unless you hide them.

Customizing it

Customize opens a modal to drag-reorder tiles and toggle any of them on or off. Three tiles — Your fleet, Costs this year, and Days on water — also let you exclude specific vessels from just that one tile, without affecting anything else. Reset to default restores whatever layout an admin configured as the default.

Vessel Summary

The first tab for whichever boat is selected in the vessel switcher (labeled 🏠 in the sidebar). At the top: the boat's photo, a score ring (0–100) with a headline — 75 or above reads "Ready to sail," below that, "Needs attention" — and a one-line maintenance summary:

• If anything is overdue: "N overdue · N due soon"
• Otherwise, if something's coming up soon: "N items due soon"
• Otherwise: "All N maintenance tasks current", or "No maintenance tasks scheduled" if you haven't set any up yet.

This line is specifically about Maintenance Tasks — it doesn't include your To-Do list, which is tracked separately (see To-Do Items). Below the summary, a breakdown lists exactly what's keeping the score below 100, each one clickable straight to where you'd fix it. The boat's HIN is shown underneath.

If you're a shared Viewer/Editor rather than the owner, a badge shows your role. An incoming ownership-transfer or sharing request shows as a banner here too — see Vessel Records for the full picture.

Basic info & Photos

Edit the boat's name, make, model, year, type, engine hours, and location. Make and model suggest matches as you type. Location uses the marine location picker, which links the boat's home port to NOAA forecasts (see Marine Locations & Weather).

If you added the boat without a HIN, it shows as Pending. Enter it here once you have it, and everything you've logged moves over to the real HIN. Once set, the HIN is permanent and can't be changed. Manage photos, including which one is the thumbnail shown on Home's "Your fleet" tile.

Harbor Master

A days-at-berth calculator for handing to a harbor master or yacht club — pick a date range (this season, calendar year, or custom) to see total mooring days and the date ranges you were away, based on your logged trips, then export as PDF or CSV.

If the boat has berths (see Berths: Moorings & Slips), pick one under Berth, or All berths (whole vessel). Each berth counts only the dates the boat was on it. The boat's Home berth is picked first; set or Clear it here. Manage berths opens the Berths page, and Log launch/haul-out dates records a season's dates on the boat's mooring.

Verified history report

"Thinking of selling?" generates a shareable summary of the boat's maintenance record — handy for a broker, surveyor, or buyer. It separates independently verified entries (logged by a boatyard or backed by an invoice) from owner-reported ones, since a buyer will weigh those differently.

ReadyHelm tracks two related but different things: scheduled maintenance (what's due, and when) and the service log (a record of work already done).

Maintenance Tasks

A Maintenance Task is a reminder for maintenance work, such as an oil change or an impeller replacement. Each task shows a status:

• 🔴 Overdue: past due.
• 🟡 Due soon: coming up.
• 🟢 OK: current.

Setting up a task

Under 📋 Service Log → All maintenance tasks, click + Add maintenance task. Pick the system, describe the task, and choose when it's due:

• Days: repeats every so many days (for example, every 365 days).
• Engine hrs: repeats every so many engine hours (for example, every 100 hours).
• Due date: a one-time task on a specific date.

Optionally, link the task to one or more pieces of equipment so it shows up in that equipment's service history. Edit a task's interval and starting point any time with the ✎ icon, or delete it. Deleting a task removes the reminder and its history for good.

Your boatyard or service provider can also set up tasks for you. Those appear in the same list.

Not sure where to start? With guided setup, Suggested maintenance on Home offers typical tasks for your kind of boat that you add with one tap (see Simple Mode & Guided Setup).

Setting a replacement schedule on a piece of equipment (see Equipment) also creates a matching task here, so it's tracked like everything else.

Automatic reminders

When a task becomes due or overdue, ReadyHelm automatically adds a matching item to your To-Do list. The to-do is then included in your daily reminder email. The task and its to-do stay in sync:

• Mark the task done and its to-do is closed.
• Complete the to-do and the task's schedule rolls forward to the next due date.

A recurring task keeps repeating like this without ever creating duplicate to-dos.

Marking a task done

Use Mark as Done (from Home's Action Needed list) or Mark done (from the task list in the Service Log tab). Confirming logs the completion with today's date and restarts the countdown.

If the task is linked to equipment, ReadyHelm then asks Log a condition update too?, which gives you a quick way to record the equipment's condition while you're looking at it.

Service Log

The Service Log is your boat's history — every completed job, in one place. Entries come from two sources, shown separately:

• Verified History — independently confirmed, either because a service provider (boatyard) logged it, or because your provider confirmed an entry you logged. These carry a verification badge showing who did the work.
• Owner-Reported History — added directly by you. Not independently verified, but every edit is tracked and visible so the record stays honest.

If your boatyard bills through QuickBooks, a job they invoiced also shows the invoice number and whether it's Paid or how much is still due. If they take online payments, Pay invoice opens the invoice so you can pay it.

Quotes from your boatyard

When a service provider sends you a quote, you get a notification and an email, and it shows at the top of the boat's Service Log under Quotes to review: what the work is, each line with its price, and the total before tax. Approve tells them to go ahead. Decline lets you add a reason for them. You can also answer straight from the email's Approve and Decline buttons without signing in; each email's buttons work once, and stop working if the provider revises the quote or it passes its "valid until" date. Answered quotes move to Show earlier quotes. Quotes work on every plan, and only the boat's owner can answer them. To ask a question first, reply to the email or use the quote's thread in Messages.

Adding an entry yourself

Use + Add service entry. You can attach:

• The system/category it relates to (engine, electrical, rigging, etc.)
• A note describing the work
• Engine hours at the time
• Linked equipment (so it shows up in that equipment's own Service History tab too)

If the entry's engine hours are higher than the boat's current reading, the boat's engine hours go up to match. A lower number never lowers the reading. The same applies to entries your service provider logs.

Editing your own entries

You can edit or delete a service log entry you added yourself, as long as it hasn't been independently verified. A checkmark icon distinguishes a verified (boatyard-logged) entry — those are locked to protect the record's integrity, but you can still dispute one if you think it's wrong (see below).

Asking your provider to verify an entry

If a service provider did the work but you logged it yourself, open the entry and choose Request verification. Your provider confirms it happened (it then counts as verified) or declines it (it stays owner-reported). You need a provider connected to the boat first (see Vessel Records).

Disputing an entry

If a boatyard-logged entry looks incorrect, open it and choose Dispute this entry, optionally with a reason. The service provider will see the dispute and can resolve it.

Linking equipment

Both Maintenance Tasks and Service Log entries can reference specific equipment (e.g. "Volvo Penta D2-40" rather than just "Engine & Mechanical" in general). This builds a per-equipment history you can review from Equipment — useful for tracking exactly what's been done to a specific part over its life.

To-Do items are freeform, non-scheduled tasks — things you want to get to, but that aren't on a recurring interval like a Maintenance Task, and aren't yet a completed record like a Service Log entry. Find them under 📝 To-Do in the Vessel section of the sidebar.

Creating one

Type what needs doing, optionally pick a category (General, Engine & Mechanical, Navigation & Electronics, etc.), and add it. Click + More details to also set:

• Due date
• Priority (Low / Medium / Normal / Urgent / High)
• Assign to — anyone with Viewer or Editor access to this boat
• Related equipment
• Estimated hours / cost

Status

Every to-do has one of four statuses: Not Started, In Progress, Done, or Postponed. To set "In Progress" or "Postponed," open the item for editing (pencil icon) and pick it from the Status row.

Completing a to-do

Checking the box next to a to-do opens Complete to-do, a short form that records the work in the Service Log as you close the to-do. It's pre-filled from the to-do. Add notes on what was done, engine hours, and any equipment involved, then save. The to-do is marked Done and the Service Log entry is created in one step.

If the to-do doesn't need a service record (say, "buy a new boat hook"), click Just mark it done — don't log this to the Service Log.

Unchecking a completed to-do reopens it.

Completed items move to a Completed section at the bottom of the list, shown with a checkmark and struck-through text.

Postponed items are deliberately kept out of Home's "Action needed" list — they're something you've consciously deferred, not something demanding attention right now.

Attachments

Add a file or a link to a to-do (e.g. a parts quote, a photo of the issue) via the paperclip/link icons on each item.

Sharing and escalating

• 📤 Share as service request marks the to-do as something you'd like your boatyard or provider to see and quote. They can turn it into a work order and, once the work is done, complete it from their side, which logs the verified service entry and closes your to-do.

To-dos from maintenance reminders

When a scheduled maintenance task comes due, ReadyHelm adds a to-do for it automatically, so it shows up here and in your daily reminder email. Completing that to-do rolls the maintenance task forward to its next due date. Marking the task done from the Service Log closes the to-do.

You can also ask First Mate in chat to create a reminder for you. It appears here as a to-do.

Where else you'll see to-dos

• Equipment's Condition History lets you add a to-do directly from an inspection entry (e.g. "Replace impeller" right from the note where you spotted it).
• Home's "Action needed" section surfaces your open to-dos alongside overdue maintenance, so nothing gets lost between the two systems.

Find checklists under ⚓ Checklists in the Vessel section of the sidebar. Every checklist on the boat shows as a pill at the top of the page. Pick one to see its items, or start a new run of it.

Built-in checklists

• Before Trip: pre-departure checks, organized by category (Engine & Mechanical, Safety Equipment, Navigation & Electronics, and so on).
• After Trip: post-trip checks, such as cleanup, storage, and shutting systems down.
• USCG Safety: repeats yearly. It's based on the U.S. Coast Guard's recommended safety equipment, including registration and documentation, PFDs, visual distress signals, and fire extinguishers.

Looking to log trip details like distance, conditions, or crew hours? That's ⚓ Captain's Log. See Captain's Log.

Running a checklist

Click Start checklist to begin a new run. Check items off as you go. The "X of Y items checked" count and the per-category progress update as you work.

• Filter by category, by equipment, or by what's still remaining versus already checked.
• Reset unchecks everything on the current run so you can start over.
• + To-do on any item turns a problem you spotted ("Issue: bilge pump") into a to-do linked to the relevant equipment.
• Some items are tied to a piece of equipment and ask for engine hours or condition when you check them. That reading goes straight into the equipment's history (see Equipment).

Items are required or optional. Complete checklist becomes available once every required item is checked. Past runs are kept under 📖 History, which shows when each run happened and what was checked.

Your own checklists

Click + Add checklist to add another checklist to the boat:

• 📋 From template: start from a checklist ReadyHelm provides (for example, Spring Commissioning). Templates are free on every plan. If ReadyHelm later adds items to a template you're using, they show as New in the template so you can pull them in.
• ✎ Custom: build a checklist from scratch. Custom checklists are a Skipper-plan feature (see My Account, Plans & Upgrading).

A checklist you add can repeat every so many days, weeks, months, or years from a start date. Its pill then shows where it stands: Never run, Next: [date], Due in N days, or N days overdue.

Managing items

Manage items lets you:

• Add your own items to any checklist, including the built-in ones, and mark them Required.
• Make an item one-time by turning off Recurring. A one-time item is removed after the next run that completes it. This is handy for "check the new bilge pump after install."
• Pick equipment to prompt for, so that item asks for hours or condition every time it's completed.
• Turn default items on or off for your boat, or delete items you added.

Managing checklists

Manage checklists lets you edit a checklist's name and schedule, or hide it from the pill list without deleting it. A hidden checklist can be turned back on any time from + Add checklist.

The 🔧 Equipment page is your gear inventory: every piece of equipment on the boat, with its condition history, service history, costs, and replacement tracking.

Adding equipment

Click + Add equipment and fill in what you know: category, name, make, model, serial number, quantity, purchase date and price, and notes. If you don't know when something was bought, set the purchase date to Unknown rather than guessing. Attach photos (pick several at once from your camera or library) and an invoice or receipt.

You can also add equipment in other ways:

• Receipts and build sheets. Upload them through First Mate, which proposes each item for you to review. Small consumables and personal items on a receipt are logged as expenses instead of equipment.
• ✨ Ask First Mate to fill in what it can. On this page, it suggests the likely factory-standard engine for your make, model, and year (primary owner only; see First Mate).
• Chat. Ask First Mate in chat to add a piece of equipment.

Each item shows a status (In Use, Spare/Extra, or Retired) and a condition badge (Excellent, Good, Fair, or Replace), plus purchase info and any replacement-due flag.

An item's tabs

Open an item to see its tabs:

• Basic Info and Purchase Info: the details above.
• Replacement Tracking: when it should be replaced (see below).
• Condition: inspection history.
• Service History: every Service Log entry linked to this item. Log service adds one directly from here. Entries show whether they're Verified (logged by your boatyard or backed by an invoice) or Owner-logged.
• Expenses: every expense linked to this item, with + Add expense (see Expenses).

Documents tagged to the item, such as manuals, warranty cards, or files shared in a conversation, also appear with it.

Condition History

On the Condition tab, record what you see right now: date, engine hours, a condition rating, and comments. Each entry is dated and added to the history below, so you can see how the item has held up over time. Entries can carry their own photos and documents (for example, an oil sample report), and you can add a to-do directly from an entry if something needs following up. Older entries collapse to keep the list tidy.

The item's age at each inspection is calculated from its purchase date.

After you log service or complete a maintenance task involving this item, ReadyHelm asks Log a condition update too?, which gives you a quick way to note its condition while you're looking at it. Checklist items tied to the item can also ask for hours or condition (see Checklists).

Replacement Tracking

Set any combination of:

• Replace by date
• Replace after a period from the purchase date (for example, every 2 years)
• Replace at engine hours

Once a threshold is close or passed, the item shows a "Replace soon" or "Replace now" flag on the Equipment list. The replacement schedule also appears as a maintenance task, so it gets the same automatic reminders.

Filtering

Use the filter panel to narrow the list by category, status, condition, or replacement-due state.

Deleting equipment

To remove something that shouldn't be in the inventory (for example, an item added by mistake from a receipt), open it and choose Delete. This removes the item along with its photos and condition history. Service Log entries, expenses, and documents that were linked to it are kept, but they no longer show it as related equipment. This can't be undone. For gear that's simply no longer aboard, consider setting its status to Retired instead, which keeps its history.

🗂️ Vessel Records (desktop sidebar; reached via the gear icon on mobile) covers everything about who has access to your boat and its official paperwork: Sharing & Ownership, Insurance, Registration, Ratings, Identifiers, Specifications, and Documents.

Sharing & Ownership

Crew search visibility

At the top of the tab, choose whether your boat is Visible in crew search. Crew members use crew search to find a boat and request access (see Timeline & Your Crew). Hide from crew search keeps your boat out of those results entirely. Someone searching won't be told it exists. Boats are visible by default. Hiding one doesn't affect anyone who already has access.

Below that are three sub-sections:

Providers

Grant a boatyard or service business access to log real service history against your boat and see its full record. Access is granted to the whole business, not one individual — any of their staff can then use it. Search verified service providers lists businesses ReadyHelm has checked (their business documents were reviewed), each marked ✓ Verified. Pick one and Grant access. A business that isn't listed can still be invited by email, verified or not. The pending invite shows until they accept, and Cancel invite withdraws it.

A mooring is separate: a provider who services your boat doesn't see your mooring unless you add them on the mooring itself (see Berths: Moorings & Slips).

A provider can also request access themselves (e.g. after doing work on a boat they found unclaimed) — you'll see that as an incoming request to approve or reject.

Share

Give someone (crew, a family member, a co-owner) Viewer (read-only) or Editor (can add and edit) access, without handing off ownership. People can also ask you for access through crew search. Those requests show up on Your Crew for you to approve (see Timeline & Your Crew). Enter their email; if they already have a ReadyHelm account you'll see their name confirmed before sending. Revoke access any time with the × next to their row.

Crew/vessel sharing is a Skipper-plan feature — see Your Plan & Upgrading.

Transfer

Hand the boat off entirely to someone else. They'll need to confirm before it takes effect — this never happens silently. You can optionally keep yourself as a Viewer afterward, so you retain read access to the boat's history even after ownership moves on.

If someone else claims a HIN you currently own, you'll see their request here as incoming — approve it to transfer, or reject it.

Insurance

Track insurance policies — provider, policy number, contact info, cost, coverage dates, and which boat(s) a policy covers (one policy can cover more than one boat). The most recent policy is marked Current; older ones stay on file for reference. A color-coded badge shows whether a policy is valid, expiring soon (within 90 days), or expired. Attach the policy document itself, or link one online.

Registration

Same pattern as Insurance, for state registration: state, registration number, coverage dates, and the same expiring/expired status coloring. Keep prior registrations on file as you renew.

Ratings

Track handicap ratings (PHRF, ORR, IRC, etc.) — rating type, value, certificate number, status, and region/fleet — for boats that race.

Identifiers

Any additional official identifiers your boat carries beyond its HIN — MMSI, Call Sign, IMO Number, Documentation Number, or EPIRB Hex ID. Pick the type and enter the value; add as many as apply.

Each identifier row can also carry a document — + Document uploads an image, PDF, or Word file, or Add Link points at one hosted elsewhere instead of uploading it. Once attached, it shows as a clickable file link with Replace and Add Link to swap it out later. Entirely optional — there's no approval step, it's just a place to keep the certificate or filing that backs up the number.

Specifications

Dimensions and specs for the boat — length overall, waterline length, beam, draft, air draft, weight, fuel/water/holding-tank capacity, max HP and persons ratings, hull material and type, fuel type, number of berths, and more, grouped by category (Length, Beam, Draft, Height/Clearance, Weight, Capacity, Structural).

Recording a new value doesn't overwrite the old one. It's kept as history, so you can see how a spec changed (for example, after a repower or a tank swap) rather than only the latest number.

Suggested values

For blank fields, ReadyHelm may suggest a value based on other boats of the same make, model, and year:

• "N other [model] owners reported [value]." At least two other owners independently recorded the same value. Owners' identities are never shared, only the agreed value.
• "ReadyHelm researched this: [value]." The value comes from a manufacturer spec sheet the ReadyHelm team looked up, with a link to the source.

Click Use this value to accept a suggestion. The values you record also help other owners of the same model, anonymously.

Asking First Mate to fill in the rest

✨ Ask First Mate to fill in what it can fills the remaining blanks, using community data first, then First Mate's own knowledge, then a web search of reputable sources. Everything comes back as suggestions for you to approve, edit, or reject before Save to vessel. This uses First Mate credits. See First Mate.

Only the primary owner can start a fill-in. A shared Editor who asked First Mate in chat to fill in the specs will see those suggestions here to review and save.

Documents

Everything on file for the boat, in two sub-tabs:

• On File: every document uploaded for this boat, including registration and insurance papers, surveys, receipts, manuals, and files saved from Messages. Search by file name or uploader, filter by equipment, and open or delete documents.
• Add (primary owner only): upload more documents with First Mate, such as registration, insurance, a survey, receipts, service logs, or manuals. First Mate reads each one and suggests what to add to the boat's record for you to review. This is the same flow used when adding a boat, but for a boat you already have.

Click your name at the bottom of the sidebar to open My Account — Profile, Plan, Notifications, Security, Storage, and Login Log. (Your certifications and Emergency Info live under their own Safety & Certs page in Crew Corner now — see below — except for a boat-less account, which sees them as an extra tab right here, alongside Timeline and My Trips, since there's no vessel switcher yet to hang a Crew Corner section under.)

Profile

Your name, phone, and location. Email is shown but not editable here — it's your sign-in identity.

Plan

Shows your current plan and what it includes:

Annual billing is two months free compared to paying monthly. Higher plans also include more First Mate credits. The Plan tab always shows what your plan currently includes.

Subscribing, switching, and canceling

Change Plan opens your options, which depend on where you're starting from:

• On Free, or previewing a paid tier: choose Monthly or Annual, then Subscribe to a paid tier — this redirects you to a secure Stripe Checkout page to enter payment details. You're brought back to ReadyHelm once it's done.
• Already subscribed: you'll see Manage billing instead, which opens Stripe's Customer Portal — a hosted page for switching tiers, changing monthly/annual, updating your card, viewing invoices, or canceling. ReadyHelm doesn't rebuild that screen itself, so it's always current with whatever Stripe shows you.
• Complimentary (courtesy) access: if ReadyHelm has given you a plan for free, you'll see a note saying so instead of any billing controls.

Whether a downgrade or cancellation takes effect right away or at the end of your current billing period is a setting on Stripe's side of the Customer Portal, not something this page controls — if you're not sure which applies, that's worth confirming before you switch.

What happens if you downgrade below your boat count

If you own more boats than your new plan allows, ReadyHelm doesn't delete or hide anything. Instead:

• It automatically picks which boat(s) stay active, favoring boats you already had active, then your most recently added ones.
• Any boat not in the active set becomes read-only for you specifically — you can still view everything, but can't add or edit maintenance, service log entries, to-dos, equipment, documents, or vessel details on it.
• This only affects you as the owner. Anyone you've shared the boat with (Viewer/Editor) keeps their own access untouched, and a service provider can still log real work against it regardless.
• You can change which boats are active any time from the Plan tab's Manage active boats control — no need to change plans again to swap which boat is prioritized.
• Upgrading again (or freeing up a slot by removing a boat) automatically re-activates whichever boats now fit.

Safety & Certs

Reached from Safety & Certs in Crew Corner once you have a boat (or right here, as a tab, if you don't yet). Your own certifications and licenses — boating, scuba, fishing, safety training, sailing, and insurance — plus Emergency Info. These belong to you, not any one boat, so they're available whether or not you own a boat at all (a boat-less signup can skip straight to this screen).

Adding a certification

+ Add a certification: pick a category, name it (e.g. "OUPV (6-Pack)"), and optionally fill in issuing body, credential number, issue/expiration dates, and notes. Attach one or more photos or scans under Card / Certificate — pick several at once, or add more later from the pencil icon. Each file gets its own remove (×) button. A color-coded badge flags anything expiring within 30 days or already expired.

Emergency Info

A separate section on the same screen: allergies, medical conditions, and an emergency contact (name, phone, relationship). Set visibility to:

• Private (only you) — the default; nobody else can see it.
• Entire crew — everyone you share any boat with, in either direction.
• Select crew — pick specific people from your crew list.

Sharing your credentials

Share your whole wallet (a live view — includes any credential you add later) or just one credential (the 🔗 icon on its row), by email. If the recipient already has a ReadyHelm account, they see it immediately under their own Safety & Certs page's Shared with me section; otherwise it resolves automatically the moment they sign up with that email. Revoke access any time.

Notifications

A daily email digest of what's coming up or overdue — registration, insurance, ratings, and equipment replacements, plus to-dos — across every boat you own or access. Choose how far ahead to be warned (separately for expirations and to-dos), or turn reminder emails off entirely. Maintenance tasks that come due are included too, because they automatically create a to-do (see Maintenance Tasks).

If you use the simple Home, you also get a weekly Your boat this week email in weeks when something is due. Turning reminder emails off stops it too (see Simple Mode & Guided Setup).

Unread messages are emailed separately, and in-app notifications appear under the bell at the top of the sidebar.

Security

Change your password here. Signed in with Google and never set one? Leave "Current password" blank to set one for the first time.

Two-factor authentication

Two-factor authentication is optional. Once it's on, each sign-in asks for a code from an authenticator app on your phone as well as your password. Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, 1Password and Authy all work.

• Turn on two-factor: scan the QR code with your authenticator app (or type the key under it), then enter the 6-digit code it shows. You then get eight backup codes. Each one signs you in once if you don't have your phone, so save them somewhere safe, such as a password manager. They aren't shown again.
• Signing in: after your password (or Google), enter the current code from the app, or choose Use a backup code instead. Each sign-in, on each device, asks once. Following a link between the owner app and the Pro Portal doesn't ask again.
• Set up a new authenticator moves it to a new phone. It replaces your old setup and gives you new backup codes.
• Turn off needs a current code. If you're an Admin of an organization in the Pro Portal, it's required and can't be turned off.

It's the same setting as in the Pro Portal: turning it on in either app means both ask. Lost your phone and your backup codes? Contact [email protected]. Once we've confirmed it's you, we turn two-factor off so you can sign in and set it up again.

Storage

Shows how much of your plan's storage allowance you've used (photos, documents, invoices, or anything else you upload). At 90% or more you'll see a warning with an upgrade shortcut if you're not on the top plan.

The same tab shows your First Mate AI credits: how many monthly credits you've used and when they renew, plus your one-time onboarding credits for setting up boats from documents. You'll see a warning when you're running low. See First Mate.

Login Log

A record of sign-in attempts on your account — timestamp, status (success, bad password, etc.), and IP address. Useful for spotting anything you don't recognize.

Your reports directly shape what gets built next. Use 💬 Give feedback in the sidebar any time.

Pick a type:

• Defect — something's broken or not working as expected.
• Enhancement Request — a feature you'd like to see.
• Support Request — you need help with something.
• Manual Data Override — you need something in your record corrected that you can't fix yourself.
• Other — anything that doesn't fit the above.

Add a comment describing what happened or what you'd like, and attach a screenshot or document if it helps. Submitting sends it straight to the ReadyHelm team by email — you don't need to wait for a response to keep using the app.

The more specific you can be — what you were doing, what you expected, what happened instead — the faster we can act on it.

Two sidebar items: ⚓ Captain's Log (this boat's trips) and 🧭 My Trips (every trip you're on, across every boat, plus any crew invites waiting on your response).

Logging a trip

+ Log Trip captures departure and, optionally, one or more stops beyond it, in the order you'll visit them — a multi-stop cruise shows its full route, not just a single destination. Add the date — or a date range for a multi-day trip — and optionally a departure time and expected return time (with time zone), conditions, notes, distance offshore, and, if it was a race, the regatta name, fleet/class, and finish position. You can log your own hours underway and role in the same form, or come back and add them later.

Departure and stops use the marine location picker. Type to search known marinas, harbors, and anchorages, or pick a spot on a map. Linking a real location gives the trip a NOAA forecast (see Marine Locations & Weather). Reorder stops with the up and down arrows, and use 🗺️ View all destinations on map to see the whole route.

Forecast

An active trip shows the NOAA forecast for its departure location on the trip's date: wind, gusts, waves, and the next tide. Forecasts only reach about a week ahead, so a trip further out says to check back closer to departure.

Automatic Float Plans

If you've saved a Default Float Plan for the boat, logging a new trip queues a Float Plan to your usual recipients automatically. See Float Plan.

Heading out on a multi-day trip?

Saving a multi-day trip that isn't purely in the past shows a one-time nudge: your mooring will be free while you're out, with a one-tap email to your harbor master or yacht club letting them know (plus a copy-to-clipboard fallback if you don't have a mail client set up). "Not this time" dismisses it for good — it won't ask again for that trip. The same "notify harbor master" option is also available any time from that trip's card, while viewing or editing it. See Home & Vessel Summary for the full mooring-days report this feeds into.

Your hours, and USCG sea service

Hours, role, and attestation are tracked per person — a trip with three people aboard has three separate entries, not one shared number. The USCG Sea Service Summary at the top reflects only your own logged hours, not the boat's totals:

• Sea days — trips where you logged ≥4 hours underway.
• Total hours — your hours underway, summed.
• Nautical miles — distance offshore across trips you're on.

An entry you log yourself is attested automatically if you're the one who created the trip. Anyone else's entry — crew you added, or someone who logged their own hours after accepting an invite — shows Pending until you (the trip's owner) tap Attest on it.

Once an entry is 30 days old it locks — you can no longer edit the hours or role directly.

Crew without a ReadyHelm account

+ Add guest crew (no account) lets you log someone's name, role, and hours directly — useful for a guest who was aboard but isn't going to sign up.

Inviting crew

Under a trip's Invite crew, enter an email and (optionally) their role, then Invite. What happens next depends on the invite's status:

• Pending — waiting on a response. You can cancel it any time before they respond.
• Accepted — they'll show up in the trip's "who's aboard" line, and can log their own hours (which you'll then need to attest).
• Declined — shown with their reason, if they gave one.

Trip Invites are a Free-plan feature, separate from full crew/vessel sharing (Skipper plan) — inviting someone to crew a trip doesn't give them ongoing access to the rest of the boat's record.

Who sees what on an invite

Visibility is deliberately asymmetric:

• You (the trip's owner) see every invite's real status, and any decline reason.
• The invitee sees their own invite in full.
• Everyone else aboard sees only a plain list of who's accepted — not who's pending, who declined, or why.

My Trips

🧭 My Trips (under Crew Corner, fleet-wide) pulls together every trip you can reach — your own boats, boats you're shared on, and any trip you've accepted a crew invite to — even if that boat isn't otherwise in your fleet. It's also where pending trip invites show up for you to accept or decline, with a reason if you decline.

This is the only place a crew invite is visible if you don't otherwise have access to that boat — including on the very first sign-in screen, before you've claimed (or explicitly skipped) a boat of your own.

Searching and filtering

A search box plus a vessel filter and a status filter narrow the list down; Clear resets all three at once.

Trip detail and editing

Click a trip to expand its full detail in place — crew log, invites, any Float Plan sent for it (see Float Plan), and, if you have edit access and the trip is still active, an edit form for its dates, stops, timing, conditions, and other details.

Float Plan

Send a trip's safety details to people who aren't aboard, so someone knows where you are and when to worry — see Float Plan for the full workflow.

A safety check-in for a trip — send the details to people who aren't aboard, with a manual "we're back safely" follow-up when you're back. Free on every plan.

Sending one

From an active trip in Captain's Log (anyone who can manage that trip), fill in one or more recipient email addresses, optionally check off specific pieces of safety equipment from the boat's tech specs to include, and write free-text instructions under "If you haven't heard from us…" (e.g. "call the Coast Guard by 6pm"). Send Float Plan emails each recipient the trip's stops, departure/expected-return times, and your instructions, plus a link — you (the trip's owner) are CC'd.

Default Float Plan

Instead of filling in the form for every trip, save a Default Float Plan for each boat. Find it on the Float Plans page, where it's collapsed until you expand it. Set:

• Default recipients
• Default message (your "if you haven't heard from us…" instructions)
• When to send:
• Right now, as soon as a trip is logged
• At departure
• Day before departure (or now, if sooner)

From then on, every new trip you log for that boat automatically sends or schedules a Float Plan from these defaults. If you change the trip's departure time, the scheduled send moves with it. If you cancel the trip, the scheduled send is canceled. Trips logged after the fact (in the past) aren't sent. Save defaults to apply your changes. With no default saved, nothing is sent automatically, and you can still send manually as above.

Conditions

Each Float Plan keeps a history of NOAA forecast conditions for the trip: wind, gusts, waves, and tides. Conditions are recorded when the plan is sent, automatically about two to three days before departure, and whenever you click Refresh conditions. Earlier readings are kept, so the plan shows what conditions looked like as the trip approached. This needs the trip's departure to be a linked marine location (see Marine Locations & Weather).

What a recipient sees

The link opens a page with no login required, showing the safety-critical basics. If the recipient signs in with the exact email address the plan was sent to, the page unlocks full detail — crew contacts, vessel identifiers, the equipment you selected — plus a PDF snapshot they can save.

Closing it out

Only the trip's manager (owner or an Editor) closes a plan, with We're back safely next to it — there's no automatic or overdue detection, it's always a manual action. Closing it immediately emails every recipient a follow-up, and timestamps the plan as closed along with who closed it. A plan can only be closed once.

Fleet-wide list

Float Plans, under Crew Corner, lists every trip across your whole fleet that has at least one Float Plan sent, grouped by vessel, with a count of plans still awaiting close-out. It reuses the same panel — history, close-out, send-another — you'd see inside the trip itself.

Two fleet-wide pages under Crew Corner in the sidebar, alongside My Trips, Safety & Certs (see My Account, Plans & Upgrading), and Float Plans (see Float Plan).

Timeline

A single chronological view merging everything with a date across your whole fleet: to-dos, maintenance tasks on a day-based schedule (not engine-hour ones), trips, and expirations — insurance, registration, ratings, and your own credentials. It's scoped to whatever you can already see: your own boats and anything shared with you, never anyone else's.

Switch between a list view and a calendar view, and filter by type, vessel, status (overdue/upcoming), date range, or search. Items show as "X days overdue," "Due in X days," or a plain date; trips show "Past" or "Upcoming" instead. Clicking an item — or + Add — takes you straight into the real screen where that record actually lives (To-Do, Captain's Log, Vessel Records, and so on), rather than showing you a read-only copy.

Your Crew

Everyone with access across your fleet, by name. These are the same people who show up individually on each boat's Sharing tab (see Vessel Records), gathered into one fleet-wide list. People who joined through a crew request show as Crew, which has the same read-only access as a Viewer.

Approving crew requests

When someone asks to crew on one of your boats, the request appears under Pending crew requests. A red badge on Your Crew in the sidebar shows how many are waiting, and you'll get a notification. Approve or reject each one. 💬 Discuss opens a conversation with the requester first if you want to ask them something, and you can pull any of your Editors into that conversation with Loop in an Editor?

Crew requests use crew sharing, a Skipper-plan feature. Someone can only request to crew on your boat if your plan includes it (see My Account, Plans & Upgrading).

Finding a boat to crew on

To crew on someone else's boat, search by boat name or owner email and click Request Access. Your pending requests show as ⏳ Waiting on approval, which you can cancel, and boats you're already on show ✓ Already crew. You can 💬 Discuss a pending request with the owner.

Owners can hide their boat from crew search, so not every boat will appear.

Inviting a boat owner to ReadyHelm

If the boat you're looking for isn't on ReadyHelm, click Invite them to ReadyHelm and enter the owner's email. You'll see "Invite logged — we'll email them." They receive an invitation to join. When they sign up and add their boat, they're asked to connect you as crew to it, or to decline. ReadyHelm sends at most one follow-up reminder. To prevent spam, you need to verify your own email address first, and repeat invites to the same person are limited.

If you receive one of these invitations and already have boats, you'll see Someone wants to connect when you sign in. Pick the boat and click Connect as crew, or decline. Anyone who gets an invite email can opt out of future invites using the link in the email.

First Mate is ReadyHelm's built-in AI assistant. It shows up in four places:

• Adding a boat from documents. Upload photos or PDFs and First Mate reads them to set up the boat for you.
• Adding documents to a boat you already have. Vessel Records → Documents → Add.
• Filling in missing specs and equipment. The ✨ Ask First Mate to fill in what it can button.
• Chatting. The First Mate item in the sidebar, where you can ask questions about your boats and have it do simple tasks.

First Mate never changes your boat's record on its own. Anything it reads from a document or looks up becomes a suggestion that you approve, edit, or reject before it's saved. The only exceptions are small actions you ask for directly in chat, like "remind me to…" (see below).

Adding a boat with First Mate

When you add a boat (on first sign-in, or from + Add New Vessel), choose First Mate instead of Enter details. Then add as many documents as you have:

• HIN photo. A photo of the hull identification plate. First Mate reads the HIN and works out the builder and model year.
• Registration
• Insurance policy
• Survey report
• Purchase agreement
• Build sheet
• Receipt
• Service log
• Manual. Kept on file with the boat.

Larger documents (surveys, build sheets, service logs) can take a minute to read.

Reviewing suggestions

Each suggestion shows the value First Mate found and how confident it is. Suggestions are grouped into one card per item (for example, one card per piece of equipment on a receipt). For each suggestion you can:

• Approve it as-is.
• Edit the value, then approve it.
• Reject it.

Approve all high-confidence approves every pending suggestion above the confidence cutoff in one click. If two documents disagree, the stronger one wins and the other shows as "also found, lower priority." You can still Promote the lower-priority one if it's actually right.

On a receipt, items that aren't really equipment (cleaning supplies, small consumables, personal gear) show in an amber "Not equipment — logged as an expense" card. They're pre-approved as expenses so the spending is still tracked. You can undo any pre-approved item before you finish.

When you're done, Create vessel (new boat) or Save to vessel (existing boat) saves everything you approved.

Filling in missing specs and equipment

On Vessel Records → Specifications and on the Equipment page, ✨ Ask First Mate to fill in what it can looks for blank dimension fields (length, beam, draft, capacities, and so on) and a likely factory-standard engine for your make, model, and year. It works through three sources, cheapest first:

1. Community data (free). If other owners of the same make, model, and year already agree on a value, it's used without spending anything. See Vessel Records → Specifications.
2. First Mate's own knowledge (uses credits). Shown as "First Mate's best guess," with deliberately modest confidence.
3. A web search of reputable sources (uses more credits). Only for anything step 2 couldn't answer, and skipped if you don't have enough credits left. Shown as "First Mate found this online," with a link to the source.

You review the results the same way as document suggestions, then Save to vessel.

Only the boat's primary owner can start a fill-in or add documents with First Mate. Shared Editors don't see those buttons. An Editor can still review and save suggestions they asked for in chat (see below).

Chatting with First Mate

Click First Mate in the sidebar (or the First Mate tile on Home). Start a New conversation and pick which boat it's about, or All boats to ask across your whole fleet. You can switch to a specific boat mid-conversation just by naming it.

Things you can ask it to look up:

• What maintenance is due or overdue, and past service history
• Open to-dos, equipment, and documents on file
• Trips, upcoming trip prep, and checklist status
• Float Plans
• The boat's record: registration, insurance, ratings
• Your certifications and emergency info

Things you can ask it to do:

• Create a reminder (a to-do)
• Add a piece of equipment
• Log a service entry or an expense
• Add an insurance policy or rating, or update the registration
• Check off a checklist item
• Invite crew to a boat
• Add a certification or update your emergency info
• "Help me fill in the specs." This creates suggestions for you to review on the Specifications tab, the same as the ✨ button. First Mate never saves them directly.

When First Mate creates a reminder or adds equipment, the chat confirms it and offers an undo.

First Mate only uses tools your plan includes. For example, it can't invite crew if your plan doesn't include crew sharing. It also stays on boating topics.

Conversations are saved. Rename or delete them from the conversation list, and collapse the list to give the chat more room.

First Mate credits

Reading documents, filling in specs, and chatting use First Mate credits. There are two separate balances:

• Onboarding credits. A one-time allowance for setting up boats from documents. It doesn't renew.
• Monthly credits. Used by chat and by "fill in what it can" on an existing boat. They renew each billing period (monthly on the Free plan).

How many credits you get depends on your plan. See your current balance under My Account → Storage, in the First Mate AI credits section, which also warns you when you're running low. If you run out, First Mate tells you when your credits reset. Upgrading your plan raises both allowances (see My Account, Plans & Upgrading).

Messages

💬 Messages in the sidebar holds conversations with the people connected to your boats: crew, co-owners, and your boatyard or service provider. Every conversation belongs to a boat, so everyone in it can see which boat it's about.

Messages is a Skipper-plan feature. See My Account, Plans & Upgrading.

The page is split into two panes: your conversation list on the left and the open conversation on the right.

Starting a conversation

Click + New, pick the boat, and optionally give the conversation a title. Under Include, choose who to add from the people who have access to that boat. That includes staff at any service provider you've given access. If you don't pick anyone, the conversation is just for you, which is handy as a running notes thread.

Conversations can also start from elsewhere in the app. For example, 💬 Discuss on a crew request (see Timeline & Your Crew) opens a conversation about that request. Those conversations show up in Messages too, labeled by what they're about: Vessel, Equipment, Service record, To-do, or Crew request discussion.

Writing messages

• Attachments. Attach a photo or file to a message. If you own the boat, you can tag an attachment to a specific piece of equipment, and Save to Documents files it with the boat's records. Tagged attachments also show in that equipment's documents.
• Editing. Edit your own messages. Edited messages show "(edited)."
• Deleting. Delete your own messages. They show as "This message was deleted."
• Reporting. Report any message that's abusive or inappropriate. Tell us what's wrong and it goes to the ReadyHelm team for review.

New messages arrive live while you have the app open, without refreshing.

Searching and filtering

The search box searches the text of every message you can see. It matches word forms too, so "replacing" finds "replace." Open the filter panel to narrow results by:

• Boat
• Conversation type
• Who's in it
• Date range
• Unread only
• Has attachment

Conversations with unread messages show an unread count.

Notifications

The bell at the top of the sidebar shows new activity, such as a crew access request, a decision on one of your requests, or a new message. Click it to open the notifications panel on the right side of the screen. Click a notification to go to the page it's about. When there's nothing new, the panel says "You're all caught up."

Email notifications

• Unread messages. If a message sits unread for a while, you'll get an email about it. You get at most one email per new message, so an ongoing conversation won't flood your inbox.
• Daily reminder digest. Upcoming and overdue registrations, insurance, ratings, equipment replacements, and to-dos. Control it under My Account → Notifications (see My Account, Plans & Upgrading).

💰 Expenses (in the Vessel section of the sidebar) tracks what the boat costs to run: fuel, dockage, equipment purchases, and anything else. Service costs are already recorded in the Service Log, and reports include those automatically, so you don't need to enter them twice.

Expense tracking is free on every plan.

Adding an expense

Click Add expense and fill in:

• Date and Amount
• Type: Fuel, Dockage / Mooring, Equipment purchase, or Other. For work done on the boat, add a Service Log entry instead. Service Log costs show up in your expense reports automatically.
• Vendor (for example, "Harbor Fuel Dock")
• Equipment (optional). Links the expense to a specific piece of equipment, so it also appears on that item's Expenses tab (see Equipment).
• Notes

Reading a receipt automatically

Click 📄 Upload receipt (auto-fills fields below) and ReadyHelm reads the receipt to fill in the type, vendor, amount, and date. Check the filled-in fields before saving. If a receipt can't be read, you can still enter it by hand. The receipt stays attached to the expense.

Receipt auto-fill is a Skipper-plan feature. Attaching a receipt without auto-fill works on every plan.

Viewing and filtering

Pick a date range (This year, Last 12 months, or Custom range), then filter by type or equipment. A chart shows spending broken down by type, and the list below shows each expense, including costs from the Service Log. Edit any expense you added.

Exporting

Export CSV (for a spreadsheet or your accountant) or Export PDF (a formatted report) exports whatever is currently filtered.

Where else costs show up

• Home's Costs this year tile totals Expenses and Service Log costs for the year to date, across your fleet (see Home & Vessel Summary).
• When First Mate reads a receipt while you're adding documents, items that aren't equipment are logged as expenses automatically (see First Mate).
• You can ask First Mate in chat to log an expense for you.

ReadyHelm keeps a catalog of marine locations (marinas, harbors, anchorages, and NOAA tide stations) so the places you enter can be linked to real NOAA forecasts and tide predictions.

Picking a location

Location fields use the location picker. These include a boat's Location (its home port, set under Edit vessel → Location) and a trip's departure and stops in Captain's Log.

• Type to search. Start typing a name and pick a match. A linked location shows 📍 Linked to a known location — forecast available. Unlink reverts to plain text.
• Pick on map. Opens a map with a NOAA nautical chart layer. Browse known locations, use Near Me to jump to where you are, or tap an empty spot to Add a new location. Give the new location a name and type (Marina, Harbor, Anchorage, and so on). If a known location is nearby, ReadyHelm asks whether you meant that one first, to avoid duplicates. New locations are reviewed by the ReadyHelm team before they become visible to everyone.
• Plain text still works. You don't have to pick from the catalog. An unlinked location just won't have a forecast. Some places are outside NOAA's forecast coverage, and the picker tells you when that's the case.

Weather on Home

The Weather tile on Home shows current NOAA conditions at each boat's home port: wind speed, direction, and gusts, wave height, and the next high or low tide. To see a boat here, set its Location to a linked location.

Trip forecasts

An active trip in Captain's Log shows the forecast for its departure location on the trip's date. NOAA forecasts only reach about a week ahead, so a trip further out says to check back closer to departure.

A multi-stop trip has 🗺️ View all destinations on map to see every stop on one map.

Conditions on a Float Plan

A Float Plan keeps a history of forecast conditions for the trip. Conditions are recorded:

• When the plan is sent
• Automatically as the trip gets close (about two to three days before departure)
• Whenever you click Refresh conditions

Each entry is kept rather than overwritten, so the plan shows what the conditions looked like as the trip approached, not only a single snapshot.

Guided setup asks a few plain questions about your boat, then shapes Home around the answers. Nothing is ever hidden from the sidebar, and you can change every answer later.

Guided setup is rolling out gradually. If you don't see it yet, your account still has everything described in Home & Vessel Summary.

The first run

New accounts start with First Mate's welcome:

1. What brings you here? Pick I have a boat, I crew on someone else's boat, or both.
2. Your boat. The basics are enough: name, make, model, year and type. The HIN can wait (see Getting Started). Press Add my boat.
3. Where does your boat live? On a trailer, on a mooring, in a slip, dry stack, or more than one place.

4. How much do you want to see?

   • Keep it simple: one screen per boat with what's due, when, and a quick way to log things.
   • Show me everything: the full workspace, with maintenance, equipment, trips, crew and more.

   One is marked Recommended. One boat used the usual way gets Simple; several boats, or a liveaboard or charter boat, get the full workspace. 5. If you crew, you're then asked to find the boat you crew on (see Timeline & Your Crew).

Skip for now works at every step.

Simple mode

Simple mode replaces only the Home screen. Every other page stays in the sidebar, exactly where it was.

Each boat gets one card:

• Ready to go? The boat's status: Ready to go, Needs attention, or Overdue. A boat with nothing dated yet shows Nothing tracked yet, never "ready".
• The next three things coming due, across maintenance, registration, insurance, ratings, safety gear and to-dos, with how soon each is due.
• Get more ready · N%. What would make the record more useful for this boat, such as engine hours, safety gear dates, registration or a first maintenance task. Each item links to the screen that adds it.
• ＋ Log something, described below.

Below the boat cards are Suggested maintenance (see Suggested maintenance), one setup question at a time, and Add these dates to your calendar.

Show me everything (top right) switches Home to the full dashboard. Switch to the simple view on the full Home switches back.

Log something

Write a sentence, add a photo, or both, and First Mate turns it into an entry for you to check. For example:

• "Changed the oil and filter today at 212 hours, $60" becomes a service entry.
• "Need to replace the flares by October 20" becomes a to-do with a due date.
• A photo of a receipt becomes an expense, with the photo kept as its receipt.
• A photo of a registration or insurance card becomes a registration or insurance record.

You see every field before anything is saved, and you can change the type under What is it? Nothing is saved until you press Save. If First Mate can't tell what you meant, pick the type yourself or use one of the full forms listed under Or use a form.

A service entry with engine hours raises the boat's engine-hour reading if it's higher than the current one. Log something is free and doesn't use First Mate credits. The words you type aren't stored, only the entry they became.

Add these dates to your calendar

Get my calendar link creates a private calendar subscription with your boats' due dates. Use Open in my calendar app (Apple Calendar or Outlook) or Add to Google Calendar. The calendar then updates itself.

Anyone with the link can see those dates, so treat it like a password. Get a new link replaces it (the old one stops working), and Turn off removes it.

Weekly email

If you use Simple mode, you get a short Your boat this week email when something is overdue or coming due. A quiet week sends nothing. The email notification opt-out in My Account turns it off (see My Account, Plans & Upgrading).

In the full workspace

If you chose the full workspace, Home gets a Get more ready card above the tiles. It shows a readiness bar per boat, the next step for each, and the same one-at-a-time setup questions. Hide collapses it, and it disappears once every boat is fully set up.

Owners who joined before guided setup see Tune my dashboard on Home. Let's do it starts the questions; No thanks hides the offer on that device. Starting it never rearranges a Home layout you've already customized.

Setup questions

One question appears at a time, each with a line on why it's asked:

Skip for now moves on without asking again. Some answers are filled in for you from what the app already knows (a kayak has no engine). Those show as a suggestion to confirm.

Home only hides a tile when your confirmed answers clearly say it doesn't apply. For example, boats that only make day trips close to home hide the Float Plans tile. Turn any tile back on with Customize (see Home & Vessel Summary).

Suggested maintenance

A list of typical jobs for boats like yours, based on what powers the boat, its rig, where it's kept and its season. Each shows how often it's usually done and why it's suggested ("Typical for an outboard").

• Add puts it on the boat's maintenance tasks (see Maintenance Tasks & Service Log). It starts with no "last done" date, so it never shows as overdue until you record when it was last done. Change the timing any time.
• Not for this boat removes it for good on that boat.

Three show at a time; Show N more lists the rest. Seasonal jobs, such as spring commissioning and winterizing, are dated from the launch and haul-out months you gave, and come back each season once last season's is done.

Nudges

When your records change in a way that affects your setup, Home offers one small step at the top. You see at most one per visit.

Each has the step itself, Later (back in a week) or No thanks (never again).

🟠 Berths (in Crew Corner) holds your moorings and slips. A berth belongs to you, not to a boat, so it keeps its details and history as boats come and go. Berths are included on every plan, Free included.

The list shows each berth with the boat on it, and flags anything needing attention: an inspection due, a permit to confirm, or a lease ending. Add one with + Add mooring or + Add slip.

Boats on a berth

+ Put a vessel on it records which boat is on the berth and from when. Putting a boat on a berth ends its stay anywhere else, and ends any other boat's stay there, the day before. Leave the end date open while the boat is still there.

A ⚠ Fit check flag appears when a boat's length, beam, draft, weight (or, for a slip, shore power) is outside the berth's approved limits, or when the boat has no measurement to compare. It's a reminder only, never an approval or a block: confirm with the harbor master or marina before berthing.

A boat can have several berths, such as a summer mooring and a winter slip. One can be its default berth, which Vessel Summary shows and the Harbor Master report picks first.

Mooring-days (or Days in this slip) count the days each boat spent there, using your trips in the Captain's Log. Departure and return days count as present. The same numbers feed the Harbor Master report on Vessel Summary (see Home & Vessel Summary).

History lists every boat and owner over time. Earlier owners show by dates only. Their names, boats and usage stay private.

Moorings

A mooring is your ground tackle plus its assigned spot.

Edit details covers:

• Mooring: number or name, harbor, GPS coordinates (or 📍 Use my current location), and a description of how to find it. Type the position as decimal degrees (42.2058, -70.7201), degrees and minutes (42 12.348 N, 70 43.206 W), or paste a pair like 42.2058, -70.7201 into Latitude. What it reads shows under the field, and a value that isn't a real position is flagged before you save.
• Tackle: mooring type and size, chain length and diameter, block or anchor weight, pennant and ball, and depth with what it's measured at.
• Permit & ownership: ownership (owned, town-assigned, club-owned, rented), permit number, permit expiry, annual fee.
• Approved vessels: the harbor's limits for boats on it, used by the fit check.
• Inspections: how often it's inspected (12 months unless you change it), and an optional override of the next due date.

Components

List the parts (eye bolt, chain, shackle, pennant, swivel) with a label to tell same-type parts apart, such as "Ground chain" and "Riser chain". Last replaced is set only when a replacement is logged in the mooring's service log. It's never guessed, so it shows Unknown until then. Add a Recommended replacement date to get a reminder.

Service providers and inspections

Access is per mooring. A provider who services your boat doesn't see your mooring unless you add them under Service providers → + Give a provider access. They see what an inspection needs, never your fee or expenses, and can update the mooring's location and tackle (type, size, chain, block, pennant, ball, depth) when they work on it. You get a notification listing what they changed. Remove access any time; their past inspections stay on record.

• Provider inspections are read-only for you. You can add your notes and photos (kept apart from their findings), discuss it with the provider, or ⚑ Dispute this inspection.
• A Fail on a provider's inspection becomes their work order. Track this myself also adds it to your to-dos.
• + Record my own inspection creates an Owner-recorded inspection. Edit it as a draft, then Finalize; any Fail goes to your to-dos. After finalizing, changes are amendments with a reason, and earlier versions stay under History. Your own inspections don't reset the next due date unless you turn that on under Edit details. Leave it off if your harbor requires a licensed inspector.
• Inspection reports issued by a provider are listed for download. A Superseded report has a newer version.

If a provider or marina added your berth

A mooring service can add a mooring for a customer who isn't on ReadyHelm yet, and a marina can do the same with your slip. Either can send you an invite. When you sign in with that email, the berth waits under Waiting for you on Berths. Accept makes it yours, and the organization keeps access (remove it any time). Not mine declines it.

Selling or surrendering a mooring

Under Transfer or surrender:

• Transfer to a new owner… sends it to the buyer's email with an effective date. The buyer gets the tackle, components, inspections, reports and service history. Your boats, to-dos, notes and conversations stay yours. Providers you added wait for the buyer to keep or remove them.
• Surrender to the harbor… archives it read-only for good, ends provider access, and gives you a transfer packet (PDF) with its details, inspections and service history.

After a transfer, the new owner is asked to confirm the permit details (They're correct or Edit permit).

Slips

Edit details covers:

• Where it is: the marina or operator (from the marina directory), operator type, dock or pier, slip number and harbor.
• Your contact & notes: a contact and note only you see. For a private dock, the dock owner's details go here. They're never added to the shared directory.
• The slip: slip type, ownership (leased, deeded, club-owned), slip width and depth. Dry stack and lift slips hide the fields that don't apply.
• Approved vessel limits, used by the fit check.
• Utilities: shore power, water, cable or wifi, pump-out, fuel dock.
• Access: the gate or dock code, and Dock boxes with their lock codes.

Codes are visible to you. Crew on a boat in your slip see them only if you turn on Share with crew.

If the marina's business details are missing or wrong, Suggest details or Suggest a correction sends them for review. Only business contacts go in the shared directory.

Lease & fees

+ Add lease records the start, end, renewal deadline, fee and frequency (monthly, seasonal or annual), deposit and next payment due. You get reminders 30 days before the lease ends, the renewal deadline and each payment.

• Mark a payment made logs the fee as an expense on the slip and moves the next due date on.
• Renew… adds the next lease period with the same terms; the old one stays as history.
• End lease… archives the slip read-only, with its history and documents kept. You can restore it later. A deeded slip can be transferred to a buyer instead, the same way as a mooring.

Slip checklist

+ Walk the slip records a dated check of your boat's gear, the dock & marina and each dock box, with Pass, Pass with comments or Fail. Where a Fail goes depends on whose it is:

• Your boat's gear becomes a to-do on the boat in the slip.
• The dock & marina offers Report to operator or Track as a to-do.

Set a recurring reminder to walk the slip every 2 weeks, monthly, or every 2 or 3 months.

Report for the operator is a PDF or CSV of which of your boats were in the slip and for how many days, plus your lease terms.

Issues

+ Report an issue on any mooring or slip records a problem with photos and a status you update as it's handled. Pick a category: shore power, water, facilities, dock hardware, security, lighting, or for a mooring, buoy or ball, pennant or chain, dragging or off position, a neighboring boat, or an abandoned vessel.

Where Send goes depends on the berth:

• The harbor is on ReadyHelm. If a harbor master office or marina runs your berth's harbor on ReadyHelm, Send to harbor puts the issue in their queue. When they acknowledge it, resolve it or close it, you get a bell notification and their note shows under the issue.
• Otherwise, by email. Send to operator emails the marina's directory address (or your private-dock contact). For a mooring, it emails the harbor's directory address. Replies come straight to you, and you get a copy.

The harbor can also log an issue on your berth itself. It shows with logged by and the harbor's name, and you can see it but not change it.

On a harbor's roster

If an organization runs your berth's harbor on ReadyHelm, the berth says On the harbor roster of with their name. They see its assignment, your name, the boat on it, permit dates and open issues. Tackle, inspections, fees and documents stay private unless you give them access under Service providers.

Transient use

Transient use on a mooring or slip is for lending it out while you're away.

+ Dates I'm away records when you leave and the day you're back. If a harbor organization holds your harbor, tick Offer these dates to it: they can then put a visiting boat on your berth inside those dates, and you get a bell notification when they do. Stop offering takes the dates back; boats already booked stay booked.

+ Guest stay records a friend's boat on your berth: arrival and departure, boat name and length, the skipper, a phone or email, and any fee. If your own boat is on the berth then, add the dates you're away first. Guest stays can't overlap each other, and you're warned if the guest boat is outside the berth's approved limits.

Guests (yours and the harbor's) are listed under Guest stays. Remove takes one off; the harbor is told if it was theirs. Nights a guest has your berth don't count as your boat's days in the mooring-days count or the Harbor Master report.

Transient stays

Transient stays, at the bottom of the Berths list, are your boat's nights on a guest mooring or transient slip somewhere else. + Transient stay takes the harbor (from the directory, or typed), the mooring or slip, the dates and the fee. A fee is logged as a Dockage expense on the boat (see Expenses), and deleting the stay deletes the expense too.

When a harbor on ReadyHelm assigns your boat a berth, it shows here waiting for you. Check the Fee you paid and Confirm to log it, or Decline if it isn't your boat or the stay isn't happening. The harbor is told either way.

📍 Show on map on an upcoming stay opens the Berths map at that spot (see below).

Map

Map (next to List at the top of Berths) shows your moorings and slips, any you're on as crew, and where your boats are staying as transients. It never shows anyone else's berths.

• The exact spot of a berth a harbor assigned you, when the harbor has placed it on its map, so you can find a guest mooring you've never seen. A stay you logged yourself shows at the harbor's location from the directory, marked approximate.
• Positions come from the harbor organization if it has placed the berth, otherwise from your berth's GPS under Edit details. On the mooring, 📍 Use my current location there fills it in.
• Search, backgrounds and tracking: search by berth or boat, switch between Chart (NOAA's nautical chart with soundings, buoys and channels, the default), Map and Satellite, and use 📍 Track me to see where you are and how far it is to the selected berth. Your position stays on your device.

📍 Show on map on a berth's own page opens the map there.

Documents and expenses

Every berth has its own Documents (permits, harbor letters, leases) and expenses. Documents stay with the berth if you sell it, but only whoever uploaded one can delete it.

Expenses always stay with whoever logged them. After a sale, the buyer sees yours without your name, and you can still edit or delete them. Berths you used to own keeps your read-only record of earlier berths and your expenses there.

Archiving

Archive takes any boat off today and makes the berth read-only. Berths are never deleted, so their history stays. Restore an archived berth any time, except a surrendered mooring.

The Pro Portal is where marine businesses work on their customers' boats: boatyards, mechanics, mooring services, brokerages and more. Owners see the verified work you log in their own ReadyHelm app.

One account, two apps

Every person has one ReadyHelm account. You use it for your own boats in the owner app and for your business in the Pro Portal. Your access in the Pro Portal comes from belonging to an organization, and you can belong to several.

• In the Pro Portal, ⛵ My boats in the sidebar opens the owner app, already signed in.
• In the owner app, 🧰 Pro portal at the bottom of the sidebar comes back here. See Getting Started in the owner guide.

Sign in with Google or with your email and password. Create one makes a new account, and Forgot password? emails a reset link.

Joining or starting an organization

If your account isn't part of an organization yet, the Pro Portal shows two options:

• Invitations: an invite from an organization's Admin, sent to your email. Join accepts it. Your email needs to be verified first, and the invite must match your account's email. Joining doesn't affect your own boats.
• Start an organization: enter the business or organization name and what kind of organization it is (check all that apply), then Start organization. You become its Admin and can invite your team. A company of one is fine.

The organization's types decide which modules it sees. A mooring service or marina sees Berths, and a brokerage sees Listings and Reports. A business that is both a brokerage and something else gets a Service / Brokerage switch in the sidebar.

If you're an Admin of an organization, the Pro Portal also asks for a code from an authenticator app on your phone when you sign in. It walks you through setting that up the first time (see Two-factor authentication).

Agreements

The first time you sign in, and whenever a new version is published, you accept the terms that apply to you. Each organization also has a business agreement that one of its Admins accepts on its behalf. Until they do, everyone else sees a page explaining that the organization is waiting on its Admin.

Licenses

Pro work needs a license, which is a seat on your organization's plan. Without one, you can sign in but see No license assigned until an Admin gives you one (see Admin & Settings). Admins can always manage the team, plan and profile, licensed or not.

Several organizations

The organization you're working in shows at the top of the sidebar. If you belong to more than one, Switch organization moves between them. Everything you see follows the organization you're signed in to.

Getting your organization set up

A new organization's Admin sees Get your organization set up on the Dashboard. It has four steps, each ticked off as soon as it's done:

1. Fill in your public profile: contact details and what you do.
2. Add your first client boat (or, for a brokerage, your first listing).
3. Invite your team.
4. Get verified: a verified badge shows owners your business documents were checked.

Each step's button goes straight to the screen that does it. Hide removes the card.

Finding your way around

The sidebar lists the modules your organization uses:

A module your plan doesn't include shows locked, with the plan that unlocks it. Search vessel / HIN… at the top of the sidebar finds any boat. 📖 User Guide (this guide), ⚙️ Admin & Settings and 💬 Give Feedback are at the bottom.

Dashboard

The 📊 Dashboard summarizes your organization's work.

• Service organizations see open and urgent work orders, the number of boats in the fleet, and the fleet's average health score. Below that are Urgent work orders and Fleet health (each boat's score, with an Alert badge when something is overdue). Click any row to open the boat.
• Brokerages see active listings, total showings, how many history reports are ready, and the portfolio's average health. Below that are Active listings and Report readiness.

Invitations from owners

When an owner invites your organization to service their boat, a banner at the top of the portal shows it. Accept gives your organization access to that boat (anyone on your team can then work on it); Decline turns it down. Access belongs to the organization, not to one person.

Fleet

⚓ Fleet lists every boat your organization can see: name and owner, HIN, year, make and model, engine hours, location, health score and alerts. Click a row to open the boat (see Working on a Vessel).

Finding a boat

Search vessel / HIN… (or the 🔍 button) searches by HIN, boat name or owner. Type at least 2 characters. When you type a full HIN, the portal checks whether ReadyHelm already knows it:

• A boat in your fleet opens directly.
• A HIN registered to someone else shows HIN already registered. Open it with Log Access Only: you can log real service history right away, while its specs, documents and other providers' history stay hidden. From there, Request provider access asks the owner for full access.
• A new HIN offers Register it now.

Adding a vessel

+ Add vessel pre-registers a hull for your fleet: HIN, name, make and model (required), plus year, type, engine hours and location.

You get provisional access straight away and can log real service history against it. Until an owner claims the HIN, the boat shows Provisional Custodian. When the owner links their account to the HIN, everything you logged stays with the boat for them to see and review, and you keep your access.

If you know who the real owner is, enter their email when asked. A request goes to whoever owns the HIN on record. If that email has no account yet, the request is kept and resolved when they sign up.

Click a boat anywhere in the portal to open it. What you see depends on your access:

Without full access yet

A boat you found by HIN but haven't been granted shows You don't have full access to this vessel yet. You can log real service history against it right away; its tech specs, documents and other providers' history stay hidden. Request provider access asks the owner, and the button shows Access request pending until they answer.

A hull no owner has claimed yet shows Provisional Custodian: you can log against it until its owner links their account.

Overview

The owner and boat details, Maintenance alerts (anything overdue or due soon, with urgent items first), and Recent service. + Log service entry starts an entry from here (see Work Orders & Service Log).

Service History

Every service entry on the boat, newest first, with the system, work performed, technician, amount and status. Entries your team logs are pro-verified and count toward the boat's verified history.

Maintenance

The boat's scheduled maintenance tasks, the same list the owner sees in their app.

• + Add task: pick the system, name the task (for example, "Change engine oil"), and set Remind every… so many engine hours or days. The countdown starts from today.
• Mark done records it as done today and restarts the countdown.
• Edit or delete a task from its row.

When a task comes due, the owner gets a to-do and a reminder email.

Tech Specs

The boat's equipment: category, name, make, model, serial number, quantity, HP/kW, year and notes. + Add adds a piece of equipment. Filter by category at the top.

Documents

Upload manuals, maintenance schedules, wiring diagrams and certificates. Filter by document type at the top.

The Shared library toggle on each document decides who sees it. Shared documents appear in the owner's ReadyHelm app; unshared ones stay with your organization.

Owner to-dos shared with you

When an owner shares a to-do with your organization as a service request, it appears under Shared by the owner on the boat's Work Orders tab. Create work order turns it into a work order, with the details filled in from the to-do.

Work orders are jobs you plan; service log entries are work you've done. Completing a work order logs the service entry for you. Quotes come first when the owner should approve the price.

Work orders

🔧 Work Orders lists open jobs across your fleet: boat, HIN, description, who it's assigned to, due date, estimate, priority and status. Urgent jobs sort to the top.

Creating one

+ New work order asks which boat, then opens its form. You can also start from a boat's Work Orders tab. Enter:

• a description of the job;
• a due date (a week out unless you change it);
• a priority;
• an estimate (optional);
• labor, parts and fees (optional): each line has a type, description, quantity, unit price, and whether it's taxable. The form shows each line's amount and the subtotal.

A work order can also start from an owner's shared to-do (see Working on a Vessel), or from a Fail on a mooring inspection (see Moorings).

Labor, parts and fees

A work order's lines show on its card with the subtotal. Edit lines changes them at any time, and + Add labor, parts or fees starts them on a work order that has none. Taxable is for your accounting software's sales tax; ReadyHelm doesn't calculate tax.

Invoicing in QuickBooks

If your organization has connected QuickBooks Online, a work order with lines shows Send to QuickBooks, then the invoice's number, total and payment status, which updates when the owner pays. You can also email the owner a payment link. See Admin & Settings.

Completing one

Complete on a work order asks for the system, what was done, the date, labor hours, engine hours and amount. The amount starts at the lines' subtotal, and the lines are copied onto the service entry. Saving closes the work order and adds a pro-verified entry to the boat's service history. If the engine hours are higher than the boat's current reading, the boat's engine hours go up to match. A lower number never lowers it.

Quotes

A quote prices a job before you do it. The owner approves or declines it, and an approved quote becomes a work order. Quotes are on every plan, and the owner can answer on any plan.

🧾 Quotes in the sidebar lists your organization's open quotes (drafts, sent and approved); All includes declined, expired and converted ones. Click a row to open the boat's Quotes tab. + New quote asks which boat, then opens its Quotes tab with a new quote ready to fill in.

Writing and sending one

On a boat's Quotes tab, + New quote takes a title, an optional message to the owner, an optional Valid until date, and the same labor, parts and fees lines as a work order. Save as draft keeps it to yourself, and anyone on your team can write drafts.

Send to owner (Admins and Managers) emails the boat's owner the quote with Approve and Decline buttons that work without signing in. The owner also gets a notification, the quote shows on the boat's Service Log in their app, and a message thread for the quote opens between you and the owner. The boat needs an owner on ReadyHelm to receive it.

After it's sent

• Waiting: the quote says it's waiting for the owner. Revise withdraws it so you can edit it and send it again. The buttons in the first email stop working, so the owner can only approve the new numbers.
• Approved or declined: you get an email, and a note is posted in the quote's thread. A declined quote shows the owner's reason if they gave one.
• Expired: once its Valid until date passes, a quote that wasn't answered expires and can't be approved.
• Convert to work order (Admins and Managers) turns an approved quote into a work order for the boat, with the same lines, due a week out.

If your organization uses QuickBooks Online, a sent quote also goes to QuickBooks as an estimate, and the owner's answer marks it accepted or rejected there. See Admin & Settings.

Service log

📋 Service Log shows every entry your team has logged across the fleet, newest first: date, boat, HIN, system, work performed, technician, amount and status.

Logging service

+ Log service entry asks which boat, then opens the form. Enter the system, status, technician, labor hours, amount and Work performed (required), then Save verified entry.

The entry is marked pro-verified and appears in the owner's app and in the boat's verified history report.

Owners can't edit your entries, but they can dispute one (see Disputes & Verifications).

Both queues come from owners, about service entries. A dispute questions an entry your team logged; a verification request asks you to confirm an entry the owner logged.

Disputes

⚠️ Disputes lists entries owners have flagged as incorrect or unrecognized, with the owner's reason.

• Accept & correct fixes the entry. The original stays visible in the entry's edit history.
• Reject leaves the entry as logged, with your explanation attached (optional, but it helps).

Resolved disputes stay listed under Resolved.

Verification requests

✅ Verifications lists entries owners logged themselves and asked your team to confirm, for example work you did that they recorded.

• Confirm this happened attaches your business to the entry. It then counts as verified, both in the boat's verified history and toward its readiness score.
• Decline leaves it as the owner logged it, still unverified. You can add a short explanation.

🟠 Berths has your organization's moorings and slips.

• Moorings: the ones owners have given your organization access to, plus the ones you added for customers who haven't joined yet. Each shows its owner, its next inspection and any open work. This is where mooring services do inspections, reports and mooring work.
• Slips: the ones a marina holds for its tenants (see Adding a slip for a customer), plus any a tenant has given you access to.

Map (next to List) puts the same moorings and slips on a map, labelled with the boat on each. It has search, the NOAA chart (the default), street map and satellite backgrounds, and 📍 Track me for distance and bearing from your boat to a mooring, the same as the Harbor map. A mooring is placed by its owner's GPS, or by the harbor organization if one runs that harbor on ReadyHelm.

Owners grant access per mooring. Servicing someone's boat doesn't give you their mooring. A grant shows what an inspection needs (location, depth, tackle, components and approved limits) but never the owner's fee or expenses.

Adding a mooring for a customer

+ Add mooring for a customer is for an owner who isn't on ReadyHelm yet. Enter the mooring number, harbor, coordinates, mooring type and the owner's name and email. You look after the record until they join.

Send invite (or Resend invite) emails the owner. When they accept, the mooring becomes theirs and you keep your access. The list shows Invited or Declined.

If another mooring with the same harbor and number already exists, you're warned first. Choose It's a different mooring — add it anyway only if it really is.

Adding a slip for a customer

+ Add slip for a customer is for a marina whose tenant isn't on ReadyHelm yet. It takes:

• the slip and dock;
• the marina (from the directory);
• GPS, entered the same way as for a mooring;
• the slip type, and its maximum length and beam;
• its utilities (water, shore power and so on), each with an optional note such as "30A";
• how to find it;
• the tenant's name and email.

Tick the box to email the tenant an invite. Your organization holds the slip until they join and accept it. Until then:

• it's on your Berths list as Held for the tenant, with Invited or Declined;
• it's on your map and your harbor roster, and it shows on the Transient board as one of your own berths, so you can put visiting boats in it any time it's empty;
• Edit details changes it, and Send invite (or Resend invite) emails the tenant;
• Dock boxes records each box's label, size and lock code;
• Lease terms records the lease dates, fee and how often it's paid, deposit, first payment due and renewal deadline.

When the tenant accepts, the slip becomes theirs, with the utilities, dock boxes and lease terms you entered. They get fee and renewal reminders and record their own payments, which go in their expenses. Your organization keeps access, which the tenant can remove. To add many slips at once, use the harbor Import with a Kind column.

A mooring's details

Open a mooring to see its type and size, block or anchor, pennant and ball, last inspection, next due, approved length and its Components. + Add component records a part, with an optional Recommended replacement date.

Editing a mooring

• A mooring an owner shared with you: Edit location & tackle changes its GPS position, depth, mooring type and size, chain, block or anchor weight, pennant and ball, for example after you replace the tackle. The owner gets a notification listing what you changed. The permit, fee and approved limits are the owner's to edit.
• A mooring you hold for a customer: Edit details also covers the mooring number, harbor, how to find it, the owner's name and email, and the permit.

GPS positions can be typed in any of these forms. The reading shows under each field (for example 42° 12.348′ N), so a typo stands out before you save:

• decimal degrees: 42.2058 and -70.7201;
• degrees and minutes: 42 12.348 N or 70°43.206'W;
• degrees, minutes and seconds: 42 12 20.9 N.

Pasting a pair such as 42.2058, -70.7201 (from Google Maps, for example) into Latitude fills both fields. A value that isn't a real coordinate, or a latitude typed in the longitude field, is flagged, and you can't save until it's fixed.

Picklists such as mooring type and component type have + New…, which adds a value only your organization sees.

Ownership history lists owners and boats over time.

Inspections

+ Start inspection creates a draft. Fill it in on site:

• the inspection date;
• a row per component, prefilled from the mooring, each with a result (Pass, Pass with comments or Fail), an optional measurement, and comments (required for Pass with comments);
• photos per row (save the draft first, then add photos) and photos of the whole mooring.

Save draft keeps working on it; Delete draft discards it. Finalize makes it the permanent record and updates the mooring's last inspection and next due date. Every Fail becomes one of your work orders automatically, and the owner can choose to track it too.

Changing a finalized inspection

Amend opens the same editor. Saving asks why you're changing it, and the reason is kept with the change. Earlier versions stay viewable under History. Photos are never deleted; removing one in an amendment only drops it from the current version.

Inspections the owner recorded themselves are labeled Owner-recorded and are read-only for you.

When the owner responds

The owner can add their own notes and photos (shown apart from your findings), message you about the inspection, or dispute it. A disputed inspection shows Disputed by the owner:

• Agree — I'll correct it, then amend the inspection;
• Disagree, with an explanation (required).

Settled disputes stay under Past disputes.

Reports

+ Issue report builds a PDF from the finalized inspections you choose (Include these finalized inspections, then Generate PDF). It includes the mooring's details, component ages, results, measurements, comments, photos and your business details.

Issued reports never change. If an inspection in a report is amended later, the report shows Inspection amended since and offers Issue revised version. Older versions stay downloadable and are marked Superseded. Download any version with ↓ Download PDF. Owners see and download the same reports.

Mooring work and service

Each mooring has its own Work orders and Service log.

• Complete on a work order asks for the date and what was done, then Complete & log service records it in the mooring's service log.
• + Log service records work directly. Tick Replaced components to update those parts' last-replaced dates. That's the only way a component's age is set.

When access ends

If an owner removes your access, the mooring leaves your list, but your work doesn't disappear. Past inspections keeps your inspections on record under your name, and Reports you issued on these moorings keeps your PDFs downloadable.

When a mooring is sold, the new owner chooses whether to keep your access. Until they do, you can read your past work but not start new inspections.

Organizations with the Brokerage type see 🏷️ Listings and 📄 Reports. A brokerage that also does other work switches between them with Service / Brokerage in the sidebar.

Listings

🏷️ Listings shows each listed boat: HIN, platform, asking price, listed date, showings, offers, broker, health score, whether its history report is ready, and status. Click a row to open the boat. Its Listing tab shows the same details.

Brokers can open the boats they've listed, along with those boats' documents, work orders and tech specs.

History reports

📄 Reports shows a card per listing with the boat's health score and whether its ReadyHelm Verified History is ready to share:

• ✓ Report ready to share with buyers when nothing is overdue.
• ✕ Cannot generate — maintenance gaps lists what's overdue. Fix gaps first opens the boat's overview.

A boat's Sale Report tab shows the verified history in full: the health score, verified entries separated from owner-reported ones, and any maintenance gaps worth resolving before buyers see it, or worth reflecting in the asking price.

💬 Messages holds your conversations with owners about their boats: a vessel, a piece of equipment, a service record, a to-do or a mooring inspection.

Finding a conversation

Search the message text, or filter by boat (All boats), type (Any type), person (Anyone), a date range, or Has attachment. Click a result to open the thread beside the list.

In a thread

• Write a message and attach files.
• Edit or delete your own messages. An edited message is marked (edited).
• Report a message that breaks the rules; a ReadyHelm admin reviews it.

Owners see the same thread in their app's Messages page.

⚙️ Admin & Settings (bottom of the sidebar) has four tabs: Integrations, Organization, Team and Plan. Everyone can see them; who can change what depends on your access level.

Access levels

An organization always has at least one Admin. The last Admin can't be removed, demoted, or leave.

A job title (service writer, mechanic, dock crew, surveyor and so on) is shown next to each person's name. It's for display only; the access level decides permissions. The titles offered depend on your organization's types.

Organization

Profile

The public profile owners see when they look you up: public name, legal name, phone, email, website, address, service area, and About (what you do). Save profile saves it. Only Admins can edit it. Owners never see your plan or billing.

Organization type

Check all that apply. The types decide which modules and job titles your team gets. For example, Brokerage adds Listings and Reports, and Mooring service adds Moorings. Choose at least one, then Save types.

Verification

Verified organizations get a ✓ Verified badge wherever owners see them, and are listed when owners search for verified service providers. Verification never limits what you can do in the portal, and unverified organizations work fully with owners who invite them.

To apply, an Admin uploads documents (business license, certificate of insurance, trade licenses or other) with their expiry dates, adds an optional note, and chooses Send for review. Documents are stored privately. A ReadyHelm reviewer approves or declines the request; Withdraw cancels it while it waits.

You're reminded 30 days before a document expires. When one expires, the badge drops until you renew, which is the same Send for review step with the new documents.

Your credentials on this profile

Each member chooses which of their own credentials (a USCG license, ABYC certifications and so on) owners see next to their name. You add credentials in your ReadyHelm account's credential wallet (see My Account in the owner guide). Expired ones are left off.

Team

The Team tab lists everyone in the organization with their access level, job title and license.

• Inviting: enter an email, pick an access level and job title, and choose + Invite. Leave Give them a license when they join ticked to give them a seat straight away (if one is free). They accept in the Pro Portal with that email. An existing ReadyHelm account keeps its own boats. Pending invites lists invites not yet accepted; × cancels one.
• Licenses: Give them a license or Take back their license, effective immediately. You can't assign more licenses than your plan has seats.
• Editing: Edit changes someone's access level or job title.
• Removing: removing someone ends their membership and frees their license. Their work stays with the organization under their name, and their own ReadyHelm account is untouched.
• Leave organization removes yourself.

Plan

The Plan tab shows your organization's tier, its seats (N of M in use), and when it renews or ends. Every seat is at the same tier.

A new organization may start with a trial of a paid tier, shown as "… trial — until (date), then (tier)". When it ends without a subscription, the organization moves to the free tier: features above it become read-only, and nothing is deleted.

Admins can:

• Subscribe (or Start paying for a plan): pick a tier, seats and monthly or annual billing, then Continue to payment to finish on Stripe's secure checkout.
• Upgrade plan: a higher tier, more seats, or annual billing. It takes effect now, and you're charged the prorated difference.
• Change to a smaller plan: a lower tier or fewer seats, then Request change. It takes effect at your next renewal, and Cancel this change withdraws it until then. When seats go down, tick who gives up their license on the Team tab; otherwise the most recently licensed do.
• Payment methods & invoices: opens Stripe's billing page for cards and invoices.

If a payment fails, a banner shows the date to update your payment method by. After that date, pro work becomes read-only until payment goes through. Nothing is removed, and owners keep the verified records you've already given them.

Integrations

QuickBooks Online is rolling out gradually. If you don't see it yet, it's on the way.

QuickBooks Online connects your organization's own QuickBooks company. Only an Admin can connect or disconnect it.

• Connect opens Intuit's sign-in. Choose your company, and you come back to this tab with the company's name shown.
• On a client boat's Overview, the owner card gets Add to QuickBooks (Admins and Managers). It adds the owner as a customer and the boat as a sub-customer under them. If your QuickBooks already has a customer with the owner's email or name, you choose to Link to it or Create a new customer; nothing is created without asking. Afterwards, View in QuickBooks opens the customer.
• On a work order with labor, parts or fees, Send to QuickBooks (Admins and Managers) creates an invoice billed to the boat, one line per work-order line. The first time, ReadyHelm adds three items to your QuickBooks to bill them to: ReadyHelm Labor, ReadyHelm Parts and ReadyHelm Fees. Taxable lines are marked taxable, so your QuickBooks sales tax applies. The work order then shows the invoice number, total and status, with View in QuickBooks.
• If you change the lines afterwards, the work order says Changed since sent; Update in QuickBooks updates the same invoice. If someone edited the invoice in QuickBooks in the meantime, ReadyHelm asks before replacing it.
• Payments come back on their own. When an invoice is paid, partly paid or voided in QuickBooks, the work order shows it within a minute or so, and ReadyHelm double-checks every night. Refresh on the invoice checks right away, and Checked … says when it last did.
• If your QuickBooks company takes online payments (QuickBooks Payments), the invoice gets Email payment link (Admins and Managers), which emails the boat's owner a link to view and pay the invoice, with replies coming to you. Anyone can use Copy payment link to send it another way. Paid and voided invoices don't offer the link.
• A quote you send to an owner also goes to QuickBooks as an estimate (see Quotes). When the owner approves or declines it, the estimate is marked accepted or rejected, and the invoice for the work order it turns into is linked to the estimate, which closes it. If the owner might already be in your QuickBooks, the quote asks you to choose on the boat's Overview first, then Send to QuickBooks on the quote.
• The Work Orders list gets a QuickBooks column with each invoice's status: Unpaid, Partly paid (with the amount still due), Paid or Voided.
• If the owner might already be in your QuickBooks, ReadyHelm asks you to choose on the boat's Overview (Add to QuickBooks) before the first invoice.
• If QuickBooks stops accepting ReadyHelm's access, the card asks an Admin to Reconnect.
• Disconnect deletes nothing, here or in QuickBooks. Customers stay linked, and reconnecting the same company picks them back up. Connecting a different company clears the old links, after a warning.

The integration needs an organization: a ReadyHelm admin signed in without one sees Start or join an organization instead.

My Account

Click your initials (top right) to open My Account. Under Security, Change password updates your password: enter the current one, then the new one twice.

Two-factor authentication

Two-factor authentication adds a code from an app on your phone to your password when you sign in to the Pro Portal, and to the owner app as well, since it's the same account. Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, 1Password and Authy all work.

• Organization Admins must use it. Admins manage the team, billing and connected accounts like QuickBooks, so the first time an Admin signs in, the Pro Portal asks them to set it up before going on.
• Everyone else can turn it on under My Account → Security → Turn on two-factor.

Setting it up: scan the QR code with your authenticator app (or type the key under it), then enter the 6-digit code it shows. You then get eight backup codes. Each one signs you in once if you don't have your phone, so save them somewhere safe, such as a password manager. They aren't shown again.

Signing in: after your password, enter the current code from the app, or choose Use a backup code instead. Each sign-in, on each device, asks once. Switching between your organizations, or following the link to the owner app, doesn't ask again.

In My Account → Security:

• Set up a new authenticator moves it to a new phone. It replaces your old setup and gives you new backup codes.
• Turn off needs a current code. It isn't offered to organization Admins, because it's required for them.

Lost your phone and your backup codes? Contact [email protected]. Once we've confirmed it's you, we turn two-factor off so you can sign in and set it up again.

Your account is the same one you use in the owner app, so the owner app's My Account covers everything else: your profile, notifications, credentials and your owner plan. See My Account, Plans & Upgrading in the owner guide.

Giving feedback

💬 Give Feedback at the bottom of the sidebar reports a bug, requests a feature, or asks for help. It notes which screen you were on, so you don't need to explain where you were.

Signing out

The sign-out button sits next to your name at the bottom of the sidebar.

🐾 First Mate is ReadyHelm's AI assistant for your business. It looks things up across the boats your organization services and can draft work for you to review. It's on Pro Standard and Pro Plus. On Pro Free the sidebar item is greyed out with an upgrade note.

Asking a question

+ New conversation starts a chat about All boats or one boat you pick. You can also click one of the suggested questions to start. Good questions to ask:

• "What maintenance is overdue across the fleet?"
• "What's open on Sea Spray?" (details, recent service, open work orders and quotes, what's due)
• "Which quotes are still waiting on an owner?"
• "What's assigned to me this week?"
• "Which invoices are unpaid?" (if your organization uses QuickBooks, see Admin & Settings)

First Mate answers only from your organization's records, for the boats you have Service Provider access to. If it can't find something, it says so rather than guessing.

Drafting work

Ask First Mate to write something up and it creates:

• an open work order, with labor, parts and fees if you give it prices;
• a draft quote, which isn't sent. An Admin or Manager reviews it on the boat's Quotes tab and sends it (see Quotes);
• a maintenance task on a boat's schedule, repeating every so many days or engine hours.

Each one shows as a card under the reply, for example Draft quote created: Bottom paint. Click it to open that boat on the right tab. If a price, quantity or boat is missing, First Mate asks instead of making one up.

First Mate never sends anything to an owner, never sends invoices to QuickBooks, and doesn't change or delete existing records.

Conversations and credits

Your conversations are private to you. Others in your organization can't see them, and they don't show in the owner app. ✎ renames a conversation and 🗑 deletes it.

Replies use your organization's monthly First Mate credits, shared by the whole team: 1,000 a month on Pro Standard and 3,000 on Pro Plus. The bar above your conversations shows how many are used and when they renew, on the 1st of each month. Admins can click Who used it to see each person's share. When the month's credits run out, First Mate stops answering until they renew, or until an Admin upgrades the plan (see Admin & Settings).

🗺️ Harbor is for harbor master offices and marinas. It shows every mooring and slip on ReadyHelm in the harbors your organization runs, collects the issues owners report there, and lets you put visiting boats on berths that are free. It's on Pro Standard and Pro Plus, for organizations whose type includes Harbor master or Marina (set under Admin & Settings).

Claiming a harbor

An Admin clicks + Claim a harbor, searches the marine directory for the harbor, and adds a note on who you are to it, such as "Town of Scituate harbormaster's office". ReadyHelm checks each claim before approving it. Until then it shows as waiting for ReadyHelm to review, and an Admin can Withdraw it. You get a bell notification and an email when it's approved or not.

Each approved harbor gets a button at the top of the page with its berth count. Give up this harbor ends the claim and the roster disappears. More than one organization can hold the same harbor, for example the town harbor master and a marina inside it. One of them is the harbor's primary organization: the first one approved, unless ReadyHelm moves it. Only the primary places berths on the map, keeps the harbor's boat names and imports. Every holder sees the same roster, map, issues and transient board. If the primary gives the harbor up, the next oldest holder becomes primary.

Roster

Roster lists every live mooring and slip in the harbor: its assignment, the owner, the boat on it now and since when, the permit number and expiry, and open issues. Permits that have expired or expire within 60 days are flagged, and Permits due filters to just those. Filter by Moorings or Slips, search by assignment, owner, boat or permit, and ⬇ CSV downloads the list.

The roster is all you see about a berth unless its owner has also given your organization access to it. Those rows show Open → and open the full mooring or slip, the same as under Berths. Others say Not shared. Owners see on their berth that it's on your roster and what that includes.

Map

Map shows the roster on a map of the harbor, built for a phone on the water. On a phone, open the Pro Portal menu with ☰.

• Each mooring and slip is a dot labelled with its assignment and the boat on it. The colors show a boat on it, empty, a transient guest, or an open issue.
• Search by boat name, mooring number or owner. Pick a result and the map flies to it, with the dot pulsing. This is the quickest way for a new launch operator to find "Sea Spray".
• Chart (the default) is NOAA's nautical chart: soundings in feet, channel buoys and beacons with their numbers, lights, channels and anchorage areas. It isn't for navigation. Map is a street map and Satellite is aerial imagery, which helps you match dots to the balls you can see. Your choice is remembered on that device. Outside US waters, where NOAA has no chart, the street map shows instead.
• 📍 Track me shows where you are, from the device's GPS, and keeps the screen awake while it's on. With a mooring selected, the card shows how far it is and in which direction, for example "🧭 180 m NE (48°) from you". Your position stays on the device: it isn't saved or shared.

The card for the selected berth shows the boat, the owner, the permit and open issues, with + Issue and, if the owner shared it, Open →.

Putting berths on the map. A berth shows where its owner's GPS puts it until your organization places it. Your placement is kept separately, so the owner's own record isn't changed, and it's the position shown wherever the berth is mapped, including the owner's own map. Anyone in the harbor's primary organization can place a berth:

• 📍 Set to my position, while you're tied up to the ball or standing on the slip. This is the fastest way to map a mooring field from the launch.
• Tap the map, then tap where it goes.
• Remove harbor position goes back to the owner's GPS.

A position more than 25 km from the harbor is refused, since it's almost always a swapped latitude/longitude or a missing minus sign. For a berth with no ReadyHelm boat on it, Boat on it (harbor record) lets you note the boat that's there, and it shows on the map and the roster.

Import

Admins of the harbor's primary organization can place many berths at once from a spreadsheet under Import. Choose a CSV file or paste it in. The file needs:

• an Assignment (or Mooring) column;
• Latitude and Longitude, in decimal degrees (42.2058, -70.7201) or degrees and minutes (42 12.348 N, 70 43.206 W);
• optionally Boat and Owner columns.

The roster's ⬇ CSV has these same columns, so you can export it, fill in positions and import it back.

Preview shows what each row would do: Update (a new position or boat name), Create, No change, or Error with the reason. Nothing changes until you click Apply. Rows with errors are left out.

Rows that don't match a berth on ReadyHelm are errors unless you tick Create missing moorings. Then each one with an Owner becomes a berth your organization holds for that person, the same as + Add mooring for a customer or + Add slip for a customer under Berths. Rows are moorings unless a Kind column says Slip; a slip is created as operated by this harbor or marina. No one is emailed.

Issues

Owners report problems with a mooring or slip (a chafed pennant, a sunk ball, a broken cleat) from the berth in their app. When the berth is in a harbor you hold, Send puts the issue in your Issues queue instead of emailing anyone, and your Admins get a bell notification and an email.

Open shows issues still to deal with, All includes resolved and closed ones. Narrow the list to Moorings or Slips, or to one category. Each one shows the berth, the category, who reported it, photos, and what's been done so far. For each:

• Acknowledge tells the owner you've seen it, with an optional note such as "we'll check it Tuesday".
• Resolve records what was done.
• Close ends it without a fix, with an optional reason.

The owner gets a bell notification each time, and sees your notes on the issue.

Your staff can log an issue themselves with + Issue on any roster row or map card, with up to six photos (📷 Add photos takes them with a phone's camera). It goes straight into your queue, and the owner is told and sees it on their berth (they can't edit it).

Transient

Transient shows berths you can put a visiting boat on, for the dates you pick (the next 30 days to start):

• moorings and slips whose owners listed dates they're away and offered them to the harbor;
• moorings your organization holds itself (added for an owner who hasn't joined yet), which are free any time they're empty.

Each berth has a bar across the dates: green is free, navy is a boat already booked. An owner's own guests show only as Owner's guest, without their details.

+ Assign a boat takes arrival and departure dates, the boat's name, its length, the skipper, their phone or email, and the fee. The dates must sit inside a range the owner offered (any dates, on your own moorings), and can't overlap another boat. If the boat is longer or shorter than the berth's approved limits you're warned, but not stopped.

When you assign a boat:

• the berth's owner gets a bell notification and sees the guest on their berth;
• if you enter the HIN of a boat on ReadyHelm (and its owner lets it be found in search), the stay shows up for that boat's owner to confirm. Once they confirm the fee they paid, it's logged in their expenses. The board then says confirmed by the boat's owner, or declined if they say it isn't theirs.

Cancel removes one of your assignments and tells the owner. The fee is recorded for your reference only. ReadyHelm doesn't take payments or split fees between you and the owner.