Family and friends often want a simple way to check the boat or receive an arrival update. The two options below work in a phone or desktop browser with nothing to install.

1. Send them your link

The simplest way. You publish a page, they open it.

What you do:

1. Open Settings, then the Sharing tab: https://saillogger.com/settings/?tab=sharing.
2. Turn on Sharing.
3. Make sure Live Tracking & Monitoring is on. Its public address appears on that row, something like https://saillogger.com/svrenaissance.
4. Copy that address and send it to them.
5. If you have turned on Require Access Password, send them the password too, or they will be stopped at a password screen.

Share your boat covers the rest of that tab, including how to keep the page for a chosen few rather than for everybody.

What they do:

They open the link. That is all. They see your boat's position and your latest news, and they can add the page to their phone's home screen if they want it a tap away. No account, no app, no password unless you set one.

What to put in the message

Four short things save most of the follow-up questions:

• the address itself, as a link they can tap
• the access password, if you set one, and the note that it is not a Saillogger account password
• one line about what they will see: where the boat is, and how recently it reported
• a reminder to read the Updated time because connectivity gaps can leave the last position on screen for hours

The page normally refreshes itself while it is open. The Updated time still shows how current the latest position is.

2. AIS Fleet

AIS Fleet is our companion product for people who follow boats rather than log their own. It suits somebody who wants to follow more than one boat, or who wants to be told rather than to check.

What they do:

1. Go to https://aisfleet.com.
2. Sign in with an e-mail address. There is no password to invent: a sign-in code arrives by e-mail and they type it in.
3. Follow your boat by its MMSI, the nine-digit number you give them.
4. Your boat appears on their own map, alongside the other AIS traffic around it.

From then on they get an e-mail every time you depart and every time you arrive. Following a few boats is free.

Where to find your MMSI: it is shown on your Sharing settings, in the AIS Fleet note under the Sharing switch, and under Settings, then Boat.

What both ways need from you

• Sharing turned on.
• Live Tracking & Monitoring turned on.

Without those two settings, neither option can show the boat. Turn them on, then test the link before sending it.

AIS Fleet also needs the boat's MMSI to be known to the AIS network. If someone sees not in our network, confirm the MMSI, then try again after the boat has broadcast within range of an AIS receiver.

What they will see

They see the pages you switched on under Sharing, and nothing else. For most boats that means:

• Live Tracking & Monitoring: where you are now, and the instrument readings you have chosen to show
• your journal, which is published with live tracking rather than by a switch of its own
• Stats, Logbook List and Individual Log Pages, if you left those switches on

They do not see your settings, your account, your subscription, or anything you have not published. If your boat has been offline for a while, the page shows the last known position and when it was recorded. That timestamp is essential: an old position is not evidence of the boat's current location or the crew's safety.

AIS Fleet followers show up on your Followers page

An AIS Fleet follower is a follower like any other:

• they appear on your followers list at https://saillogger.com/friends/followers/, with an AIS Fleet badge on the row
• you get an e-mail when a new one starts following you, exactly as you do for a Saillogger follower
• the same switches control both: the Friends row in your notification settings, and, on the privacy side, Live Tracking & Monitoring and your access password

If your boat is password protected, an AIS Fleet follower is asked for that password when they follow you, just as a visitor to your link is. So the password is still the lever that decides who gets to see you, whichever route they came in by. See Alerts and notifications for the e-mail switches and Share your boat for the privacy ones.

If the people following you do use Saillogger

Boaters with their own Saillogger account can use Friends instead. It places your boat on their map and provides the same departure and arrival e-mails. That is covered in Friends, fleets and messages.

Stopping it later

You can change or stop sharing at three levels:

1. Turn off Live Tracking & Monitoring on your Sharing settings. Your link stops working and AIS Fleet followers stop seeing you.
2. Turn on an access password, or change the one you have. Everyone who had the old one is locked out until you send them the new one, and that includes AIS Fleet followers, who are asked for the current password.
3. Turn off the master Sharing switch. Everything goes private at once.

These sharing changes do not delete your logbook, journal or statistics; they change whether the selected pages are available to visitors.

If it does not work

• "The link asks for a password." That is your access password, not their Saillogger password (they do not have one). Send it to them.
• "The link says nothing is here." Check that Sharing and Live Tracking & Monitoring are both still on, and that you have not renamed the boat since you sent the link. A rename changes the address.
• "The map is empty, or the position is old." The page only shows what your boat has reported. If your device is off or offline, the page shows the last known position rather than nothing. Check your own live monitoring page first: if it is stale for you, it is stale for them.
• "AIS Fleet cannot find my boat." Your MMSI has not been heard by an AIS receiver yet, or the number was mistyped. Nine digits, no spaces.
• They stopped getting e-mails. On AIS Fleet, they control their own e-mails from their account there. From your side, the Friends row in your notification settings controls the mail you get, not the mail they get.

Anything else, write to [email protected] or ask on the community forum.