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 Sharing: saillogger.com/app/settings/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 journey covers the rest of those settings, 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. What AIS Fleet is is the guide to that site, written for them rather than for you, and is worth sending along with the link.

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. The switch that decides where the position on their map comes from is a separate thing, under Settings > Integrations.

If they have a boat of their own

Someone on AIS Fleet who owns a boat can link it to their account. They choose Have a boat? Claim her from the account menu, enter the boat's MMSI, confirm the boat we found in the AIS network, and upload one document showing the MMSI is theirs, such as their ship radio licence. A person on our crew checks it and replies by e-mail within 48 hours. The document deletes itself within 72 hours of upload, reviewed or not, and we keep no copies of it.

Linking a boat is what opens the rest of AIS Fleet to them: the boats that follow theirs, the fleets their boat belongs to, and messages with other boats under their boat's name.

Your boat stays yours. An MMSI that already belongs to an active Saillogger boat is refused when someone tries to claim it, so nobody can pick up your boat on AIS Fleet by entering your number. Our crew can still link one by hand where it is genuinely the same boat, a partner or crew member on your vessel for instance, and that takes a deliberate override rather than an ordinary claim. If that ever happens we e-mail you, and from then on that person receives the boat's messages and follower notices on AIS Fleet; everything on Saillogger, your logbook, your sharing settings and your followers, stays yours.

What both ways need from you

• Sharing turned on.
• Live tracking & monitoring turned on.

Your link needs both, full stop. On AIS Fleet the two switches decide how much a follower sees: with them on, followers get your journal, your logged track and rich update e-mails; with them off, your boat can still be followed as plain AIS traffic, the way any vessel on the water can, and followers get simpler departure and arrival e-mails built from the AIS signal alone, with nothing of yours shown. 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.

One more switch matters for AIS Fleet: AIS Fleet, under Settings > Integrations. It decides where your position on their map comes from: your own boat, or only what AIS receivers hear. It works whether or not you have set an access password. If your boat is stale on their map while your own live page is current, that switch is the first thing to check. Share your journey explains it in full.

What they will see

They see the pages you switched on under Sharing, and nothing else of yours. (On AIS Fleet your boat's AIS position is also visible, as it is on any AIS app: that signal is public by nature, and the AIS Fleet switch under Settings > Integrations decides whether your own reports feed it.) 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 saillogger.com/app/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 what they see: the Friends row in your notification settings for the e-mails, and, on the privacy side, Live tracking & monitoring and your access password for your journal, track and other details

If your boat is password protected, an AIS Fleet follower is offered the password screen when they follow you. With the password they see everything your link shows; without it they can still follow, but all they get is your AIS position and plain AIS-based departure and arrival e-mails, the same public signal any AIS app shows. So the password remains the lever that decides who sees your details, whichever route they came in by. See Alerts and notifications for the e-mail switches and Share your journey 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 four levels:

1. Turn off Live Tracking & Monitoring on your Sharing settings. Your link stops working, and AIS Fleet followers lose your journal, your logged track and the rich update e-mails. Your boat remains visible as plain AIS traffic, the way any vessel is, and followers still get the simpler AIS-based departure and arrival e-mails; that side is governed by AIS Fleet under Settings > Integrations and by your own AIS transceiver.
2. Turn on an access password, or change the one you have. Everyone who had the old one is locked out of your pages and details until you send them the new one. AIS Fleet followers without the current password keep only your AIS position.
3. Turn off AIS Fleet under Settings > Integrations. Saillogger stops sending your position, and your boat appears as AIS receivers hear it instead. Neither the access password nor the Live Tracking switch turns this row off. The master Sharing switch does also turn it on and off, so check it in Integrations after changing the master. It is not a way to disappear either: your own AIS broadcasts are outside Saillogger and carry on.
4. Turn off the master Sharing switch. Every Saillogger page goes private at once, and the switch also turns AIS Fleet and Windy off under Integrations. Your own AIS broadcasts remain public and continue outside Saillogger.

These settings changes do not delete your logbook, journal or statistics; they change whether the selected pages are available to visitors and whether Saillogger publishes to the outside services you selected.

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 dashboard 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.