Following vessels and receiving the e-mails needs nothing but an e-mail address. Linking a boat of your own is what opens the rest of AIS Fleet: the fleets she belongs to and their chats, the list of who follows her, and messages that carry her name rather than yours.

Link your boat

1. In the account menu, choose Have a boat? Claim her.
2. Enter her MMSI and confirm the boat we found in the AIS network.
3. Upload one document showing that MMSI is assigned to you or your boat: an FCC Ship Station License or a BoatUS or Sea Tow MMSI certificate in the United States, an Ofcom Ship Radio Licence in the United Kingdom, or your own radio authority's equivalent. A phone photo or a one-page PDF is fine, up to 20 MB, and you are welcome to cover anything that is not the boat, your name and the MMSI.

A Saillogger crew member checks the document against the MMSI, and that is all it is used for. You hear from us within 48 hours, the file deletes itself within 72 hours of upload whether it was approved or not, and we keep no copies.

If you see "This MMSI has not appeared in our AIS network yet", claiming needs a boat we already know. Check the nine digits, and come back once she has been broadcasting within range of a receiver.

If your boat already logs with Saillogger

She is on AIS Fleet already, through her MMSI and your sharing settings, so there is nothing here you need to do and no plan you need to buy. An MMSI that belongs to an active Saillogger boat is refused by an ordinary claim, which is what stops anyone picking up your boat by typing your number.

The case this is really for is two people on one boat: a partner or a crew member who wants her in their own AIS Fleet account. Write to [email protected] and our crew can link her by hand. Because AIS Fleet recognises one owner per MMSI, that link moves her AIS Fleet identity to them, so it is worth knowing what changes before you ask for it:

• On AIS Fleet, your boat then appears the way any AIS vessel does: her position, and no journal, no logged track and no owner photo, whatever your sharing switches say.
• New AIS Fleet followers, and AIS Fleet messages about her, reach them rather than you.
• On Saillogger, nothing moves. Your logbook, your journal, your sharing settings, your public link and your own followers stay yours, and boaters following you through Friends are unaffected.
• We e-mail you when the link is made, so you hear it from us rather than from a follower.

For family and friends without Saillogger covers the same ground from the boat owner's side.

Fleets

A fleet is a group of boats on one map with a chat of its own: a club, a rally, a class association, a family with two boats.

• Fleets are created on Saillogger by a Saillogger boater. Friends, fleets and messages covers that side, including how an owner runs the roster.
• You are in a fleet when its owner adds your boat's MMSI to the roster, so give them your MMSI and ask. That needs your boat linked to your account, and it is the only route in: there is no self-service join.
• The Fleets tab opens a picker, and choosing a fleet gives you its own map with the members on it, a roster panel listing every boat in it, and Fleet chat.
• There are two ways to see your fleet, and they answer different questions. A fleet's own map answers "where is everyone in this fleet": only its boats, framed together, with the roster and the chat beside them. The Fleets switch on the main map answers "is anyone of mine near me": your fleet mates appear in their own colour among the ordinary traffic you are already watching, from every fleet your plan has active at once. The live vessel map covers the switch.
• The roster carries both kinds of member: boats that log with Saillogger, and boats that appear on AIS alone. Positions on a fleet map are the AIS positions of the boats in it.
• Fleet chat is for current members only, even where the fleet map itself is public.

Your plan sets how many of your fleets are active at once, oldest membership first: one on the free plan, three on Plus and fifteen on Pro. Any beyond that stay listed but carry nothing: no roster, no positions, no fleet chat, and no place in the main map's Fleets switch. So if you organise a rally, a member you add to their second fleet sees only their first until they move up a plan.

Messages

You can write to the boater behind a boat you follow, to anyone who follows your boat, and to your fleet mates. That is the whole of it: a member you have no connection with cannot be messaged, and neither can you.

• You are shown by your boat's name when one is linked, and by the full name on your account otherwise. Never by your e-mail address.
• Each message you send e-mails the other person, unless they have turned Direct messages or Fleet messages off in their own notification settings, so a conversation usually works when neither of you is looking at the site.
• Messages are kept for 30 days and then removed for everyone, photos included. If something matters, keep it somewhere else.
• One-to-one messages work without a linked boat. Fleet chat needs one, because fleet membership follows the boat.

A Saillogger boater is on the other end of some of these conversations: a message from an AIS Fleet member who follows their boat arrives in their Saillogger messages, under the sender's boat name, or under their published full name when no boat is linked.

Who follows your boat

Once your boat is linked, her followers are listed in your account. A follow is one-way and needs no approval, on AIS Fleet as anywhere else, and it is not managed follower by follower. If the worry is harassment or your safety, write to [email protected]: we will look at the account behind it with you, and there are steps open to us that are not open to you.

If your boat keeps her log with Saillogger, her followers list lives on Saillogger instead, at saillogger.com/friends/followers/, and AIS Fleet followers appear there with an AIS Fleet badge. That list is not the whole picture, though: it shows the people who can open your pages right now, so it is empty while Live Tracking & Monitoring is off, and an AIS Fleet follower who does not hold your current access password drops off it while still following your AIS position. Friends, fleets and messages covers it in full.