Short answers, grouped by what you are trying to do. Each one links to the page that covers it in full.

For a symptom-specific problem, go straight to Troubleshooting, which starts with safe checks.

About Saillogger

What is Saillogger?

An automated logbook and monitoring service for your boat. A device aboard uploads position and sensor data, and Saillogger works out when you left, where you went and when you arrived, then writes the log entry itself. It also records your moorages and stays, builds statistics and timelapses, and lets you watch the boat while you are away. See What Saillogger is.

Do I have to start and stop each trip?

No. Saillogger detects departure and arrival automatically, so there is nothing to start or stop. A finished trip normally appears about an hour after you arrive. See How trips are logged.

What do I need aboard?

One of three things: a PredictWind tracking link, a Victron GX device wired to your NMEA 2000 network, or the Saillogger plugin on any Signal K server. You also need an Internet connection, though not a constant one. See Connect your boat.

Can I use two data sources at once?

Use one connection method at a time. A PredictWind tracker and a Victron GX sending the same voyage can create duplicate entries. When moving from one to the other, stop the old connection before starting the new one.

Can I have two boats on one account?

Each account is built around a single boat, so a second boat needs its own account and subscription. If you own two, create the second account and ask [email protected] to link them. That puts a switch boat entry in your menu, so you can move between them without signing out. See Create your account.

Can I look at it before I sign up?

Yes. There is a read-only demo account at saillogger.com/demo/ with real logs, statistics and a fully populated monitoring page. The credentials are filled in for you, and nothing you click can change the account, so look around as long as you like.

Getting set up

Does my boat need to be connected to the Internet?

Not constantly, for trip logging. The device aboard keeps data waiting to upload and sends it when it next gets online. Reconnect periodically because data that has not uploaded still depends on the device and its storage. Live monitoring is different: to watch the boat now, the boat must be online now.

Is GPS required?

Yes, for both trip logging and monitoring. An Internet connection on its own gives Saillogger nothing to draw a track from and nowhere to place your boat. On most boats the position comes from the chartplotter or AIS transceiver, so it may become unavailable when those instruments are switched off.

How do I know it is actually working?

Open Settings > Boat at saillogger.com/settings/?tab=boat and read the Status and Last Contact rows. That page is the health panel for your connection, and the old boats page address now redirects to it. See Check that it is working.

Where do I choose which sensor feeds each reading?

On saillogger.com, under Settings > Monitoring & Tracking: saillogger.com/settings/?tab=monitoring. Each reading has its own dropdown of the Signal K paths your boat publishes. Older instructions say to do this in the Signal K plugin, which changed with plugin 3.0.0. See Make Saillogger yours.

When should I set a GPS source in the plugin?

Almost never, so leave GPS source empty. It is an advanced option for a boat where several position sources disagree, and a wrong choice stops trip logging until it is corrected. Check the antenna and set source priorities in Signal K first, and if that does not settle it, get in touch before changing the field. See Troubleshooting.

My battery readings are on the network but Saillogger shows zero.

Check them in the Signal K Data Browser first: context self, search batteries, and you should see paths like electrical.batteries.1234.voltage. Then choose that same path in Battery Voltage Source under Settings > Monitoring & Tracking, and the matching capacity.stateOfCharge path in Battery Charge Source. Older instructions describe a battery field in the Signal K plugin, which current versions no longer have. Full steps are in Troubleshooting.

How much data does it use?

Monitoring a boat with the usual sensors and a couple of tanks comes to roughly 8 MB a day, around 250 MB in a month. It arrives as a steady trickle rather than in bursts, and the amount does not rise when you are sailing hard.

AIS reporting is separate, and adds about 2 MB a day, some 50 MB a month, with ten or so boats around you. It grows with the traffic, so a busy marina costs more than an ocean passage, and Display AIS Targets under Settings > Monitoring & Tracking switches it off, at the price of losing other boats from your monitoring map.

On Starlink or a cellular plan, that is a small share of the allowance.

Can I import my old tracks from another service?

Imports are done by the Saillogger team rather than from your own settings. Write to [email protected] with the file and the dates it covers, and do it early: an import is most likely to be possible before newer trips are logged. See Your logbook.

Yes, and it is a common pairing. Turn on Sharing and Live Tracking & Monitoring in Settings > Sharing and send people the link. Starlink needs no extra setup for this: Saillogger treats it as an ordinary Internet connection, and your position comes from the boat's own GPS. Saillogger is not an emergency beacon or a replacement for a passage safety plan. See Share your boat.

Using it day to day

My last trip has not appeared. Where is it?

Reporting may have stopped soon after arrival. Turn the monitoring device on again at the same place, confirm Last Contact is updating, and allow about an hour for the trip to finish. Reconnect before resetting or replacing the device because data still waiting aboard depends on its storage. See Troubleshooting.

Can I combine two trips into one?

A stop of about an hour is what ends a trip, so an out-and-back is kept as the two legs you sailed rather than joined into one. See How trips are logged.

Can I add a trip by hand?

Every log is built from a recorded track, so there is nothing to fill in by hand. If another service recorded the track, write to [email protected] with the file and dates and we can often bring it in. See Your logbook.

Can I fix a bad trackpoint, or delete a whole trip?

Yes to both. Open the log, click the offending trackpoint and use the delete button in its popup. To remove the whole thing, use the red Delete log button on the log page, which also deletes the stays attached to it. Deleting positions suits a track with a few bad points; if most of the track is wrong, export anything you want to keep first. See Your logbook.

Can Saillogger log engine hours, RPM and sailing versus motoring?

Yes. If your engine reports hours over NMEA 2000 they are logged per trip automatically, twin engines included. The sailing and motoring split needs your boat type set to Monohull sailboat or Sailing catamaran in Settings > Boat. For live RPM or runtime gauges, add a monitoring section and set its Monitoring Type to RPM or Duration: see Make Saillogger yours.

How do I put text on a timelapse?

Notes attached to trackpoints appear in the timelapse as your boat passes them. Add them while underway with the pencil icon on the monitoring page, or afterwards by opening a log and clicking a trackpoint. See Notes, photos and your journal.

Can I export my logs?

Yes. Logs and stays export as CSV, and tracks and moorages as GPX. These are data exports rather than a complete account archive: photos and journal media are not included, so keep their originals. A Seasonal Pause switches exports off along with everything else, so download before you start one. See Your logbook.

My journal is blank. How do I fix it?

Set Initial Tracking Position under Settings > Monitoring & Tracking to the trip you want your journal and your live track to start from, then reopen the journal. Saillogger usually sets this after your first logged trip, so a blank journal mostly affects new accounts or ones where it was cleared. See Notes, photos and your journal.

Sharing and privacy

Who can see my data?

Public sharing is off for a new account, so other boaters and visitors cannot open your boat pages. Turning Sharing on initially enables all shareable page types, so it is worth going through the individual switches straight after, and adding an access password when the link is meant for chosen people. See Your account, data and privacy.

How do I share with family and friends only?

Turn on Sharing in Settings > Sharing, switch off any pages you do not want to publish, then turn on Require Access Password and save a unique passphrase. Reload the settings and test the link in a private browser window before sending it. Changing the password locks everyone out until you send them the new one. See Share your boat.

Yes. With sharing on, the Name row builds your address from a prefix (SV, MV and so on) and your boat name, giving you something like https://saillogger.com/svrenaissance. Changing the prefix or the boat name changes every public link, so links you have already sent or embedded stop working. See Share your boat.

Can I put my live tracker on my own website?

Yes, with a plain iframe pointing at your public monitoring link. The embedded page follows the same sharing switches and access password as the ordinary link, so test it in a private browser window before publishing. It keeps Saillogger's own styling, so the map layer and the track colour look the same to every visitor. See Share your boat.

How do I follow another boat?

From the Friends page at saillogger.com/friends/, enter the boat's 9-digit MMSI, or use the follow button in a boat's popup on a public map. You can follow Saillogger boaters who chose to share and vessels broadcasting public AIS positions, subject to AIS coverage and local rules. You get an e-mail when a followed boat departs or arrives. See Friends, fleets and messages.

I started a fleet by mistake. How do I get rid of it?

Open the fleet, go to Manage, and use Delete fleet at the bottom. A page lists what the deletion takes with it before you confirm, and deleting frees one of your five fleets. If boats have already been added, they lose the fleet map and the fleet chat straight away and are not told, so tell them first. It cannot be undone. If you only want the fleet off its public link, turn Public fleet off instead and its members keep everything. See Friends, fleets and messages.

My family do not use Saillogger. How can they follow us?

Two ways, both in a browser with nothing to install: send them your public monitoring link, or point them at AIS Fleet at aisfleet.com, where they sign in with an e-mail code and follow your boat by MMSI. Your link needs Sharing and Live Tracking & Monitoring turned on; on AIS Fleet those two switches decide how much a follower sees (your journal and logged track with them on, only your AIS position with them off), and AIS Fleet also needs your MMSI to be known to the AIS network. The Update your position on AIS Fleet switch on the same tab decides whether the position they see comes from your own boat or only from what AIS receivers hear. See For family and friends without Saillogger and AIS Fleet.

What is AIS Fleet, and can I use it myself?

AIS Fleet at aisfleet.com is a vessel-watching service from the same team: a live AIS map in the browser, an e-mail whenever a vessel you follow departs or arrives, plus fleets, messages and a member-built vessel photo catalog. Anyone can use it, boat or no boat, with an e-mail address and no password, and the free plan does not expire. It is used to watch ships for their own sake as much as to follow a friend or a relative's cruise. As a Saillogger boater you need no account there to be followed, and following other boats is already included in your subscription through Friends; a boat that logs with Saillogger and shares publicly brings her journal, her real logged track and her owner's photo onto her follower's map. See What AIS Fleet is.

Can someone else claim my boat on AIS Fleet?

Not by themselves. AIS Fleet members can link a boat to their own account by entering its MMSI and uploading a document showing the MMSI is theirs, which a person on our crew checks. An MMSI that already belongs to an active Saillogger boat is refused at that step, so your boat cannot be picked up by someone entering your number. Our crew can still link one by hand where it is the same boat, a partner or crew member on your vessel for instance, and that takes a deliberate override; if that ever happens we e-mail you, and nothing on Saillogger itself changes hands. See For family and friends without Saillogger and Your boat, fleets and messages.

Can I stop one particular person following me?

Following is controlled by your sharing switches rather than person by person. Turning off Live Tracking & Monitoring, then setting or changing the access password and sending the new one only to the people you want, takes back your pages, your journal and your logged track from everyone else. It does not hide the boat: your AIS position stays public, as it is on any AIS site, and an AIS Fleet follower keeps seeing it along with plain departure and arrival e-mails built from it. Update your position on AIS Fleet, on the same tab, is the row that stops Saillogger sending your own fixes. If this is about harassment or your safety, write to [email protected] and we will help. See Boats that log with Saillogger and Friends, fleets and messages.

How do I turn my boat into a Windy.com weather station?

Turn on sharing, then enable Windy Station in Settings > Sharing. The switch stays disabled until your boat has sent a monitoring reading, your Wind Direction Source is exactly environment.wind.directionTrue, and that reading includes an outside temperature: Windy needs both the true wind direction and the temperature. Publishing true wind direction needs plugin 2.3.0 or newer. See Share your boat.

Money

What does Saillogger cost?

Free for 45 days, then USD 7.99 a month or the local equivalent. You do not need to enter payment details for the trial, and the 45 days start when your boat first sends data, not when you sign up. See Subscription and seasonal pause.

Is there an annual plan?

There is no annual plan at present; subscriptions are billed monthly. Referral credits can reduce future bills when a boater signs up with your code and makes their first payment.

How does the referral programme work?

Your code is under Settings > Referrals. A boater who enters it while creating their account gets 25% off their first paid month, and when they pay you get one free month, banked if you do not need it straight away. A code cannot be added after the account exists. If the signup form itself failed while the code was being entered, write to [email protected] and we will look at it.

We only boat for part of the year. Can we pause?

Yes, with Seasonal Pause under Settings > Subscription. The pause stops logging and monitoring as well as your own access, including exports, until you resume. Export anything you want to read during the winter before starting it. See Subscription and seasonal pause.

What happens to my data if I stop paying?

Your logbook is not deleted the moment a subscription ends, and an account can often be brought back by writing to [email protected]. Export what you want to keep as CSV and GPX before you cancel, remembering that a seasonal pause switches exports off. Deleting the account yourself, from Settings > General, closes it, cancels the subscription and takes down every shared page, so treat that as final and write to us straight away if it was a mistake. See Your account, data and privacy.

Something is wrong

My trips are not being logged, but monitoring works.

They are fed by different data, so a working monitoring page does not prove logging works. Wait about an hour after arriving, restart Signal K, empty the GPS source field in the plugin, then check the plugin status line and Settings > Boat. Full steps in Troubleshooting.

My track zigzags, or my boat is shown miles away.

The usual cause is an unreliable GPS fix or several position sources disagreeing. Check the antenna and position timestamp, then use Signal K source priorities to prefer the reliable source. If that does not resolve it, contact support before changing the plugin's advanced GPS source. See Troubleshooting.

I get 0-mile or duplicate trips at the dock.

Position jitter at the dock can look like movement, and the fix is the same as for a zigzag track: a reliable antenna and Signal K source priorities. You can delete a false trip, but that also deletes the stays attached to it; for a real trip with a few bad positions, delete those positions instead. See Troubleshooting.

A reading is missing, zero or wrong on my monitoring page.

Saillogger shows only what your boat network reports, and only while it is fresh: a stale value is dropped rather than displayed. Check the value and its timestamp in the Signal K Data Browser, then the source dropdown in Settings > Monitoring & Tracking. A path that has only just appeared takes a while to become selectable, and restarting Signal K brings it forward. See Troubleshooting.

The wind arrow points the wrong way.

It points where the wind is blowing toward, so an arrow pointing south means a northerly. A weather barb commonly points toward where the wind comes from, so the displays can look opposite while using the same reading. If there is no arrow, check whether your network publishes environment.wind.directionTrue: see Troubleshooting.

My boat shows as offline.

Either the device is not reaching Saillogger at all, or it is reaching Saillogger with no position. Check that the boat electronics and GPS are powered, that the device is on the boat network and online, and that the antenna has a clear view of the sky. See Check that it is working.

Trips are logged but monitoring does not work.

Usually the monitoring device and the chartplotter disagree about the time. Make sure both clocks and timezones are right, daylight saving included, and restart both after changing anything. If the monitoring page still shows a future or stale update time after that, send us a screenshot and the time it shows. See Troubleshooting.

The plugin will not install, or stopped working after an upgrade.

Update the Saillogger plugin first, let the installation finish, and restart Signal K. If it still fails, copy the exact error and your device, firmware, Signal K and plugin versions, then contact us before removing stored device data or configuration. See Troubleshooting.

I cannot reset my password.

If your account was cancelled, the reset can fail silently. Write to [email protected] from your registered address and ask for it to be re-enabled. See Your account, data and privacy.

My question is not here.

The community forum is a good place for general questions and for experience with similar hardware. For anything account-specific, e-mail [email protected], keeping your e-mail address and Collector ID out of public threads. We are glad to help, and it saves a round trip if you include what you see, what you expected, when it started, and your plugin version and monitoring device from Settings > Boat.