1. First Steps
After installation, YachtLog walks you into the app in three steps: permissions, safety notice, create your yacht. Then you land in the main menu – since version 1.3 it organises the app into six sections: Basics (yacht, crew, roles, watch plan), Routes (trip planning, route editor, route library), Documents (all PDFs in one place), Logbook, Charts (opens the sea chart directly) and At Sea (cockpit, instruments, weather, tides, anchor watch). With a trip running, a live block moves to the top: trip distance, time under way, SOG, course, distance and engine hours, plus direct shortcuts such as course chart and logbook.
Permissions
YachtLog needs access to your location – for log entries with position, automatic tracking, anchor alarm and MOB. Important: grant location access with “Always”, not just “While Using”. Only then can the app record your passage while the device is locked in your pocket or another app is in the foreground. You can change this anytime under iOS Settings → YachtLog → Location.
Your first yacht
No yacht, no logbook: on first launch you create your yacht with name, type, skipper and the technical data. Everything can be changed later at any time under Base Data.
2. Yacht & Base Data
In the Basics section under Yachts you manage your yacht: name, type, flag, home port, MMSI, year built, length, beam and draft – plus the three calculation values:
- Tank capacity (litres): the basis for range and reserve calculations.
- Engine consumption (litres/hour): your average consumption at cruising speed.
- Cruising speed (knots): your typical passage speed – ETA and planned engine hours are derived from it.
You can create several yachts and switch between them – handy for charter, deliveries or a club fleet. Switching yachts resets the current trip planning so no data from the previous yacht slips into the new trip.
The current fuel level carries over between trips: what the last trip consumed (by calculation) is missing on the next one – until you log a refuelling stop.
3. Crew
Enter your crew (in the Basics section) with name, licence and experience (sea miles). The skipper named on the yacht is added to the crew automatically – no need to enter them twice.
When the crew changes (e.g. crew change in port), the New Trip assistant helps: when you start a new trip it asks whether the crew is changing and then clears all person-related assignments (roles, watch plan) – the skipper is kept.
4. Trip Planning & Fuel
Trip planning (in the Routes section) is the heart of your preparation. Since version 1.3, four numbered sections guide you through it: yacht & passage type, distance, route & sea chart, trip duration.
Passage profile
Choose motor or sailing yacht and the passage type coastal or offshore. The passage type drives the reserve calculation (see below).
Route
Enter departure and destination port – the search knows more than 11,000 ports worldwide and, via online search, also finds towns without a port entry. Lying at anchor or at a private jetty? Tap the location arrow in the departure field: your current GPS position becomes the starting point. The direct distance is calculated automatically; once you refine the route in the route editor, YachtLog uses the actual route distance.
Sailing share
On sailing yachts you state how many miles you plan to sail – the rest counts as engine distance. Leave the field empty and YachtLog calculates conservatively with the full distance under engine (worst case). The “Adopt sailing distance” button suggests a typical value.
Fuel advice
From distance, consumption and speed the app builds compact key-figure rows: range with a full tank and with a 15 % reserve, the fuel needed for the planned engine distance, the passage time and the recommended reserve – with your yacht's base figures shown underneath.
- Coastal: fixed reserve of 40 litres. If the engine distance exceeds your range, the app reminds you to plan fuel stops.
- Offshore: the app checks whether your tank covers demand + 30% safety margin. The reserve recommendation is exactly the amount you are short – if everything fits in the tank it reads “reserve covered”. If demand exceeds the tank, the app recommends auxiliary tanks or jerry cans.
Fuel measurement
How much does your yacht really burn? The fuel measurement tool (in the Routes section, from version 1.1) finds out: fill the tank, run a leg under engine, fill up again. Enter the engine time directly or as meter readings before/after – the app carries the meter forward from measurement to measurement. The result: litres per hour, litres per nautical mile and your range with a 15 % reserve. “Apply to yacht” writes the measured values into your yacht's data – from then on, fuel advice calculates with real figures instead of manufacturer specs.
Trip duration & daily legs
The recommended trip duration is built from the daily leg based on actual daylight: YachtLog calculates with the daylight hours of your sailing area at your travel dates instead of a flat figure – daily legs on the Baltic are longer in June than in October. The ± control adjusts the total duration manually at any time.
Saving charts offline
Before departure you can cache the sea chart offline along your route – coverage at sea is rare. YachtLog stores an overview of the whole route plus a 2 km radius around every waypoint at high zoom levels, where seamarks and hazards appear. The green tick always refers to the currently planned route: change ports or waypoints and it resets, so you cache again.
5. The Route Editor
In the route editor you shape the direct line into your real route – around the cape, through the shipping lane, into the bay. Since version 1.3 it works on the same nautical chart as the course chart – with seamarks, buoys and lights, sharing one offline tile cache:
- Add a waypoint: press and hold the map where you want it – the new point sticks to your finger and can be placed in the same movement.
- Move a waypoint: press and hold the pin, then drag – it follows your finger exactly.
- Delete a waypoint: tap the point (select) and tap the bin icon.
- Undo: the undo arrow takes back every step – as often as you like.
- Search & position: add named ports via search; “My position” sets the start to your current location.
- Tap seamarks: buoys, lights and hazards show their details when tapped – colour, light character, position. They come from an on-board database covering all of Europe and work fully offline.
Between waypoints the map shows the leg distances in nautical miles; total distance and ETA (based on your cruising speed) run along below. The route's start and end points are automatically adopted as departure and destination port in trip planning.
Route library
In the route library (in the Routes section) you save as many named routes as you like – they synchronise via iCloud across all your devices. Routes can be loaded, renamed, duplicated, deleted and exported individually as GPX. When closing, the editor asks whether to save your changes to the route, save them as a new route or discard them.
GPX import & export
Export the finished route as GPX or KML – for plotters, iSailor, Google Earth and other navigation apps. The other way round, the GPX import brings routes from other apps into the library; very long routes are automatically thinned to a manageable number of waypoints.
6. Weather & Tides
The weather forecast (in the At Sea section) fetches professional marine data (ECMWF/Open-Meteo) for your route: wind, gusts, wave height and the trend over the coming days. On the weather map your planned route lies right in the wind field – you see at a glance what awaits you on which leg. Tide data comes from WorldTides.
During the trip YachtLog monitors the weather at your position and warns automatically when strong wind is building.
7. Briefing: Roles, Watch Plan, Safety Briefing
Before departure, the briefing section brings order on board:
Role assignment
Assign the on-board roles – cook, deckhand, safety, tidiness – to your crew. The roles appear in the watch plan and are stored with the trip when it starts.
Watch plan
The watch plan distributes watches automatically and fairly: 4-hour watches by day, 2-hour watches at night, with rotating assignment and standby (the next person steps in). The skipper is exempt from the graveyard watch (01:00–04:00) – as standby he naturally remains available. Per person you set the watch profile (full watch, day only, no watch) and optionally a preferred time of day. Individual watches can be swapped by dragging, roles assigned right in the table. Export the finished plan as a PDF for the pinboard in the cockpit.
Safety briefing & provisions
The guided safety briefing ticks off all points with the crew – life jackets, fire extinguishers, seacocks, radio, MOB manoeuvre. The provisions list calculates by crew size and trip duration: print it at home, walk through it on board and mark what is missing. Both now have their own page and print button in the Documents section. Prefer more comfort? The provisioning planner (in the Basics section) builds a complete meal plan from 30 galley-proof dishes, including a shopping list – on coastal trips split into the big shop and restocking under way.
8. The Trip: Keeping the Logbook
Starting a trip
The New Trip assistant asks five short yes/no questions (crew change? adopt the plan? …) and takes you to the right places. The log entry “Departed” starts the trip: from now on YachtLog records, and your trip planning – ports, route, roles, watch plan – is stored with the trip.
Log entries
In the logbook you capture status entries with one tap: departed, sails set, motorsailing, anchoring, moored and more – each with position, course, speed and an optional note. On motor yachts, since version 1.3 the speed stages Cruising speed, ECO mode, Manoeuvring and Drifting replace the sail manoeuvres – engine hours, consumption and range keep calculating correctly. For every entry the app automatically fetches the current weather (wind, direction, waves) and the place name. Enter fuel stops as refuelling – keeping the fuel calculation up to date.
Live Activity on the Lock Screen
With a trip running, a Live Activity on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island shows the key figures without opening the app: speed, course, distance covered and trip time – and since version 1.3 also the distance to destination and the fuel used since departure. The anchor watch reports distance and alarm status as a Live Activity too.
Automatic tracking
Between your entries YachtLog records the passage by itself: adaptive track points (the faster, the denser) and automatic course-change entries whenever your course changes by more than 20° for good at 3 knots or more. In port or at anchor, berth mode mutes the tracking – no GPS zigzag in the marina, and the battery is spared.
Course chart & measuring tool
The course chart (in the Charts section) shows position, COG/SOG, your track and the planned route in real time – with a satellite view if you like. The tool capsule at the bottom right bundles all chart functions; press and hold any button for an explanation. Seamarks – buoys, lights, hazards – come from an on-board database covering all of Europe, work fully offline and show their details when tapped (colour, light character, position). With the measuring tool (ruler symbol, from version 1.1) you can take a bearing on any point of the chart: drag or tap to the target – course, reciprocal and distance appear instantly and keep updating as the yacht moves on.
Ending a trip
“End trip” closes the logbook. The trip name is already pre-filled – from your planned departure and destination ports (“Cherbourg → La Coruña”) or, failing that, the date – and can be changed freely. Afterwards you can review the logbook, add notes and confirm it as skipper: the trip receives your signature and counts as signed off.
9. Safety: MOB, Anchor Alarm, Emergency
Man overboard (MOB)
The red MOB button is always within reach during the trip. One tap instantly marks the position, opens the recovery view with bearing and distance to the casualty and writes the entry into the logbook. After recovery you document the outcome with a second tap.
Anchor alarm
At anchor you set a swinging radius around your position. If the yacht drifts out of the circle, the app sounds a loud alarm – even at night with the device locked.
Emergency view
The emergency view bundles everything for the worst case: your current position in radio-ready spelling, the template for a PAN-PAN/MAYDAY radio call with all yacht data (name, MMSI, position, people on board) and the watch plan with the assigned crew.
10. Skipper Tools
Since version 1.3 the tools live where you need them:
- Trip calculator (At Sea section, from version 1.2): answers the passage-planning classics – how long will the leg take, and how fast do we need to go to arrive in time? Enter distance plus speed or target time, the rest is calculated continuously.
- Fuel measurement (Routes section): determines your yacht's real consumption – see chapter 4.
- Provisioning planner (Basics section, from version 1.2): a meal plan built from 30 galley-proof dishes, matched to fridge and freezer, with an automatic shopping list for your crew size – printable as PDF.
- Reference tools (At Sea section): NATO alphabet with live spelling input, Beaufort scale Bft 0–12, ICS signal flags A–Z and navigation lights per COLREG.
11. iCloud & Multiple Devices
With the same iCloud account on iPhone and iPad, YachtLog becomes a team:
- Logbook data (yachts, trips, entries, crew) and the route library sync automatically – and survive a device change.
- The current trip planning – ports, route, roles, watch plan – travels along live: plan on the iPad in the evening, cast off with the iPhone in the morning.
- Automatic recording runs only on the device that started the trip. Other devices show everything and can make manual entries – no duplicate track points.
- Entries recorded offline sync as soon as the internet is back.
- Per device: app settings and offline sea charts – download the latter on every device that needs them.
Requirement: iCloud is enabled for YachtLog (iOS Settings → Apple Account → iCloud).
12. Archive, Documents & Review
Every finished trip lives in the archive (Logbook section → trip list) – with everything that belongs to it:
- Trip detail: key figures (sailing/engine miles, consumption, average), the planned passage (“Cherbourg → La Coruña”), all log entries incl. weather, plus the trip's watch plan and role assignment.
- Course history: the track sailed on the map – with the planned route as an orange dashed line underneath: plan versus reality at a glance.
- Statistics: distances, times, speeds and fuel at a glance.
The Documents section
Since version 1.3 all PDFs are created in one place: the Documents section. A traffic-light dot shows for each document whether it already exists, is still open or a prerequisite is missing. “Trip files” exports several at once: the PDF logbook (cleanly formatted, with the skipper's confirmation), statistics, watch plan, track and route as GPX (optionally with speed markers, for iSailor and Navionics) and KML for Google Earth – all files together in the share sheet.
Sea miles certificate
The proof of sea miles for a crew member (from version 1.3, under Documents → Certificates): choose name and role on board, tick the trips – the A4 PDF lists all passages with distances and totals and includes signature fields for skipper and crew member.
Handover protocol
The handover protocol (from version 1.3, under Documents → Certificates) documents taking over and returning the yacht: a checklist in six areas (sails & rig only for sailing yachts) with OK / defect / not checked, defect notes, damage photos and signatures right on the display. The return automatically carries over defects from the takeover. The result: an A4 PDF for charter companies, owners or delivery clients.
13. Settings & Help
In settings (Basics section) you choose the language (German, English, Spanish, Portuguese, French), switch on night mode for the red-light cockpit and find the quick guide right in the app. Reset data empties the app completely – careful, this deletes all trips.
Questions, wishes, found a bug? The support page with FAQ answers the most common questions – for everything else reach us at with the subject “YachtLog Support”.