Three years ago, Tom and Chris met while working recipe-sharing platform in Bristol, UK. They quickly discovered a shared passion for the ocean, in particular sailing, so they booked an RYA Day Skipper course together, and we are so glad they did!
Fast forward to a typical March day on The Solent (🥶) and they were in their element, but it didn't take long to discover that two important things were missing:
- Warmer gloves 🧤
- A modern way to capture their experience 📖
Why was a modern way needed?
Like most sailors, the two want to capture their time on the water for 3 main reasons:
- Reliving their adventures when they were back on land
- Sharing voyages with family and friends
- Recording their our overall sailing experience
To their surprise, there was no modern way to do this.
Sailors try to keep a paper logbook up to date, however, those only provide very limited information about a trip, they are boring to share and longwinded to summarise (especially if you have more than one).
Testing the existing options
After completing our course, they crewed for other sailors to build their miles - something we at Sailstice are thrilled about!
The two tried to record their voyages on GPS devices (marine, cycling and smart watches) and exercise tracking apps (including Strava), however, nothing was suited to recording long passages or the collaborative nature of sailing. It was also very difficult to share data from the hardware. The last straw came in Greece, their first charter holiday sailing around the Ionian Islands. All they had to show for it was an uninspiring entry in their log books 😢:
So, the two put their thinking caps on abd decided to fix the problems themselves which is how SailTies was born.
SailTies product anchors ⚓️
Tom and Chris's overall goal is to create a product that solves real problems for fellow sailors, that they love to use and will therefore share with sailing friends. At the start of their journey, they agreed on four aspects of the product we wouldn't compromise on. We call them our '4 anchors'.
(Disclaimer: This isn't named after how they moor up at sea)
1. Easy to capture everything in one place
SailTies makes it easy to capture all of the important elements of your sailing experience together. GPS track, stats, crew list, log commentary, photos - it's all on the voyage record with a beautiful map.
2. Collaborative
More often than not, you will be sailing with crew. With SailTies only one person needs to record the voyage and they can tag the other crew to let them contribute photos and notes. Collaboration is not only more fun, but makes it much easier to capture a rich memory of the voyage.
3. Fun to share your experience
All sailing is an adventure and those miles are something to be proud of. On SailTies, your profile is automatically updated with key stats such as total miles logged and time at sea.
There is image sharing to social media, a feed in the app and public links that can be sent to users without the app, to easily share your profile or a specific voyage.
4. No distractions from sailing
They want sailors to get value from SailTies when they are off the water.
Sailing for us is a time to connect with nature, develop a stronger respect for our oceans and have meaningful experiences with other people. So we have made it as simple as possible to capture on SailTies - one tap to start recording and then you can put it back in your pocket or even down below in a dry bag.
To leave the smallest possible footprint on your voyage, SailTies works offline (and offshore), uses accessible design practises, has low battery usage and is regularly tested at sea by real sailors.
Essentially - SailTies is built to be sea worthy.
Try SailTies for free!
Ready to capture your next voyage, or want to explore the trips already recorded on SailTies?
SailTies is completely free and available to download from the iOS App Store.
The SailTies team have created a group page for Summer Sailstice, so we can easily share our sailing with each other, just by tagging the voyage. You can see some sailing from last year already on the group: https://sailties.net/
It’s simple to get started:
2. Record your sail on the SailTies app
3. Tag the Summer Sailstice group when you publish