Built on board, not in a boardroom.
One platform for the whole vessel.
On a yacht today, crew, vessel, operations, finance and management live in separate systems that don't talk to each other, and you're entering the same detail into system after system.
APRON pulls it all into one place. Enter something once, and it's there for everyone on board and shoreside.
Built for Captains, HODs,
Crew and Shoreside.
Captains
The whole vessel at a glance, without constantly chasing everyone.
Compliance, certificates and HoR tracked as the work happens, so a PSC, Flag or Class inspection holds no surprises, and when the office asks, the answer is already current.
HODs + Pursers
The admin done once.
Crew records, documents, receipts and reports in one place, filed properly, shared without a dozen emails. Less time on the desktop, more time running the department, being on the floor and training the crew.
Shoreside
The real state of every vessel, not just what lands in the inbox.
Certificates, compliance and accounts visible from shore, current, with the same folder and naming on every boat in the fleet.
Crew
Their own record in their pocket.
Certificates, sea time, references and payslips that stay with them from boat to boat, on TouchBase, free, for as long as they're at sea.
The vessel server, but smarter.
APRON runs on the vessel's server (NAS) without replacing it. Instead of a nest of folders, every file is recognised, named and kept in sync.
Scans and recognises every file
Certificates, documents, invoices, receipts.
Names and files each document
In the right place with the right title, search-optimised.
Syncs to the cloud
Over the vessel's satellite connection, whenever the connection allows.
Syncs both ways
Shoreside and on-board uploads sync, so everyone sees current data on board and shoreside, based on permissions.
Everything APRON does, module by module.
Daily
Dashboard
The vessel's morning, worst first. Every HOD opens the Dashboard and sees what needs attention: expiring documents, unread notices, hours of rest (HoR) flags, approvals waiting, ranked by urgency.
Trip Planning
Add a trip and it feeds every department and their tasks, with pre-arrival and departure checklists, clearance packs and port agent emails built from the one plan.
- Checklists compare against what's on file and list only what's missing.
- A clearance pack per port, permits linked to the vessel's certificates. Mark a document "not required" for a port and it won't be questioned again.
- IMO crew and passenger lists built from the leave plan and date, with edit functionality.
Operations
Vessel
The vessel's record: certificates, flag and class requirements, and the documents every rank needs, filed the same way every time and always one click from a PDF. Full sharing is built into both APRON and TouchBase, so sending and receiving large documents is no longer a problem. Secure copies on board and in the cloud.
- One folder and naming structure across every vessel in a fleet, so managers, agents and surveyors find the same thing in the same place on every boat.
- Certificate matrix built from the documents on the server, kept current as files are replaced.
- Whole folder sets shared by link, expiring and revocable.
Crew
One record per crew member on the vessel's side, from the first TouchBase invite at onboarding through to an end-of-contract final payslip and reference letters. Certificates, rotations, leave and travel all joined up, following the crew member from boat to boat. Daily hours of rest through TouchBase feed a forward-looking fatigue forecast against the watch schedule, so HODs see a rest-hours breach building before it happens.
- Checked against the vessel's minimum safe manning, so a shortfall shows before leave is signed off.
- B1, Schengen, passport and travel letters produced from the record in one click.
- Countdown on every certificate, visa and medical; the crew member hears about it on TouchBase first.
Logbooks
Deck, engine, official, Oil Record Book, medical and garbage logs. Structured entry, digital signatures and full-text search, MARPOL-compliant and ready for a port state inspection.
- Forms signed off by the officers and HODs responsible, with crew populating the data.
- The full set exports to a zipped file for an inspection.
Compliance
Compliance, Notices, SOPs and Tasks
ISM, MLC and flag-state requirements built into the work itself, so compliance happens as you go. Drills, near-misses and incidents logged the moment they happen. A one-click audit pack, with hash-chain integrity proof, is ready for PSC, Flag or Class. Corrective actions and findings tracked through to close-out.
- Readiness score with the findings an inspector is likely to raise, shown before the visit.
- Notices acknowledged on the crew member's phone; who's outstanding at a glance, one tap to remind, the record kept for auditors.
- Hours of rest from TouchBase entries, checked against MLC, with the watch schedule projected ahead.
Finance
Accounts, Suppliers and Reports
Invoices, card and cash receipts, encrypted account and card details, CTM, budgets, petty cash reconciliations to the currency denomination, and APA tracked per charter. Designed to complement the vessel's accounting software.
- Receipts captured on board, filed to the right account and exportable to the vessel's accounting software.
- Crew expenses submitted from TouchBase, approved on APRON, paid with the payroll run.
- Budgets tracked against actuals, per department and per charter.
Who is behind it
Built by people who
are doing the job.
A purser with over a decade in the superyachting industry.
A VVIP corporate pilot with fifteen years' experience who builds software.
Between us, we've done all of the admin APRON streamlines.
From the yacht
The hub between the yacht
and the office
APRON started on board. We'd seen the same thing on every boat: good HODs and crew burning out, buried in admin with little time to train the juniors coming up. More turnover, higher recruitment fees.
A dozen systems, each solving one isolated problem, and nothing between the yacht and Management but email and an ancient, inefficient portal. So we set out to build the hub of the ecosystem: the software that sits between the yacht and Management and holds the operation together.
The aim was never software for its own sake. It's efficiency that turns into a better quality of life on board, crew retention, and the headroom to do the more important job: to look after owners and guests to the highest standard, every day. Happy crew, happy owner.
From the flight deck
A fleet of more than
twenty aircraft
One of us managed a fleet of more than twenty aircraft and their crew: training, rostering, employment, safety audits and contract tenders. He has lived the cost of scattered systems, and has already built SaaS that aviation operators use today.
Two contrasting private industries, maritime and aviation, one conclusion: crew have enough to do without being the integration layer.
Built with the industry
Fixed in days,
not months
Both platforms are shaped by the people who do the job. Captains, HODs, crew and working developers have been, and still are, testing the systems and telling us which pains matter most and what they want built next. That's how the products became what they are today.
We're also the people you deal with. The two of us who talk to the vessels also build the product and read the support inbox, so when something is wrong we hear it directly, and it's fixed in days, not months.
APRON & TouchBase
The vessel's side of it,
and the crew's
APRON is the system the Captain, HODs and Management use to run the vessel. TouchBase is the seafarer's personal app, and the two are built together: when a vessel runs APRON, each crew member's day on board lands in their TouchBase, and their career record stays with them when they sign off.
The vessel pays for APRON. TouchBase is free for crew.
About TouchBase
See APRON in action.
A 30-minute demo: the platform running live, your questions answered.