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 administrative detail into system after system.
APRON pulls all of it into one place: crew and vessel certification, operational admin and the financial layer, connected so the data moves through wherever it's shared instead of being retyped at every step.
The vessel server, but smarter.
APRON runs on the vessel's server (NAS) without replacing it. HODs open APRON instead of File Explorer, files are named and filed properly, and everything syncs to the cloud when there's a connection.
Scans and recognises every file
Passports, STCW, invoices and card receipts.
Names and files each document properly
In the right place with the right title, search-optimised.
Syncs to the cloud when connectivity allows
Over the vessel's satellite connection.
Bidirectional
Shoreside and onboard uploads sync, so management, HODs on rotation, owner's reps and family offices see current data, based on their access.
The Platform
Daily
Dashboard
The vessel's morning, worst first. Every head of department opens the Dashboard and sees what actually needs them: expiring documents, unread notices, hours of rest (HoR) flags, approvals waiting, ranked by urgency. Nobody's chasing a noticeboard.
- Expiry, notice, HoR and approval items in one ranked queue, filtered to your department.
- Each item opens the thing that fixes it: the certificate, the notice, the leave request.
- Leave, travel and expense requests route to the approver the vessel's policy names, with the decision sent back to the requester.
Trip Planning
Add a trip and it feeds all respective departments and tasks, with pre-arrival and departure checklists, clearance packs and port agent emails built from the one plan.
- Checklists compare themselves against what's already on file and list only what's missing.
- Crew list and IMO passenger list produced from whoever is on board that day.
- Clearance pack per port, permits linked to the vessel's certificates, with "not required" recorded so nothing is asked for twice.
- Port agents by UNLOCODE; hotel and flight requests raised from the same trip.
Operations
Vessel
The vessel's own 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. A full sharing app is built into both APRON and TouchBase, so sending and pulling documents doesn't need a separate paid app. Secure copies onboard and in the cloud.
- Certificate matrix built from the documents on the server and kept current as files are replaced.
- One folder and naming structure across every vessel in a fleet, so managers, agents and auditors find the same thing in the same place on every boat.
- Encrypted copy in the cloud, two-way sync whenever the satellite link allows.
- Whole folder sets shared by link, expiring and revocable, no zipping.
Crew
One record per crew member on the vessel's side, from the first TouchBase invite at onboarding through to an EOC final payslip and reference letters. Certificates, rotations, leave and travel all joined up, following the crew member from boat to boat. Daily work and rest through TouchBase feeds a forward-looking sleep-debt forecast against the watch roster, so HODs see a non-compliant HoR building before there's an accident.
- Rotation planner across the whole crew, dragged into place, with leave balance and accrual per contract.
- Live manning check against the vessel's minimum, so a shortfall is visible before leave is approved.
- 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 inspector.
- Separate deck, engine, official, oil record, medical and garbage logs, each with its own entry form.
- Entries signed off by the officer responsible; the full set exports to Excel or a zipped pack for an inspection.
Compliance
Compliance, Notices, SOPs and Tasks
ISM, MLC and flag-state requirements wired 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 verified close.
- Readiness score with the findings an inspector is likely to raise, shown before the visit.
- Drill matrix with a cadence per drill type; overdue and upcoming, participants recorded.
- Notices acknowledged on the crew member's phone, with a check of understanding where it matters; who's outstanding at a glance, one tap to remind, the record kept for auditors.
- SOPs as step-by-step procedures with photos and video, opened on TouchBase where the job is.
- Tasks assigned, chased and signed off by someone other than the person who did them; one recurring task for every HOD in a single action.
- Hours of rest from TouchBase entries, checked against MLC, with the watch bill projected ahead.
- Gangway log doubles as the muster roll-call.
Finance
Accounts, Vendors and Reports
Invoices, card and cash receipts, encrypted account and card details, CTM, petty cash reconciliations to the currency denomination, and APA tracked per charter. Designed to complement the vessel's existing 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.
- Vendor record per supplier and agent, with invoices and payments against it.
Who is behind it
Built by people who
have done the job.
An HOD with more than a decade on yachts. A VVIP corporate pilot with fifteen years' experience who builds software. Both of us have done the paperwork we are now getting rid of.
From the yacht
An HOD for more than
a decade on yachts
APRON started with an HOD who had spent more than ten years in yachting and had seen the same thing on every boat: good crew burning out on admin, a dozen apps each solving one isolated problem, and nothing between the yacht and the office except email.
She set out to build the hub of the ecosystem: the software that sits between the yacht and the office and holds the operation together. The aim was never software for its own sake. It was efficiency that turns into a better quality of life on board, longer careers, and crew with the headroom to do the real job: guests looked after to the highest standard, day in, day out.
From the flight deck
A VVIP corporate pilot
who builds the software
The developer behind both apps is a VVIP corporate pilot with fifteen years' experience, and a former postholder who ran more than twenty aircraft and their crews: training, rostering, employment, safety audits and contract tenders. He has lived the cost of scattered systems, and he has already built SaaS that aviation operators use today.
Two industries, one conclusion: crew have enough to do without being the integration layer.
Built with the industry
Fixed in days,
not months
Both apps are shaped by the people who do the job. Captains, HODs, crew and working developers we trust told us which pains matter most and which features were not worth building. That is how the products became what they are today.
We are also the people you deal with. The two 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 is fixed in days, not months.
APRON & TouchBase
The vessel's side of it,
and the crew's
APRON is the system the captain, the HODs and the office use to run the vessel. TouchBase is the seafarer's own 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 leave. The vessel pays for APRON; the seafarer never pays for TouchBase.
About TouchBase
Vessel
TouchBase, the crew app.
Everything on APRON that concerns a crew member reaches them on TouchBase: their tasks, notices, rotation and documents, on their own phone. It stays quiet while they are on leave and picks up again when they are back on board.
See APRON in action.
A 30-minute demo: the platform running live, your questions answered.