What is a passenger manifest and is it mandatory?

The passenger manifest is the list of people on board, with their identity details (name, date of birth, sometimes nationality and ID number). For private leisure sailing it is not mandatory in many jurisdictions, but it becomes mandatory for carriage for payment, and is required by some countries when crossing a maritime border (Spain, Italy, Croatia in certain cases). A good, up-to-date manifest saves time at every check.

How do you organise watches on a cruising sailboat?

Three common patterns: 3 hours / 3 hours for a crew of 4 (hard offshore), 4 hours / 4 hours for a crew of 4-5 (more restful), 6 hours by day and 3 by night for a crew of 6 (rolling rotation). The key: a structured watch briefing at handover, a rotation designed around fatigue, and a schedule visible and accessible to every crew member.

How do you share the navigation app between several co-skippers?

With a modern app, each co-skipper has their own account and the boat is shared between accounts. Everyone sees the same history, fills in the same log, has access to the same statistics. The main skipper can invite co-skippers and manage their rights (read, write, admin). It is one of the major gains of digital over the paper log.

Does every temporary crew member need an account?

Not necessarily. For regular co-skippers, yes, a dedicated account is useful. For temporary crew (a training week, an occasional passage, guests), an on-board presence feature without creating an account is more practical: the skipper adds the person to the current passage's manifest, their presence is logged, without asking each one to sign up on the app.

What are the key points of the safety briefing before a passage?

Five points minimum: where the safety gear is (lifejackets, harnesses, liferaft, flares), how the VHF works (use, distress channel 16, the boat's MMSI), how to use the kill switch and start the engine, the watch organisation and self-relief rules, the man-overboard alert signal and procedure. Five minutes at anchor before departure that can save a life.

Sailing Crew Management: Tools and Best Practices

The safety briefing before every passage

Every passage starts with five minutes of safety briefing. Not only for occasional guests, but also to remind the regular crew of the discipline. Five points minimum:

1. Where the safety gear is

Lifejackets per crew member (where, how to put it on), harnesses and tethers (where, attachment points), liferaft (location, how it deploys, grab bag), flares and distress signals (location, quick instructions).

2. Using the VHF

Where it is, how to switch it on, watch channel 16, the boat's MMSI, the distress call procedure (DSC red button or voice Mayday). A crew member must be able to take over if the skipper is unavailable.

3. Kill switch and engine start

Where the kill switch is, how to wear it, the procedure to start the engine in an emergency. Every crew member must know how.

4. Watch organisation

Who takes which watch, at what time, the handover rules, who to ask in case of doubt. The watch schedule must be posted or visible in the app.

5. Man-overboard procedure

The signal from the crew member who sees the fall, the pointing gesture (keep a finger on the person in the water, never lose sight of them), each person's role (who comes back on the track, who readies the MOB pole or the net, who calls MAYDAY on VHF). Five minutes of briefing at anchor stop everyone from improvising at the moment of crisis.

Organising watches without breaking the crew

The watch is the foundation of organisation offshore. Three patterns are used depending on crew size.

Crew of 4

3 hours / 3 hours is intense but classic: each crew member alternates 3 hours on watch, 3 hours rest. It holds over 24 to 36 hours, tires beyond that. 4 hours / 4 hours is more restful but forces longer handovers. Your choice depending on the planned duration.

Crew of 5-6

Watch in pairs, 4-hour rotation, 8 hours rest for each pair. Comfortable and allows training: an experienced crew member with a beginner. It is the standard on crewed ocean crossings.

Crew of 3

4 hours on watch, 8 hours rest, perfect for a several-day passage. Each person stands watch alone, but the handover briefing is crucial to pass on the information.

Rules to follow

A systematic 5-minute briefing at every handover
A shorter or denser night watch (nights tire more, concentration drops)
No solo watch for a crew member who has not done at least 2-3 prior passages on the boat
Always able to wake the skipper without guilt
Hot meals planned for the night watches

The passenger manifest: why, how

The passenger manifest is the official list of the people on board. Its typical structure:

Name, date of birth
Nationality and type of ID document
ID document number
Emergency contact ashore
Allergies and sensitive medical data (optional but useful)

When is it mandatory?

For private leisure sailing the manifest is not mandatory in many jurisdictions. It becomes so:

For carriage for payment (skippered charter, hire with skipper)
When crossing certain maritime borders (Spain, Croatia, Italy, Tunisia in certain cases)
In an inquiry after an incident at sea
For certain ocean races or rallies

Why keep it up to date even when it is not mandatory

Three pragmatic reasons:

In a customs or maritime authority check, an up-to-date manifest saves 30 to 60 minutes.
In a serious incident, the manifest speeds up identification and care.
In a SAR (Search And Rescue), the rescue coordination centre and authorities immediately ask for the list of people on board.

Sharing the logbook app between co-skippers

A boat shared between several co-skippers has a historic problem: each kept their own log, or the physical logbook stayed on board and could not be consulted ashore by the others. With a modern app, that problem disappears.

The multi-user model on one boat

The boat is the main entity. The main skipper creates it in the app and invites the co-skippers by email. Each co-skipper accepts the invitation and immediately accesses the boat's full history: past passages, statistics, log, cached weather, photos, observations.

Rights management

Depending on the app, two or three levels of rights:

Administrator: can edit the boat, add/remove co-skippers, modify the manifest. Typically the owner.
Co-skipper: can read and write in the log, start a passage, add crew to a manifest, but not change the boat's structure.
Read-only: consult the history without modification. Useful for an owner lending their boat to a friend for a passage.

Access request

For co-skippers not yet in the app, some apps offer an "access request" feature: the co-skipper creates their account, asks to join the boat, the main skipper approves. It is smoother than a manual email invitation.

Tracking the presence of temporary crew

For occasional crew (a training course, a friend joining a leg, a guest), creating an account in the app makes no sense. The "on-board presence" feature meets this need without forcing account creation.

In practice: before departure, the skipper adds the crew to the current passage's manifest (name, contact). During the passage, their presence is logged. On arrival, the manifest is archived with the passage and stays accessible to review who was on board on a given date. Useful for traceability, teaching at a sailing school, and simply for the memory.

5 levers for crew cohesion

1. A structured briefing, not improvised

Always the same format: 5 minutes at anchor, safety points + watches + objective of the passage. Repetition creates routine, routine creates confidence.

2. Hot meals during the night watch

A thermos of soup or hot coffee at 3 a.m. does more for cohesion than a long speech about safety.

3. Bad news shared early

When something is going wrong (weather degrading, a breakdown, doubt about the route), tell the crew early and clearly. The worst situation is the one where the skipper knows and keeps it to themselves.

4. Give everyone a role

Even beginner crew have a role: make the coffee, watch the AIS, fill in the log. No one at sea should be a passenger-only.

5. Debrief on every return

20 minutes at the dock after each passage. What went well, what went less well, what we would do differently. It compounds the crew's learning season after season.

How Ekynavy handles the crew

Boat sharing between co-skippers via connected accounts. Everyone sees the full history, edits the log, starts passages.
Rights management by the main skipper: administrator, co-skipper, read-only.
Access request: a co-skipper can ask to join a boat from the app, the skipper approves in one tap.
Passenger manifest with name, contact fields, optionally nationality and ID document for border crossings.
On-board presence for temporary crew without account creation. The skipper adds the person to the passage's manifest, presence logged, archived at the end.
Personal page for creator skippers who want to share their passages with an audience: live tracking, statistics, public page on ekynavy.com.
Sharing stats and tracks on social media directly from the app.

Sailing Crew Management: Tools and Best Practices | Ekynavy

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