A fleet is a group of boats on one map with a chat of its own, where everyone in it can see and message everyone else: a club, a rally, a class association, a family with two boats.

A fleet runs both ways, and a list does not. Put a boat on a list and you are watching her; put her in a fleet and everyone in it sees everyone else. Lists or a fleet? works the choice through with examples.

Nobody can put a claimed boat in a fleet quietly: her owner is told, and Leave is one tap on the fleet's page and in every e-mail the fleet sends. You meet a fleet when your boat is in one, or when you run one; watching boats needs neither.

What everyone in a fleet shares

A fleet has one organizer, who owns the roster and can rename or delete the fleet. Beyond that there is no rank: from the day a boat joins, whoever is behind her has what everyone already there has, within the fleets their own plan keeps active. How many are live at once

• The roster. Every boat in the fleet, grouped by what she is doing, with where each one is and when she was last heard.
• The map. Fleet mates appear in their own colour among the traffic, so turning Traffic off leaves only the boats that are yours. Reading the vessel map
• The chat, including what was said in it before they arrived. Fleet messages are removed for everyone after 30 days, as every message on AIS Fleet is. Messages
• One-to-one messages with any of them. Being in the same fleet is one of the connections that lets two members write to each other privately, whether or not either follows the other. Messages

Which boats can use any of it depends on what is behind them. A boat claimed on AIS Fleet, or one logging with Saillogger, has a person on the roster and in the chat. A boat nobody has claimed is a marker on the fleet's map: nothing reaches her crew, and there is nothing for them to leave until she is claimed. Claim your boat

Being in a fleet

You are in a fleet when its organizer adds your boat's MMSI to the roster. Give them your MMSI and ask; there is no self-service join.

A boat claimed here is always told when she is added. A notice arrives in the app and by e-mail, naming who added her and which fleet, whatever your notification settings say. Claim your boat

A boat that logs with Saillogger joins without a claim. An organizer can add her only while her owner shares her publicly, so nothing an owner keeps private reaches a fleet's map, and the fleet appears on her owner's fleet page on saillogger.com, where Leave also lives.

Fleets on the map opens the ones you are in. Each has a switch, and a fleet is on the map from the moment you join it; switch one off and it stays off on every device you use, because the choice is kept on your account rather than in your browser. Tap a fleet's name for its roster, with Fleet chat and Show all on the map at the top. Tap a boat to jump to her.

The roster carries both kinds of member: boats that log with Saillogger, and boats that appear on AIS alone. Positions on a fleet map are the AIS positions of the boats in it.

Fleet chat is for current members only, even where the fleet's map is public.

Notices from a fleet

A fleet's page carries the same two notice rows a list has, behind the row at the top of its roster: Notifications and leaving in a fleet somebody else runs, Notifications and settings in one of your own. That row's second line says which notices are on. The rows are When these boats depart or arrive, and, once your boat is linked and heard on AIS, When one of these boats comes within a distance you choose of your boat. Both are off until you turn their Notifications switch on, with E-mail beside it for the same notice in your inbox, and the choice is yours alone: an organizer cannot set it for the fleet. A notice about a boat you do not already follow names the fleet it came from and offers Message where the two of you can write to each other; one about a boat you follow arrives on her own row as usual, with the fleet's switches added to hers. Your own boat's movements are never announced to you. Departures and arrivals

Leaving

Every e-mail from a fleet you are in ends with a link that takes your boat out of it in one tap, and the fleet's page on the map has Leave fleet, behind the Notifications and leaving row at the top of its roster.

Leaving takes her off the fleet's map and you out of its chat and its e-mails. Tick Also block as you leave and the organizer cannot add her again; you can lift that under Blocked boats in Messages.

Your organizer is not told that you left, and you are not told if they take your boat off the roster. In both directions the fleet simply stops being in your list.

If a fleet disappears from your list

Either your boat has come off its roster, or its organizer has deleted the fleet, which also ends its chat for everyone in it. A notice tells you when a fleet you were in has ended. Every fleet's page names who runs it, so you know whom to ask.

How many are live at once

Your plan sets how many of the fleets you are in stay active at once, oldest membership first. It does not limit how many you may join: memberships beyond it stay listed under Not on your plan and carry nothing, no roster, no positions, no chat, no switch on the map, and no messaging reach to those boats in either direction. Plans and billing

For example, a member on Basic who is added to a second fleet can use only their first active membership until they leave it or change plans. Include this when inviting people to a group.

Run a fleet

A paid plan lets you start and run fleets of your own: one on Plus, up to five on Pro. That is a separate number from the fleets you are in, and a fleet you run never uses up one of your active fleets. Plans and billing

You do not need a boat linked to start one, so a rally organizer or club secretary ashore can run a fleet from the desk.

1. Open Fleets on the map and press Start a fleet at the foot of the list, or go to aisfleet.com/fleets/new. Give it a name; if your boat is linked, she is on the roster from the start.
2. You land on the fleet's Settings, which is also behind Fleet settings on the fleet's page. Under Boats, search any boat by name, MMSI, call sign or IMO number and press Add.
3. Name renames the fleet and its link stays the same. Delete fleet ends it for everyone in it, and the page counts what that takes with it before you confirm.

One fleet holds up to 100 boats. A larger club needs more than one, or a public list.

A few rules worth knowing before you invite people:

• Boaters with an AIS Fleet account are told when you add them, and they can leave. Add the boats you have agreed with.
• A boat with no account behind her is a marker on the fleet map and nothing more. Nobody is notified and nobody can answer in the chat, so ask her owner to claim her if you want them in the conversation. A boat that already logs with Saillogger needs no claim. Adding a vessel does not create an account for her crew.
• A Saillogger boat can be added only if her owner shares her publicly. That is their decision, not something we can wave through.
• A boat we have not heard on AIS yet waits on the roster and joins by herself once a receiver hears her.
• Members linked to the boats you add can use the roster and chat, while the fleet is active within their plan.
• A fleet you run is private: its members see it on their maps and in their chat, and nobody else does. If what you want is something you can hand to anyone with a link, share a public list instead.
• Starting and managing a fleet is on the website. The app can show you a fleet, its roster and its chat, and can leave one. AIS Fleet on your phone
• The roster's notice rows work for you as they do for any member. Without a boat linked, the departure and arrival row is offered and the nearby row is not.

If you move to a plan that runs fewer fleets than you have, the first fleets you started stay live and the rest pause for everyone in them until you delete one or move up again. A paused fleet takes no new boats. You are told before it happens when a cancellation is scheduled, and again when it does.