Terms of use
Effective 10 October 2026 · applies to the Boat O'Clock (formerly Ship O'Clock) app and to boatoclock.co and shipoclock.com (the app's server address)
Read this one
Boat O'Clock helps you watch. It is not a navigation aid, not a safety system and not a substitute for looking at the water. The ships it shows are working ships carrying people and cargo, in shipping lanes, on a schedule that is not yours.
A pass time can be early, late, wrong, or missing for a ship that goes by anyway. The ship-position and weather feeds it reads can be delayed or offline without warning. You are responsible for your own safety, for keeping clear of ships and their traffic lanes, and for obeying every applicable navigation rule and local regulation. If the app and the water disagree, the water wins.
Crossing. The Crossing screen shows other vessels' broadcast positions, which can be minutes old, dead-reckoned forward by our estimate. Vessels that do not broadcast AIS — most small boats, kayaks and paddleboards — never appear. Its times and "ahead / astern" figures are estimates for awareness only. Your lookout, your radar and VHF if you have them, and the Navigation Rules decide what you do; nothing on this screen changes your obligations under them.
Trips. A saved trip is your own record of a crossing, built from your phone's or browser's GPS and the ship positions the service had at the time. Its distances, speeds, closest approaches and lane times are estimates with the same limits as the Crossing screen. A trip is not a log for any legal, insurance or regulatory purpose.
Using the service
Use it to watch the water from where you are. Do not use it to interfere with, approach or obstruct a ship. Do not scrape it, resell its output, or hammer the service in a way that degrades it for other people. Do not attempt to reach another person's account, pins or trips.
Access may be rate-limited or withdrawn if a use is harming the service or another user.
Accounts
An account is optional and free. You are responsible for keeping your password to yourself. A Boat O'Clock account is its own account and is not shared with any other app; a subscription bought in Boat O'Clock unlocks Pro in Boat O'Clock only.
You can delete your account at any time from Settings → Account in the app. That removes the account and everything attached to it.
Price
The core app is free: the map, pins with their next-ship times, tide, wind, weather and the widgets, and the live board on this website. Bells — alerts before a ship passes your pin — are part of Boat O'Clock Pro, an optional paid tier; see Subscriptions. If a paid tier is introduced later, the free features you already rely on will not be taken away without notice.
Subscriptions
Boat O'Clock Pro (currently the Bells, Supporter and Patron tiers, which carry the same features) is sold only through the iOS app, as an auto-renewing monthly subscription billed by Apple. The price is shown before you buy. A subscription renews automatically at the end of each month unless you cancel at least 24 hours before it renews. Payment is charged to your Apple ID at confirmation of purchase.
Manage or cancel a subscription any time in Settings → [your name] → Subscriptions on the device that bought it — we cannot cancel it for you. Refunds are handled by Apple at reportaproblem.apple.com, not by us. Deleting your Boat O'Clock account does not cancel an active Apple subscription; cancel that separately in Apple ID settings.
Your use of the iOS app is also governed by Apple's Licensed Application End User License Agreement. Where these terms and that agreement differ, the Apple agreement governs your relationship with Apple and these terms govern your relationship with us.
Pro's features may change over time. Bells depend on live ship-position data that can be delayed, incomplete or unavailable, exactly like the free board — a Pro subscription is not a promise that an alert will arrive, or arrive on time. To the fullest extent the law allows, Boat O'Clock is not liable for a missed, late or wrong alert. Never rely on an alert for navigation or safety, and never rely on its absence to mean nothing is coming.
Data sources
Tides and weather come from public agencies, ferry sailings from the ferry operators, and ship positions from a commercial feed of the public signal ships broadcast. Those are their data, published under their own terms, and their accuracy and availability are not something Boat O'Clock controls. Tide predictions are predictions: actual water level varies with weather.
Availability
The service is provided as it is, with no promise of uptime, accuracy or fitness for any particular purpose, to the fullest extent the law allows. It runs on modest hardware and it can go down. To the extent permitted by law, Boat O'Clock is not liable for any injury, loss or damage arising from use of the service or from reliance on a pass time, a tide, a wind or a weather figure.
Nothing here limits a liability that cannot lawfully be limited.
Changes
These terms can change; the effective date at the top moves when they do. Continuing to use the service after a change means accepting it.
Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Washington, USA.