Lauren Beck is the former editor of Dockwalk and was with the publication from 2006 to 2023. At 13, she left South Africa aboard a 34-foot sailing boat with her family and ended up in St. Maarten for six years. Before college, she worked as crew for a year, and then cut her journalistic teeth at Better Homes and Gardens and Ladies’ Home Journal online. She loves traveling, reading, tennis, and rooting for the Boston Red Sox.
Keeping those engine rooms running is key to superyacht operations. “The engineering department is the heartbeat of a vessel, data is the blood, and Mariners Log is the solution analyzing its overall health,” says Ken Sinclair, owner and founder of Mariners Log. The former second engineer, whose last boat was a 70-meter yacht, launched his company in April 2022, after 18 months of development.
“Mariners Log provides vessels with a solution to run their engineering department more efficiently while having a positive environmental impact,” Sinclair says. Mariners Log is a software solution with an app that acts as an interface where logs and checklists are completed. “The submitted data is recorded and analyzed on our web app, providing the chief engineer, captain, management companies, and owner with information to make informed decisions. Maintenance scheduling, cruising itineraries and speeds, and crew safety can be determined using data Mariners Log provides.” They’re also working to incorporate artificial intelligence into their software, which will allow for “predictive and proactive maintenance.”
Sinclair, who worked for 10 years on yachts from 30 to 90 meters, devised the idea during a crossing. “It seemed completely incongruous to me that on a 90-meter yacht worth hundreds of millions of dollars, we were still using outdated paper logs,” Sinclair says. He researched and found nothing. “Frustrated that there wasn’t anything out there to fulfill this need, the idea for Mariners Log started to surface. Less than a year later the company was setup and we started working on our product.” All data is automatically backed up to the cloud, and the app is compatible with all devices and operating platforms.
Currently, Sinclair says Mariners Log is specifically for engineering data in the marine industry, but it is flexible and can be adapted for use in any machinery-based industry. It can also be plugged in to existing planned maintenance systems. “Mariners Log is built for engineers, by engineers, making our program highly specialized and progressive,” Sinclair says.
The company’s first year has been busy, and Sinclair explains that they’re in the middle of fundraising to launch their next stage. Pricing is based on number of users per vessel and starts at €30 per month for one user.