Binnacle Passage — For Licensed Marine Pilots Associations
Know the ETA before
the phone rings.
Binnacle AI watches every inbound vessel in your coverage zone via live AIS. The dispatch board shows ETA to the boarding point, fires a pilot-boat departure alert when it's time to launch, and logs every transit digitally — replacing VHF coordination sheets and paper logs.
The dispatch gap most associations still run on
A vessel calls on VHF-16 or the phone. The dispatcher checks a paper board, radios the duty pilot, estimates an ETA by memory or tide table, and scribbles a log entry. When the transit is complete, someone types it into a spreadsheet — if it gets entered at all.
This works until it doesn't: two vessels arrive simultaneously, the tide is running hard, the pilot boat needs an extra 20 minutes, and the VHF is busy. Binnacle AI puts every inbound vessel on a live board before anyone makes the first call.
Built around the pilot's job
We built the ladder check, the MPX card, the fatigue rules, the squat calc — because this was built for pilots, not adapted from fleet software.
Dispatch operations
The live picture and the coordination work, on one board.
Area AIS scan
Every vessel transiting your coverage zone — not just your own fleet. Any bounding box, multiple named zones for districts that span regions.
ETA to the boarding point
Continuously computed from live AIS — and adjusted for the tidal current at the boarding area, because SOG alone lies in a running tide.
Pilot boat departure alerts
The amber alert fires when it's time to launch, from your configured station-to-boarding transit time. On screen, and off-screen to Slack or email.
Agent order intake + public tracking
Agents file pilot orders on a public form and get a live status link — no login, no "where's my pilot" calls. Dispatch confirms and converts to a transit in one click.
Tug & escort orders
Order tugs per transit — bollard pull, escort requirement, made-fast and released timestamps — instead of coordinating them by phone.
Collision & unpiloted-vessel alerts
CPA/TCPA computed for every moving pair in the zone, and any compulsory-pilotage vessel under way without a pilot gets flagged automatically.
Pilot safety — built around the climb
The parts of the job that hurt people, made checkable.
Pilot ladder safety check
A SOLAS V/23 / IMO A.1045 boarding checklist tapped through at the rail. Failures become a deficiency record the association can escalate — and "refuse boarding" is a button, not an argument.
Master–Pilot Exchange card
The formal exchange, digitized: particulars, passage / speed / UKC / tug plan, defects, contingencies — agreed by the master on screen, stored against the transit.
Fatigue & rest-hours engine
Work hours derived from actual transits and checked against your district's rest rules. The rotation automatically skips a pilot who isn't fit for duty.
Incidents with AIS reconstruction
Logging a near-miss freezes the zone's AIS picture at that moment, and the vessel's track replays around the incident time — a defensible record, instantly.
Navigation judgement
The calls pilots make in their heads, made explicit.
Squat & UKC calculator
Charted depth + tide − draft − squat at speed → dynamic under-keel clearance, with the max safe speed for your required margin.
Tidal transit windows
For a deep-draft vessel, the passable windows on the next 48 hours of NOAA tide predictions — draft + UKC against the control depth.
Transit go/no-go rules
Your district's rules — daylight-only over a draft, visibility and wind minimums, tide-dependent drafts — encoded and evaluated live: one check answers "can she transit now?"
48-hour boarding forecast
Hour-by-hour GO / CAUTION / NO-GO at the boarding point from wave and wind forecasts, with the next favourable window surfaced.
Vessel pilot-card library
Per-vessel particulars, maneuvering quirks, and accumulated pilot-to-pilot notes, keyed by MMSI — recalled automatically when she calls again.
The association's business
The money and the politics, handled transparently.
Rotation equity
Turns and job-value share per pilot against the fair share, with a transparent "owed next" ranking — the dispute that splits partnerships, defused with data.
Tariff & invoicing
Your tariff schedule computes the fee (base + per-GT + per-metre, floored at the minimum) and generates the printable pilotage invoice.
Detention & standby billing
A standby clock on every transit — vessel not ready, weather, berth — and one tap adds the accrued surcharge to the invoice. The waiting time you currently eat, billed.
Receivables & aging
Invoice lifecycle with partial payments, balance-based aging buckets, and a QuickBooks-friendly export for the billing office.
Reports, analytics & currency
Monthly ops reports for the commission, 12-month trends and pilot utilization, route/berth currency with check-ride expiry flags, and a watch-handover log.
How a transit flows through the board
Vessel enters zone
Binnacle scans your coverage bounding box every two minutes via AIS. The inbound vessel appears on the dispatch board with MMSI, vessel type, SOG, and current position.
ETA calculated
Distance to your boarding point divided by speed over ground. ETA in minutes, updated continuously as the vessel transits.
Pilot boat departure alert
When the vessel's ETA minus your configured pilot-boat transit time hits zero, the amber alert fires. The board shows exactly how long you have.
Transit logged digitally
Open a transit record from the vessel row. Assign a pilot by name, note origin and destination port, record the pilotage fee. Status updates auto-stamp the clock.
Archive and report
Completed transits stay in the log. Filter by date, vessel, or pilot. Full audit trail for billing, reporting, and incident review.
Coverage zones
Coverage is configured per association as a lat/lng bounding box. No MMSI list required — Binnacle scans all AIS-broadcasting vessels in your zone, not just pre-registered fleet members.
| Region | Bounding box | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Cook Inlet / Kachemak Bay | SW 57.5°N 155.5°W — NE 61.5°N 148.5°W | Homer → Nikiski run, ~120 min pilot boat transit |
| Prince William Sound | SW 59.8°N 148.0°W — NE 61.2°N 145.0°W | Valdez narrows + Port of Anchorage traffic |
| Custom zone | Any lat/lng bounding box | Configure for your coverage area during onboarding |
6-month founding partner program
The first two licensed pilots associations to onboard get six months at no cost in exchange for operational feedback and a case study. Your data stays yours — we want to build the dispatch board around how pilots associations actually work.
Full dispatch board access
Area AIS scan, ETA calculator, transit log, and coverage map — everything, for your coverage zone.
Custom zone configuration
We set up your bounding box, boarding point coordinates, and pilot-boat transit time during onboarding.
NAIS endorsement support
If you want to participate in our USCG NAIS access application as a co-applicant, we handle the paperwork.
After the founding period, pricing is $299/mo — all features included, no per-vessel fees. Pilots associations coordinate vessels they don't own; vessel-count-based pricing never made sense for this use case.
Frequently asked questions
Apply for the pilot program
Two spots available. We'll follow up within one business day to confirm fit and schedule a walkthrough of your coverage zone setup.