Les Glénans goes digital with BoatOn

Les Glénans goes digital with BoatOn © BoatOn

Les Glénans sailing school is switching from paper to BoatOn Book, a software specialised in yacht management and maintenance.

Until now, each manager of this association had to collect several pages of checklist at the end of each week and organise in a few hours the repairs needed to keep the boats running smoothly. With the BoatOn Book, managers are notified in real time of any incident on board, organise maintenance on their smartphones and receive a maintenance report as soon as the repair has been completed. Les Glénans fleet is made of 70 boats sailing each week from 5 places in mainland France and Corsica.

"This partnership is an international step forward and an opportunity to push the performance of our tool with thousands of additional users" comments Bertrand Gerbaud, founder of BoatOn.

The company, which was set up in 2018, has developed a CMMS software that can be used to declare a breakdown, plan a maintenance operation or any task, and manage a refit or technical stopover. All the data is centralised in a single interface to which users can have access depending on their authorisation levels. It is also possible to manage the stock of spare parts, place orders, keep track of the boat's budget and save important documents.

Les Glénans chose the BoatOn Book for its simplicity. No training is needed: the user scans a QR code displayed onboard, describes the problem and adds pictures. The manager instantly receives an email and assigns the task to an internal or external service provider. Once the work has been carried out, the service provider can describe what they have done, add their invoice or pictures, and validate the task. The manager then receives an email and can access the maintenance report.

The software also allows any crew or passenger to be involved in the maintenance of the boat by participating in the creation of tasks with the captain and learn how to to implement good practices. For example, by entering a few letters, the software suggests maintenance tasks to do according to the manufacturer's recommendations. BoatOn Book is also available to smaller boats with the "Skipper" formula.

The start-up's software was first used by superyachts and is now opening to a wider variety of boats (pleasure craft, marine works, fishing boats). It is available in English and French and Spanish, German and Italian are also under work.