Setup Guide

1.First run: set your rotation

Open the app and set your rotation — tap a preset (20/10, 28/14, 20/20, 28/28) or enter a custom on/off. This drives your credited-days-per-year figure, the time-to-license projections, and your default hitch length. Add your name and mariner reference number so they land on every document automatically.

2.Enter the time you already have

Enter your banked sea days (from your last sea-service letters or NMC record) so the license ladder starts from where you actually are. Don't guess — if your letters state 12-hour days on a two-watch boat, that time earned 1.5× credit.

3.Log every hitch as you live it

1. Crew-change day: tap Start hitch when you step aboard. Pick the boat, the watch system (12-hr two-watch = 1.5× credit; 8-hr = 1×), and your capacity. The first and last day of a hitch each count as a half day — you and your relief split crew-change day.
2. Swapped to another boat mid-hitch? Tap Swap boat. The swap day stays credited to the boat you started it on; the new boat's segment starts the next day. One boat per calendar day — this is what keeps your record clean at NMC.
3. Riding over? Do nothing — the app flips to "Riding over" automatically when the planned crew change passes, and credit keeps counting.
4. Going home early? End the hitch and pick the reason (family, medical, boat to shipyard…). The reason never changes your credit — it's just your answer, years from now, for why the dates look short.

4.Get it signed before the boat leaves

This is the habit that makes Pushboat Log worth more than a notebook: when a hitch ends, hand the captain your phone. The app shows exactly what they're attesting — dates, boat, days, and the two-watch language that protects your 1.5× — and they sign with a finger. Signed records lock. The captain's attestation drops straight into the CG-719S verification block for boats of 200 GRT or less.

5.Tankermen: log the transfer while you're still on the barge

• Two taps from Home: product, amount, barge number(s), where it came from or went, load or discharge, and which phases you covered (commencement / completion).
• Get the observing PIC's signature right there — same signature pad.
• Only completed transfers count; bunkering, fueling, and shifting cargo within a vessel never do.
• The coverage grid tracks the NMC minimum (5 loads, 5 discharges, 2 commencements + completions of each) — and you can raise the targets if your company requires more. You choose which counter the renewal view headlines.

6.Working on your TOAR?

The License tab carries the Towing Officer Assessment Record broken into its sections. When your Designated Examiner passes you on an item, they sign it off in the app — name, DE number, date, boat. The export gives your DE a signed summary to transcribe onto the official CG-840.

7.Keep the captain's log

Every watch you stand, log it: waterway, mile you took the watch to mile you got off, and whether it was a 6-hr or 12-hr watch, front or back. Log every lock you make (name, mile, single or double cut) and anything worth remembering ("fog — held up 3 hrs"). Career miles and locks-made counters build themselves — and the per-waterway mileage backs your route time when you go for your license.

8.Papers and printing

• Letters tab builds the NMC-format sea-service letter (exact columns evaluators want) and the CG-719S view for small vessels.
• Every data screen has Print / Save PDF and CSV (Excel) — hand your port captain a clean printed record, or send the office a spreadsheet.

9.Back it up

Your data lives only on your phone — that's the privacy promise, and it means backups are on you. Export a backup from Settings every few hitches and park it in your email or cloud drive. Deleting the app deletes the record.

Stuck? See Support or email support@jackstaffdigital.com.