DeckVaktHours of rest app for yacht crew
An hours of rest app has one honest job: show, for each person and each day, the rest they actually had, tested against the numbers your flag state cares about. On a yacht that means the record has to come from the watch rota, not from a timesheet filled in on the quay.
MLC and STCW, in yacht language
The Maritime Labour Convention 2006 wants at least 10 hours of rest in any 24-hour period and 77 hours in any seven-day period. The 10 hours may be split into no more than two periods, one of at least 6 hours, and the gap between rest periods must not exceed 14 hours. That is the yacht conversation about “hours of rest”.
STCW is the training and watchkeeping convention. For rest it points at the same idea: a watchkeeper needs enough consolidated rest to stand a watch. Flag states and port state control will talk about both. A rest-hours app that only knows MLC and has never heard of STCW will look unfinished to a commercial skipper. The explainer behind the numbers is the hours of rest guide.
Private pleasure vessels often sit outside MLC. Commercially coded yachts, charter, sail training and paid delivery crew usually do not. Insurers and delivery clients ask anyway. Confirm your flag. Do not take this page as legal advice.
Who actually needs the app
Delivery skippers who must hand over a pack at the other end. Training skippers who will be asked for records. Anyone running a coded yacht who is tired of redrawing a grid in Excel after every night the rota changed. Pleasure crews who want the habit before they need the certificate. The delivery version of this argument is on delivery skippers and coded yachts.
If you only need to understand the rules, read the guide. If you need the PDF from a passage you are about to sail, you need the app. That export lives on the phones — the whole system is usable on iPhone and Android. The desk app is optional if you want the rest-hours numbers on a wide screen; see the desk app.
Records from the rota
The record must show, per person per day: rest periods, daily total, rolling seven-day total, vessel and voyage, and signatures. The only way that is true is if it follows what happened on deck, including call-outs and the night you marked someone unavailable.
DeckVakt writes the watch rota first, runs it, logs the changes, and then exports an MLC-style rest-hours record from that log. Filling the form backwards — deciding the hours after you arrive — is how inspections fail. See the deck log.
Not a fleet Watchkeeper
ISF Watchkeeper and similar tools are built for commercial fleets: many crew, shore offices, electronic signing, STCW/MLC/ILO checks across a ship. They are the right product for that world. They are a heavy, account-based way to run a six-person yacht that also needs alarms and a live board with no signal.
DeckVakt is the other direction. Yacht watch systems, offline board, then rest-hours paper from the passage you stood. If you manage a fleet of commercial yachts from an office, you probably already have Watchkeeper. If you are taking six friends to the Azores, you do not.
Where yacht rotas fail the test
Four on four off is the usual quiet failure: enough total rest, no six-hour block, too many periods. Two-handed patterns fail for the same reason, and everyone knows it. Swedish and staggered pairs can pass if the long off-watch actually happens in darkness and the skipper is not woken through it.
The master’s own hours are the other failure. The skipper who stays off the rota and is woken six times is not resting. Record it. Compensatory rest is a fact, not a slogan.
Questions skippers ask
Do I need an hours of rest app on a private yacht?
Often not by law. Often yes in practice for deliveries, coded yachts, training boats and anyone whose insurer will ask after an incident.
What is the difference between MLC and STCW rest?
MLC writes the 10-in-24 and 77-in-7 numbers. STCW is the watchkeeping convention that expects a watchkeeper to have had enough rest to stand the watch. Flag states enforce both.
Can DeckVakt replace ISF Watchkeeper?
Not for a commercial fleet with a shore office. For an offshore yacht passage that needs a rota and a rest record, it is the tool that matches the job.
Does four on four off pass hours of rest?
Usually not, because rest is split into too many periods with no six-hour block. Totals can still look fine.
Where do the numbers come from?
From the watch rota and the log of who was actually on deck, including call-outs — not from a form filled in at the end. The phones already do that job. The desk app is extra, for a wide screen and the rest-hours statistics if you want them laid out.
DeckVakt builds the rota, runs it offline, and exports MLC-style rest hours from the log — not from a timesheet on the quay. Fully usable on the phones. The desk app is extra if you want the numbers on a wide screen.
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