DeckVaktPaper and Excel vs a sailing watch app
Most crews already have a watch rota. It is on the bulkhead, or in a spreadsheet the skipper emailed, or in somebody’s notes app. That is enough to leave the dock. It is not enough for the first night somebody is seasick and the grid has to move.
What paper is good at
Everyone can see it. It does not need a battery. A tired person can put a finger on a name. For a weekend and a crew that will not change, a sheet on the bulkhead is still a good watch rota.
It fails the first redraw. Ink does not rebuild when you mark someone unavailable. It does not wake anyone. It does not write the log. By day three the sheet and the night no longer match, and the skipper is the only person who knows.
What a spreadsheet is good at
You can try Swedish, four on four off and a custom shape before you leave. You can colour the night hours. You can email a PDF. For planning in the marina, Excel is how most of us started — including us.
A spreadsheet is still a document. It does not live on the watchkeeper’s phone. It does not survive Do Not Disturb. It does not step the clocks and move the alarms with them. When the file and the deck disagree, the file loses, and then you have two rotas.
Where both fail at sea
No signal does not bother paper. It bothers any sheet you expected to “just check on the laptop”. Neither paper nor Excel will escalate an alarm, hold standing orders in front of the watch, or timestamp the handover. Neither will produce an hours-of-rest record from what actually happened.
That is why “we already have a rota” is not an argument against an app. You have a plan. You still need something that stands the plan when the plan changes. See the sailing watch app.
What the app has to add
Build the same systems you would have drawn anyway. Score fairness before you commit. Put the board on every phone. Wake the right person. Rebuild when someone comes off. Write the deck log as you go. Work with no tower. All of that is the phones. The desk app is extra: a wide screen plus the extra statistics if you want them laid out, not a requirement.
If it cannot do those things, it is a prettier spreadsheet. DeckVakt exists because we were tired of prettier spreadsheets on our own boat.
Questions skippers ask
Is a paper watch rota enough for an ocean crossing?
It can start the passage. It will not keep up with the first change, and it will not wake anyone. Most crossings outgrow the bulkhead sheet.
Can I keep using Excel to plan?
Yes. Plan on the phones, or in the desk app if you want the extra numbers. The question is what runs the rota after slip time — and that is always the phones.
Does DeckVakt replace the printed grid?
No. Print the ten-day grid as well. The app is for the night the grid is already wrong.
What if the crew will not install an app?
Printable cards still exist. The person on deck wakes them. The rest of the crew are unaffected.
Same systems you already know. Alarms, board and log when the sheet on the bulkhead is already out of date. Fully usable on the phones. The desk app is extra.
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