SailTools — user guide

1. Install and sign in

Shane sends you one link, to a page at sailtools.pro/join. Open it on the iPhone, iPad or Mac you want SailTools on. The page has three buttons; use them in order, coming back to the page after each.

1. Get TestFlight. This opens the App Store at TestFlight, Apple's free app for trying apps before they are released. Install it. Skip this step if you already have it.
2. Install SailTools. This opens TestFlight. Tap Accept, then Install. When it has finished, go back to the page.
3. Sign in to SailTools. This opens the app and signs you in. There is no username or password.

If the third button does nothing, open SailTools, tap the gear, and paste the code shown at the bottom of the page under Sign in.

Step 3 works once, and for two weeks. Ask Shane for a new link if yours has been used or has expired.

2. Your other devices

The sign-in is kept in iCloud Keychain, so your other Apple devices on the same Apple Account need steps 1 and 2 only: once SailTools is installed, it signs in by itself. It can take a minute. If you do not use iCloud Keychain, ask Shane for a link for each device.

A Mac needs macOS 15 (Sequoia) or later; an iPhone or iPad needs iOS or iPadOS 18. The iPad and the Mac show more side by side.

Updates arrive through TestFlight. Leave Automatic Updates on (TestFlight → SailTools) and you will always have the newest build. A test build expires after 90 days; a newer one will have replaced it long before.

3. Add the widget

The widget is called Home station (look for SailTools in the widget list). It shows the wind, waves, tide and current at your home station, which starts as the Western Sound buoy and changes when you change your home station in the app. Open the app and sign in once before adding it — the widget uses the app's sign-in.

iPhone or iPad home screen

1. Touch and hold an empty part of the home screen until the icons jiggle.
2. Tap Edit (top left), then Add Widget.
3. Search for "SailTools", choose the widget, and tap Add Widget.

iPhone lock screen

1. Touch and hold the lock screen, then tap Customize and choose Lock Screen.
2. Tap the widget area under the clock, then tap SailTools.
3. Choose the rectangle (wind, waves and tide) or the round dial (wind), then tap Done.

Mac desktop

1. Right-click the desktop and choose Edit Widgets.
2. Search for "SailTools" and drag the widget to the desktop.
3. If it looks gray, that is a macOS setting: System Settings → Desktop & Dock → Widgets → Widget style → Full-color.

Using the widget

• Tap it to open SailTools.
• Tap ↻ beside the wind's age to fetch new numbers now. Otherwise it updates itself about every 15 minutes by day and hourly overnight.
• "Not updated" means the last fetch failed and it is showing what it had.

4. Find your way around

The Sound

The first screen is about one place at a time.

• The place is named at the top, with a house beside your home station. Tap the name to choose another: weather stations are listed by shore with their wind now, then the tide and current stations.
• Near me is the first thing in that list. Tap "Show the stations near me" and allow your location, and it lists the three nearest weather stations with how far and which way each lies; tap one to choose it. The nearest also has an arrow beside it further down the list. If you have moved, open the list again: it is worked out afresh each time. Your location is used on your device only and is never sent anywhere.
• Follow my location, a switch in Settings, does this for you: the place is the weather station nearest you, with an arrow beside its name, and it changes as you move while SailTools is open. It waits until another station is clearly nearer, so it does not switch back and forth when you are midway between two. You can still choose another place; the nearest returns the next time you open SailTools. When SailTools cannot tell where you are, it shows your home station.
• The card under it gives that place's wind, tide, current, waves, air, sky (the next sunrise or sunset, and the moon) and the next hour's weather. No station measures everything, so each line comes from the nearest source, named on the line when it is somewhere else. "N/A" means nothing near enough measures it.
• The map shows the wind at every station as an arrow. Tap a station to make it the place. Once you have allowed your location, a blue dot shows where you are, here and on the radar; Show my location on the map, in Settings, hides it.
• Radar, the button on the map, shows rain over the Sound and the country around it. The past hour is what the National Weather Service's radars saw. After now it is a weather model's forecast for the next two hours, marked "Forecast"; it is a model's picture, so it will not match the radar exactly. Press play to run through it, or drag along the bar, which is blue where the pictures are radar and orange where they are forecast; Go to now comes back to the newest radar picture. Past hour and Forecast, under the map, turn each half on or off, so you can watch only what has happened or only what is expected; one of them is always on.
• Weather forecast charts the wind and the chance of rain for the next day and a half, from the nearest forecast buoy, each weather model a line. Tap it for the full forecast: charts of wind, gusts, waves, temperature and rain for three days, or Hour by hour, a list with a row for each hour — where the wind is from, its speed, gust, seas, sky and temperature. The list starts as the Consensus: the middle of what the models say, with the least and most of them beside the wind, so a wide range means they disagree. Tap a model's name above the list to see that one alone. High and low tides, slack water, sunrise and sunset appear under the hour they fall in, from the same tide and current stations as your place's card; the sunrise line gives first light and the sunset line last light. Forecasts are made at the five buoys only, so for any other place the page is the nearest buoy's, and says how far away it is.
• Marine forecast has the National Weather Service forecast for each zone of the Sound. Warnings in force appear at the very top of the screen.

Every reading has its age beside it. An age in orange means the reading is late for that station — treat the number with care.

Times are the Sound's own, Eastern time, as the National Weather Service's are. Away from Eastern time each one says so, EDT or EST.

Pull down to refresh; on a Mac, click the refresh button in the title bar or press ⌘R. The app also refreshes itself each minute.

Details

Tap any line on the card to see more.

• Wind or Waves opens one page with both: a compass with the wind's speed, gust and direction and its Beaufort name; and the waves' height, period and direction with the sea state. When the current runs against the waves at half a knot or more, the card has a Wind vs tide line ("Steeper waves", or "Breaking seas likely"), and this page a third card, Wind over water: the sea drawn with three arrows — the wind, the current, and the wind a boat drifting in the current feels (stronger when the current runs against the wind, weaker with it). An opposing current shortens and steepens the waves, and one near the speed that would stop them makes them break. The wind, current and waves come from three places, so that is a likelihood, not a measurement.
• Tide or Current opens one page with both: what each is doing now and the highs, lows, slacks and peak flows for the next three days. At a tide gauge the measured water level is shown beside the prediction.
• Air or Sky opens one page with both: a thermometer, humidity and barometer, with the water temperature where the station measures it; and the sun's path through the day with first light, sunrise, sunset and last light, the moon's phase, moonrise and moonset, and the next new and full moon. After last light the sky card shows tomorrow. The sky is worked out on your device from the place's position, so it needs no connection; its times are for a sea horizon and are good to a minute or two for the sun and a few minutes for the moon.
• Next hour opens the weather forecast.

On a wide screen the cards sit side by side; on a phone they stack, with the one you tapped first.

Your home station

SailTools opens on your home station, which starts as the Western Sound buoy. To change it:

• when choosing a place, tick Make Home before you tap the place (or before Done, to keep the place already shown); or
• open Settings (the gear) and tap the name under Home station.

The choice is kept when the app updates. It is kept per device, so set it on each of yours. The widget shows your home station too, and follows it when you change it. If you would rather it showed the place SailTools last had on screen, choose The place on screen beside Widgets show in Settings. With Follow my location on as well, that is the station nearest you when you last had SailTools open — the widget does not find your location itself.

The Boat

If your account includes the boat, a Boat tab shows what Spirit's own sensors report — battery voltage, current and power, shore power, cabin temperature and humidity — with a history chart for each. If you do not see this tab, your account is for the Sound only.

Settings

The gear at the top of the screen opens Settings: who is signed in, your home station, this guide, the privacy page (also at sailtools.pro/privacy), and the app's version. Logout signs you out on this device and, because the sign-in is shared through iCloud Keychain, on your other devices too.

5. If something is wrong

• "That sign-in link is not valid." A sign-in link works once and for two weeks. Ask Shane for a new one.
• "Sign in with this link?" You opened a sign-in link while already signed in. Cancel keeps the sign-in you have; Sign In replaces it with the link's, on your other Apple devices too.
• SailTools says it is not connected. Open Settings and paste your sign-in code, or ask Shane for a new sign-in link.
• The widget is empty or says to open the app. Open SailTools once, then wait a minute.
• Numbers look old. Check the ages. A station can stop reporting for hours; choose a neighboring place.
• Anything else. In TestFlight, open SailTools and tap Send Beta Feedback, or take a screenshot in the app and choose Share Beta Feedback. Mention the version under Settings → About.