A vessel operation runs on two sides that rarely agree: the ship and the shore office. When crew contracts, maintenance records, and compliance documents live in separate systems, and the shipboard app stops working the moment the vessel loses signal, the office chases paper instead of running the fleet. We build the system that holds both sides together.
Crew, vessel, and compliance records in one system, built around how a vessel operation actually runs
A shipboard app that works fully offline at sea and syncs with shore when the connection returns
Maintenance, inspections, and documents tied to the vessel, not to a spreadsheet on one person's laptop
Shore integrations scoped first, because payroll, accounting, and vessel-position data drive most of the risk
3+ years Retention·Week 1 First milestone·Fixed price Pricing
The problem
Sound familiar?
Ship and shore running on separate systems, so crew contracts, documents, and wages live nowhere together and nobody has one true record?
A shipboard app that stops working at sea, so the crew keeps paper until the vessel is back in range and the office re-keys it all?
Short answer
RaftLabs builds custom ship management software for vessel operators: crew contracts, documents, and wages, vessel maintenance and inspections, compliance records, and a shipboard app that works fully offline at sea and syncs with shore when the vessel is back in range. Ship and shore finally read the same record, instead of running on separate systems.
Who this is for
Vessel teams we work with
Vessel owners and operators
Crew, maintenance, and compliance for the ships you run, in one daily view.
Fleet and technical managers
Maintenance, inspections, and certificates across the fleet, tied to each vessel.
Crewing managers
Contracts, documents, and wages for every crew member, without chasing files.
Shore operations teams
One record the office and the vessel both read, even when the vessel is at sea.
Key takeaways
Ship and shore need one record. When crew contracts, documents, and wages live in separate systems, nobody can answer a simple question about a vessel or a crew member without chasing paper.
Offline is the requirement, not a feature. The shipboard app must work at sea without signal and sync when the vessel is back in range, or the crew keeps paper and the office re-keys it.
Records belong to the vessel. Maintenance, inspections, and compliance history tied to the vessel survive crew changes and shore-office handoffs.
Crew paperwork is the daily friction. Contracts, certificates, and wages in one place remove the chasing that eats shore-office hours.
Integrations decide the scope. Payroll, accounting, and vessel-position data are scoped in discovery, because they drive most of the build's risk.
Vessel operations are a different buyer from freight. This page is for operators who run ships, not for forwarders moving containers, and the software is built around that distinction.
01 Diagnosis
Problems we solve in ship management software
01
Problem
Ship and shore run on separate systems
Solution
The vessel keeps its records, the office keeps its own, and the two disagree. A crew member's contract sits in one place, their certificates in another, their wages in a third. When a question comes up, the answer depends on who you ask, and the time goes to reconciling instead of operating.
02
Problem
Crew contracts, documents, and wages live nowhere together
Solution
A crew change means hunting through files, inboxes, and spreadsheets to assemble one person's record. Certificates expire unnoticed, wage queries take days, and the shore office becomes a chasing operation instead of a management one.
03
Problem
The shipboard app stops working at sea
Solution
Software built for an office connection fails the moment the vessel leaves range. The crew falls back to paper, the paper travels ashore, and someone re-keys it, late and with errors. Every voyage adds a backlog instead of a record.
04
Problem
Off-the-shelf fleet tools do not fit vessel operations
Solution
Generic fleet tools assume vehicles that stay in range and crews that work ashore. Vessel operations need offline work, crew documents and wages, and maintenance tied to the ship. When the tool cannot hold those, the team works around it, and the workarounds become the system.
02 What the system covers
What the system covers
01
Crew contracts and documents
Contracts, certificates, and personal documents for every crew member in one record, with expiry dates the shore office can see before they become a problem.
02
Crew wages and payroll records
Wage records tied to the crew member and the voyage, connected to payroll and accounting, so a wage query has one answer instead of three.
03
Vessel maintenance and inspections
Maintenance schedules, jobs, and inspection records tied to the vessel, so its history survives crew changes and shore-office handoffs.
04
Compliance documents and certificates
Vessel documents and certificates with status and expiry in one place, so compliance is a view, not a hunt through files.
05
Offline shipboard app and sync
The crew works fully offline at sea: records, jobs, and daily entries captured on board, then synced to shore when the vessel is back in range. Nothing is re-keyed.
06
Shore-side fleet overview
One view of the fleet for the shore office: which vessels are at sea, which crew are aboard, what maintenance is due, and which documents need attention.
How a voyage runs on one system
A vessel operation does not have a steady week. It has preparation, a voyage out of range, and a return. Software that ignores that rhythm gets in the way. Software built around it quietly carries the operation through each phase.
Before departure
Departure is readiness. Crew contracts and certificates are checked, maintenance due before sailing is closed or scheduled, and compliance documents are confirmed in date. The shore office sees the same readiness picture as the vessel, so nothing sails with an expired certificate or an unfilled crew slot that nobody noticed.
At sea
At sea, the system works without signal. The crew logs maintenance, records inspections, and updates daily entries on board, and the app holds those changes locally. No work waits for a connection, and no record depends on a signal the vessel does not have.
Back in range
When the vessel is back in range, the queued changes sync to shore. The office sees updated records without re-keying paper, payroll picks up wage entries from the same record, and compliance reflects what actually happened on board. The next departure starts from a record that is already current.
A note on scope. This page is about vessel operations: crew, maintenance, documents, compliance, and the shipboard app. Freight forwarding, containers, and customs are a different practice, covered on our maritime page. This page does not cover them.
Integrations
Connected across ship and shore
Payroll, accounting, and vessel-position data connect into one workflow, because integrations drive most of the scope.
Vessel data
AIS vessel tracking data
Shore systems
Accounting and payroll systems
A discovery phase scopes the integrations first; they drive most of the cost variance.
03 Buy, build, or wait
Stay on the fleet tool while it covers your vessels and the crew paperwork stays manageable.
The ship management question is really about whether one system holds ship and shore, or whether the operation keeps bridging the gap by hand.
Buy or rent
An off-the-shelf fleet tool, while it covers your vessels
Faster to start and fine when crew, maintenance, and documents fit its structure.
Wait, while the shipboard gap stays small
Keep the current tools while paper at sea and re-keying ashore cost less than a build.
Build custom
When ship and shore need one record
Crew contracts, documents, and wages stop living in separate places.
When the shipboard app must work offline at sea
Full offline work with sync on return is not a feature most generic tools offer.
When maintenance and compliance need vessel-level history
Records tied to the vessel survive crew changes and shore-office handoffs.
Bottom line
Stay on the fleet tool while it covers your vessels and the crew paperwork stays manageable. Build when the ship-to-shore gap, or the offline problem, costs more than owning the system.
04 How we work
How we work with vessel operators
01
Map the operation
We start by mapping how your operation actually runs: the vessels, the crew documents and wage rules, the maintenance cycles, and where the connection drops. That includes every system the software has to talk to: payroll, accounting, and vessel-position data. This step surfaces the offline and integration requirements that cause rework when they are discovered mid-build.
02
Design around vessels, crew, and sync
We design the data model around the objects your operation actually works in: vessels, crew members, maintenance jobs, and documents, plus the sync design for offline work at sea. The highest-risk integration, usually payroll or vessel-position data, is prototyped in the first sprint because it is the most common cause of a timeline slip.
03
Working software in slices
You review working software every two weeks, not wireframes. Each slice is usable on its own: crew records, then maintenance, then documents, then offline sync. Scope is fixed and priced before the build, so the number does not move unless you change what you are building.
04
Test against real conditions and launch
We test the offline sync against real connectivity conditions, not just a lab, because sync fails in ways a lab never shows. You get a documented, tested system, your data in your control, and a handover so your team or ours can run it.
05 Questions
Common questions
Software that runs vessel operations: crew management, vessel maintenance and inspections, documents and compliance, and a shipboard app that works offline at sea and syncs with shore. It is for operators who run ships. It is not freight forwarding software: bookings, containers, customs, and demurrage live on our maritime page, linked below, and this page does not cover them.
It is built offline-first. The crew records jobs, maintenance, and daily entries on board without a connection, and the app stores those changes locally. When the vessel is back in range, the queued changes sync to shore, so the office sees updated records without anyone re-keying paper. If the connection drops mid-sync, the remaining changes wait for the next window instead of being lost.
Contracts, certificates and personal documents, wage records, and rotation schedules for every crew member, in one record the shore office can see. Expiry dates surface before they become a problem, and a wage query has one answer instead of one from payroll, one from the vessel, and one from a spreadsheet.
Yes. Maintenance schedules, jobs, and inspection records sit against the vessel, not against a person or a spreadsheet. The vessel's history survives crew changes and shore-office handoffs, and overdue work shows in the shore-side overview before it becomes an overdue certificate.
Different buyer, different software. The maritime page is for forwarders, NVOCCs, and cargo owners moving containers: bookings, shipment files, customs, and demurrage. This page is for operators who run vessels: crew, maintenance, documents, compliance, and offline shipboard work. If your problem is containers, start on the maritime page, linked below. If your problem is ships and crew, start here.
Stay on the tool when it covers your vessels cleanly: crew, maintenance, and documents fit its structure, and the offline gap is small. Build custom when the tool forces workarounds for offline work at sea, when crew documents and wages live in separate places the tool cannot join, or when maintenance and compliance need vessel-level history the tool does not keep.
We scope every project before pricing, and we do not publish a band for ship management because vessel operations vary too much for one number to be honest. What drives the variance is fleet size, how strict the offline requirements are, how complex the crew-document and wage rules run, and which integrations the build needs. A discovery phase pins those down, and the price is fixed before the build starts.
Those are standard integration targets, scoped during discovery: accounting and payroll systems so wage records match finance, and AIS vessel-position data so the shore overview shows where vessels are. Each integration is scoped before the build, and the highest-risk one is prototyped first, because integrations are the most common cause of timeline slips.
Yes, the category is established. One agency example is a SoluteLabs case study, built for an operator whose ship and shore ran on separate legacy systems. Crew contracts, documents, and wages lived nowhere together, and the shipboard app had to work fully offline at sea and sync later. See the SoluteLabs case study. That is a competitor's project, not a RaftLabs case study, and we cite it only as evidence that operators buy this software.
You do. Your data lives in systems you control, and we hand over documentation so your team or ours can maintain it. There is no per-seat lock-in on the software itself.
Get a build-vs-buy plan for your vessel operation.
Tell us how your vessels and shore office work today, which systems you run, and where ship and shore disagree. We will tell you how we would approach it.
Scope and cost agreed before work starts. No surprises. No obligation.
Working prototype within 3 weeks of kickoff.
Pay by milestone. You see progress before each invoice.
60-day post-launch warranty. Bug fixes, UI tweaks, and deployment support. No retainer.
