Track your sailing trip on a map
Pebbls draws your track as you sail and keeps it on your phone until you're back in signal. Add a photo and a few words at anchor, and the people at home can follow every passage from one link.
It keeps recording offshore
Out of signal for three weeks on an ocean crossing, your track is still saved on the phone. It goes up when you reach the next anchorage with wifi or a phone signal, and the line fills in on the map.
Easy on your data
Your track saves to your phone and uploads in the background. Set it to Wi-Fi only and it waits for the marina or café wifi instead of your roaming allowance.
Family can follow from one link
Send one link and anyone can see where the boat has got to, no app or account needed. If they want a note each time you post, a free account takes a few seconds.
A film of every passage
Each chapter gets a short flyby film that follows your track across the water, with your photos where you took them. They're free and you can share them anywhere.
Where these boats went
The lines are what their phones recorded at sea, and the photos sit where they were taken.
Using it on a long voyage
A chapter for every passage
Start a new chapter for each passage or each season and the whole voyage sits on one map. Nanuka has gone from Guernsey to New Zealand in four chapters, one of them the run of nearly 12,000 km from Panama to French Polynesia.
Ashore as well as afloat
Walks ashore, a bus into town, a ferry to the next island: pick how you're travelling and the line shows it, so the sailing stands out on the map.
Between seasons
Lay the boat up, go home, and carry on next year in the same journey. The map, your photos in the order you took them and the films stay on one page for anyone who asks where you've been.
Voyages on Pebbls
A few of the boats members have tracked.
- Sailing around the world · Adam · 18 countries · 1,175 days · by sailing boat and on foot
- Project World Sail · Project World Sail · 6 countries · 962 days · by sailing boat and on foot
- Finland to Spain · Sæunn · 9 countries · 742 days · by sailing boat
Flyby films from these voyages
Pebbls made these from the routes and photos above. Pick one to watch it with sound.
Free, with no adverts
Tracking, photos and notes, your map and journal, flyby films and sharing all cost nothing. Family see your route fill in every few minutes when you have signal. If you want more, Explorer is $20 a year: your map keeps up with you as you sail, and you get private journeys and offline maps.
Questions
Does it work offshore with no signal?
Yes. It keeps recording on your phone with no signal at all and uploads when you're back in range, even after weeks at sea. Photos wait on your phone until then too.
Do I need a satellite tracker?
No. Pebbls uses the phone's own GPS, which works anywhere at sea, and family see the track once you're back in signal. If they need your position in the middle of an ocean, you'd still want a satellite tracker for that.
Will it drain my battery?
It uses GPS while you're tracking, like any chart app. On a boat most people keep the phone on charge at the chart table.
Do my family need the app to follow?
No. They open your link in any browser. A free account just means they get a note when you post.
Can I keep the boat's position private?
With Explorer you can make a journey private or put a password on it, or hold back your latest position until you've moved on. On the free plan your journeys are public, and you share them by link.
Is it free?
Yes, tracking, photos, maps and flyby films are free. Explorer is optional.