Fleet Start is a sailing race start timer. This policy explains exactly what the app does and does not collect.
What we do not collect
Fleet Start does not ask for, collect, or store your name, email address, phone number, or contacts, and has no access to your photo library. There are no advertising identifiers, no analytics or tracking SDKs, and no third-party ad networks. You never create an account.
Two things you can choose to give us: a sail number, described under Starting list below, and — if your race officer allows it and you say yes — a recording of where your boat sailed, described under Location and tracks. Both are optional, and both are off unless you choose them.
Anonymous sign-in
To keep races in sync, the app signs you in anonymously using Firebase Authentication. This creates a random identifier for your device. It is not linked to your Apple ID, Google account, email address, or any personal information, and it is used only to identify which device created a race so that only the race officer can control the sequence.
Race data
When a race officer creates a race, the following is stored in Firebase Realtime Database (Google Cloud, europe-west1):
- the race name and optional class or fleet name entered by the officer
- the chosen start sequence and class flag
- the scheduled start time and the current race status
- if the officer chooses a picture as the class flag, that picture
This information is visible to anyone using the app, because the list of active races is public by design so sailors can join easily. Do not enter personal information in the race or class name, and do not choose a personal photograph as a class flag.
Practice mode runs entirely on your device and stores nothing.
Clubs
A race can be given a club, so sailors can filter the race list to races near them instead of every race in the world.
Anyone using the app can add a club, and a club is only a name and an optional short name. Nobody can rename, move or delete a club afterwards — not even the person who added it. That is deliberate: with no owner there is nothing to take over, so no accounts are needed and a club cannot be hijacked or deleted out from under the fleet that uses it. Mistakes and duplicates are tidied up by the app maintainer; write to the address below.
Club names are public to everyone using the app, so do not put personal information in one.
Which club you filter by is stored on your device only. It is a setting, not an account, and it is never sent to our servers. The app does not use your location to find clubs.
Class flag pictures
A race officer can supply a picture to use as the class flag — normally a class insignia, because we do not ship artwork for classes whose emblems we have no licence to redistribute.
The app does not read your photo library. It uses the system photo picker, which runs outside the app and hands back only the single file you choose, so Fleet Start never has access to any other photo. That one picture is scaled down, stored with the race, and shown to everyone who joins it — treat it as public, and pick an insignia rather than a personal photograph.
The picture is re-encoded before it is stored, which discards any metadata the original carried, including the location where a photo was taken. Only the image itself is kept.
Starting list
A sailor can put their boat on a race's starting list so the race officer can see who is out. This is optional: the countdown, signals, flags and sounds all work whether or not you sign on, and nothing is entered for you.
If you do sign on, the app stores your sail number against the race, together with the anonymous identifier for your device and the time you signed on. Nothing else — the app does not ask for your name and there is nowhere to put one.
A sail number is painted on the boat and is public on the water, but in a small fleet it identifies a boat and often a person, so please treat it as identifying you:
- Everyone who has joined that race can see the list.
- Enter the sail number only. Do not put a name in the field.
- Remove me on the starting-list screen deletes it immediately, and the race officer can remove an entry too.
- It is deleted with the race it belongs to.
Your device also remembers the last sail number you entered, so you do not have to retype it each week. That copy stays on your phone and is removed when you tap Remove me or delete the app.
Finishing order
After a race the officer can record the order boats crossed the line, together with the usual abbreviations for a boat that did not finish. This is stored with the race and visible to everyone who has joined it, the same as the starting list.
- The officer can add a boat by hand, so a sail number may be recorded for a boat that never signed on. Race results are normally posted on a club noticeboard, so this is ordinary for the sport, but it does mean an entry can appear that the boat did not enter itself. Ask the race officer to correct or remove it.
- Only the race officer can write or change a finishing order. It is deleted with the race.
The app records the order and nothing else. It does not calculate points, series standings, or handicap-corrected times.
Location and tracks
The app uses your location for three different things. One stays on your phone; the other two only happen if you ask for them.
Working out your distance to the line stays on your phone. If the race officer switches the start-line tool on for a race, the app uses your position to work out where you are relative to the line. That calculation happens on your own device, and your own position is never sent to our servers.
Pinging a mark shares that mark with the race. In the same tool you can ping the two ends of the start line and the windward mark, so everyone in the race sees the same course and a replay can draw it. Each ping stores that position with the race, along with an anonymous id for whoever pinged it and the time. These are the positions of the marks, not a record of where you sailed — but you are at the mark when you press the button, so a ping does say where you were at that moment. Nothing is pinged unless you press it.
Your track is recorded only if you say yes, and shared only after the race. If the race officer turns on track recording for a race, the app asks you — before the start, on the race screen — whether to record your own track. If you say yes:
- Your position is recorded about once a second while the race screen is open. The app does not use your location in the background, and does not follow you when the app is closed or put away.
- The recording is kept on your phone for the whole race. Nothing is sent anywhere while any boat is still racing.
- When the race is finished, a reduced version of the track is published with the race, so that people can compare afterwards. Races in Fleet Start are public: anyone using the app can open the race and see your track next to your sail number. It is not limited to the boats that sailed in it.
- The upload is thinned before it is sent: it keeps the shape of where you sailed and your speed, not every last fix.
If you say no, nothing is recorded and nothing is uploaded. You are asked once per race, and you can change your mind at any time from the race menu.
Taking a track back. Remove my published track in the race menu deletes it from our servers. Deleting the app removes anything still held only on your phone.
A track is the most detailed thing this app can hold about you: where you were, when, and how fast. That is why it takes two separate decisions — the race officer's and yours — and why nothing leaves your phone until the racing is over.
You can decline the location permission entirely. The countdown, signals, flags and sounds all work without it.
Data retention
Race data — the race itself, any starting-list entries and any finishing orders — is kept for 30 days and then deleted.
Two different ages, deliberately:
- After 48 hours a race drops off the list of races in the app. It is not deleted at this point: it stays reachable by its 6-character code, so a race officer can still get a finishing order out of it.
- After 30 days the race and everything in it is deleted outright.
You do not have to wait for either. A sailor can delete their own starting-list entry at any time with Remove me, and a race officer can delete a whole race — starting list and finishing orders included — from the race menu. Both delete immediately rather than hiding anything.
Data processors
Google Firebase (Authentication and Realtime Database) processes this data on our behalf. See Google's privacy policy.
Children
The app is suitable for all ages and does not knowingly collect any personal information from anyone, including children.
Your choices
Signing on to a starting list is the only thing that stores something you have typed. You can remove it yourself at any time with Remove me, and the race officer can remove entries from their own race.
If you have not signed on to a starting list, nothing is stored that is tied to you, so there is nothing to request, export, or delete.
Deleting the app removes the remembered sail number from your device. The anonymous identifier can outlive it: on iPhone it is held in the system keychain, which Apple does not clear when an app is deleted, so reinstalling on the same phone usually gives you the same identifier back — and with it control of any race you created. It remains a random identifier connected to nothing about you. Moving to a different phone does give you a new one.
The race officer can also delete the whole race, which removes the starting list and any finishing orders with it. If you want something removed and cannot do it yourself, ask the race officer, or write to the address below with the race code and the sail number.
Contact
Questions about this policy: mattiasbowallius@gmail.com