Rainbow’s End Manifest

Why it stands out

The federal list, derived from her, with the regulation under every lineMost safety checklists are a laminated generic. Manifest builds the Coast Guard’s carriage requirements from your boat’s length, propulsion, fuel, and waters, prints the 33 CFR or 46 CFR citation under each item, and redraws the list the day she changes — add a gasoline generator to a diesel boat and the ventilation rules come with it.
A briefing written from where your gear actually isRecord that the flares live in the port cockpit locker and the passenger briefing says so, in those words. It carries a MAYDAY card with her name, call sign, and MMSI already filled in, and the crew-overboard drill: shout, point, throw, press. No generic script to edit.
Her expirations and intervals arrive presetDocumentation renewal, EPIRB registration, flares, and extinguishers come with their legal rules. Service intervals come filtered to her systems — twins get port and starboard lines, each fuel separator its own — and engine items come due by the calendar or the hour meter, whichever arrives first. A 60-day lookahead shows what needs the skipper’s attention.
One book, entered onceLog apps keep the log. Maintenance apps keep the schedule. The safety list is usually a clipboard. Manifest keeps the gear, the briefing, the predeparture checklist, the log, and the schedule in one book that reads from one manifest: change her length or add a system and every page follows.
Bought once, kept by youNo account, no server of ours, no subscription, no tracking; the App Store privacy label reads Data Not Collected. The GPS is read only when you tap for a position on a watch. Manifest never records a track behind your back, because it never runs in the background.

What it does

Her papersThe manifest everything derives from, across six book pages: papers, owners and USCG licenses, dimensions, engines with their hour-meter readings and running totals, systems from the water maker to the propane locker, power from shore cord to solar, tanks, batteries, her hull color and photo — and the miles under her keel, kept for life.
GearThe federal safety-equipment checklist for your boat’s length, propulsion, fuel, and waters, in current terminology — wearable and throwable personal flotation devices (PFDs), 5-B and 20-B extinguisher ratings, visual distress signals and their expiration rules — with the citation printed under every item. Check each item aboard and record where it lives. Beneath the federal floor, a separate layer of what prudence adds, from the ditch bag to CO and smoke detectors. And a declarable inventory for clearing in abroad — firearms, serials, stores, foodstuffs, animals — shared with an official as plain text.
BriefingA passenger safety walkthrough generated from your gear map: where things live, a MAYDAY card with your boat’s name, call sign, and MMSI filled in, the crew-overboard drill, and the house rules, from water discipline to PFDs, tethers, and jacklines at night, offshore, and in heavy weather.
Before you goA predeparture checklist drawn from her manifest, not a laminated generic: the blower on a gasoline inboard, the rig and jacklines on a sailboat, the generator’s strainer when one is aboard, the paddler’s short list on a canoe. The fuel and water estimates and the flare and extinguisher dates print right on the lines. Checks reset with the date, the log notes the tally, and the float plan is a tap away.
LogThe daily cruising log, kept by hand the way a logbook is: legs and lay days, the persons aboard, voyages that collect entries until you end them with their nautical miles and engine hours totaled, and a search that finds any day by place, journal, or date. Fuel and water estimates that refuse to guess: top off or enter a measured level and the arithmetic runs from there. A powerboat prices her day by hours at trawling, fast cruise, and wide open, against her own three rates.
On passageLog the departure as you leave and finish the same entry when you arrive; every day at sea counts toward the voyage and the water. At each change of watch, log the time in local or UTC, the position from the GPS or typed as on a chart, course and speed, wind, sea, sky, sails, engine, and who kept it. From the second fix on it works out the speed and course made good, and the barometer — typed, or read from the phone’s own — shows its three-hour trend in the forecast’s words.
What the voyage costEvery fill, repair and expense can name its voyage, and the voyage page adds them up: the total, per day and per nautical mile, a breakdown by category, and the entries themselves. Provisions, meals ashore, fees, transport ashore and the moorings along the way have a ledger of their own; a slip bill that falls mid-cruise stays out unless you say it belongs.
The day’s photosUp to twelve on any day in the log, from your library or the camera, kept small: a strip under the day, a full-screen viewer, a caption, a share. With iCloud sync on they follow the book to your other device through your own iCloud; with it off, the day still says it had photos and where they are.
Sea service and the trackA Sea service page tallies the Coast Guard form’s days of service by year — the four-hour day, the hours, the dates, the waters set per leg — and shares the summary as text; you attest it. Share as GPX hands a chart app the voyage’s watches as a track.
MaintenanceService intervals seeded and filtered to her systems, each saying what the job is, hard legal expirations preset, and a 60-day lookahead of what needs the skipper’s attention. Engine and generator items watch the running hour meters too: oil comes due at whichever arrives first, the months or the hours. Four ledgers — Fuel, Work, Ownership, and Cruising expenses — tally what she costs by month, year, and category, and an Expenses tab adds them up over any dates, sets this year against last, and exports them as a CSV or a PDF.
The bookShe reads like a leather-bound ship’s book: a cover with her name, paper pages that turn, leather tabs on a wide screen and a contents page in the hand, and the day’s quick entries one tap from where it opens. The Editor holds every full form; The Book always brings you home.
Her fleetMore than one boat, each with her own complete book: the dinghy, a charter, a friend’s boat. Export the whole book to a file you control and import it on a new phone or your iPad.
Entirely offlineNo account, no server of ours, no tracking; nothing you enter leaves your device unless you export it yourself. The one exception is optional: switch on iCloud sync and the fleet stays the same on every device signed into your Apple ID, through your own private iCloud, readable by no one but you.

What it won’t do

Record a track. A position is read only when you tap Fill from GPS on a watch — one fix, written into your log, never in the background.
Run in the background at all. Nothing is read, sent, or counted while the app is closed.
Ask you for an account, a sign-in, or a subscription.
Send anything to a server of ours. There is none. Sync, if you switch it on, travels through your own iCloud.
Guess. Until a tank has been topped off or measured, the fuel estimate says “unknown,” and the app says plainly that the gauge outranks the arithmetic.
Stand in for the regulations, the Vessel Safety Check, or your owner’s manuals: the service intervals are conventions, and your manuals always win.
Draw charts or read your instruments. That is your chartplotter’s job.

Manifest checks against the federal minimums — state law can add to them — and it prepares you for, never replaces, the free Coast Guard Auxiliary Vessel Safety Check. An aid to seamanship, not a substitute for it.

On the App Store

Rainbow’s End Manifest is on the App Store for iPhone and iPad. Open it and Rainbow, a 47-foot ketch, is already aboard as a worked example; enter your own boat once and the book is hers.

May you find a rainbow’s end and treasure found wherever you sail or set your anchor.

Rainbow’s End Manifest

Why it stands out

What it does

What it won’t do

On the App Store

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