Waterside pubs have long been a part of sailing tradition, here are five that our SailTies crew think really should be on your cruising list for this year:

Butt & Oyster

 on the River Orwell is one of the best-known public houses on the East Coast. A mecca for yachtsmen for decades, this timeless watering hole is renowned for its good beer, good food and great views. The Inn also makes an appearance in Arthur Ransome’s seventh Swallows and Amazons title We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea.Top-quality pub grub and Adnams ales are served all day every day but with such a huge reputation the Butt & Oyster gets busy on weekends and holidays so make sure you call ahead.At high water springs the tide laps at its walls and you can sail a dinghy or lifting keeler almost to the door - although, with the hard muddy at low tide, visiting by dinghy from a visitor’s mooring or strolling along the shore from MDL’s Woolverstone Marina is more stress-free.\

02.) Lagavulin Distillery, Lagavulin Bay, Islay Scotland

Not a pub but a distillery! The windswept west Scottish Isle of Islay is said to instil strength of character into everything it produces - no wonder then that it’s currently home to nine world-renowned distilleries. 

Lagavulin

 is said to be one of the oldest. Nestled in the picturesque Lagavulin Bay, a tour of the distillery - in operation on this site for over 200 years  - is an experience not to be missed. See master distillers at work crafting definitive Islay malt and the unusual pear-shaped stills, key to Lagavulin’s distinctive character.You can moor at 34 berth Port Ellen Marina, however, there are two free moorings provided by Lagavulin Distillery in the sheltered Lagavulin Bay - as a bonus it’s only a short walk from Ardbeg to the east and Laphroaig to the west if you want to continue your whisky adventures!\

Tucked away in picturesque Mylor Creek is the charming 

Pandora Inn

 - our Marketing Specialist Fi calls it her favourite place on earth! The traditional thatched inn boasts lots of cosy booths and a roaring log fire through the winter. But the biggest draw is that additional seating is on a pontoon stretching out onto the creek - smaller boats and tenders can sail up and moor next to their table. Sundowners after grazing through the Pandora’s delicious locally sourced menu should be on every UK sailor’s bucket list. - one note though, the pontoon dries at low water, so make sure to take account of the tidal cycle: spring tides are best for dinner while neaps are best for lunch.

The Pandora is near the entrance to Restronguet Creek, which can be fairly congested with moored craft. ​​There are lots of nearby anchorages offering shelter from all directions - the spot the locals recommend is just to the north, in the direction of Loe Beach and close under the shore\

04.) Ty Coch Inn, Porth Dinllaen Lleyn Peninsula

Tucked behind a sheltering bluff on the north-west shore of the Lleyn Peninsula, Porth Dinllaen’s

Ty coch inn

 boasts an unspoilt sandy beach and spectacular views across to the triple peaks of Yr Eifl and Snowdonia. This hidden gem isn’t far from where our co-founder Chris spent summers with his grandparents growing up.The outer bay is sheltered from the south round to the northwest with excellent holding in sand and mud with a depth of 3m; the perfect anchorage for those travelling south from Caernarfon Bar and Holyhead and north from Cardigan Bay.

The pub’s legendary live music sessions great food, refreshing beers and the opportunity to dine on the doorstep beach with the incoming tide lapping at your toes are just some of the many reasons this North Wales gem once ranked third in a survey of the world’s top-ten beach bars.\

Crabshell Inn

 on the beautiful Southpool Creek quayside basks in the sun all day, creating the ideal spot to spend time. Its genuine and charming welcome, a relaxed contemporary ambience and a menu packed with local, seasonal ingredients to tempt your tastebuds mean this is a spot loved by locals and visitors alike. It’s one that’s firmly on the SailTies team itinery for this year.Tie up to either of Southpool Creek’s two tidal pontoons and walk to the pub. Locals say springs are the best tide to visit on, with an evening high water around 2000 or 2100.  Aim to reach the creek head, found just above Salcombe fuel barge,  1½-2hrs before high water.\

Visiting these pubs? Make sure you log your trip on the SailTies app to keep your memories safe and shareable.

Waterside pubs have long been a part of sailing tradition, here are five that our SailTies crew think really should be on your cruising list for this year


Five sail-up pubs to add to your UK cruising plans right now. 

Did you know you can now add photos to your SailTies voyage logs? Simply tap the add image icon on your completed track to upload or swipe down to the gallery in the crew log section. Your memories can then be shared with everyone aboard and shared as part of your voyage on social media.

Here are our top ten simple tips to take great photos onboard that will make you the envy of all your friends and family:

Smartphones are incredibly lightweight - that's good news for portability, but it's hard to hold a featherweight phone steady to get that perfect shot - particularly on a moving boat. For that reason take some time to set yourself before you take that photo. Stand steady, hold your phone with both hands and take advantage of any physical controls like a volume button to take a photo so you can more easily hold your phone.

The cameras the pros use usually have framing grids in the viewfinder window to help them better square up shots. You can turn on the same thing in your phone's camera app. Adding a grid line gives you help in keeping the horizon straight and it's generally a good idea to keep upright structures perfectly vertical in your photos.

The grids also allow you to use what the pros call the "

" — a photographic composition principle that says an image should be broken down into thirds, both horizontally and vertically, so you have nine parts in total with points of interest in these intersections or along the lines. This makes your photo more balanced, level, and nicer to look at.

To use grids on iPhone go to "Settings," choose "Photos & Camera," and switch the "Grid" setting on. On Android phones Launch the camera app, go to "Settings," scroll down and switch the "gridlines" option to "on.

Smartphones have very bright lenses and include special modes for very dim light—the Night modes in the latest iPhones, Galaxies and Pixels do a much better job than old point-and-shoot cameras. Even so, it's a good idea to find some light to illuminate your snapshot. Whether it be some sunlight from a window for an indoor portrait, or navigation lights for a nighttime snap, it's always smart to find some environmental illumination — smartphone flashes leave a lot to be desired in comparison -we all have *that* photo around the galley table!

The most basic adjustment you can make to your shots to make them look 10x better is exposure—brightening or darkening a scene effectively can turn that bland image of your crew into a head-turner. Use it to brighten the shot of your galley efforts to make it perfect for Instagram, or to darken shadows in a portrait for a more dramatic look. On an iPhone you'll want to drag the sun icon, to the right of the focus box, up to brighten an image or down to darken it whilst Android phones typically have the more traditional +/- icon.

Learn what your phone does, and when to use the different features. You'll want to turn on HDR for most phones for day-to-day photography. Use Night mode for images shot in dim boat interiors or outdoors for those shots on deck after the sun has set. Portrait mode is a good option on many phones; it blurs the background behind your subject to make them stand out more (Our Marketing specialist Fi swears by turning her phone upside down in portrait mode, getting low and tilting it upwards to take epic shots). Those are the basics—some phones may have more specialised modes available.

High dynamic range or HDR, helps balance the light and dark elements in a high-contrast photo. It can be used to give your photos a more creative, or artsy vibe, but it is commonly used to produce an image that looks similar to how you see it with your eyes.

Often with smartphone cameras, it’s hard to get the perfect exposure for light and dark areas. You could be taking a photo of someone in below deck, or outside with the light bouncing off the boat and the sea. Setting the exposure to the background could make the person being photographed washed out. HDR prevents this by retaining both the details in darker areas and shadows and bright areas. The iPhone takes photos in HDR by default. For Android phones, you may need to adjust HDR settings manually.

Today's phone cameras automatically focus on the foreground of your frame, but not every picture you take on your boat has an obvious subject. To adjust where you want your camera lens to focus, open your camera app and tap the screen where you want to sharpen the view. If you're taking a photo of dolphins, for example, it can be difficult for your camera to follow this subject and refocus as needed. Tap the screen to correct your phone camera's focus just before snapping the picture to ensure the subject has as much focus as possible. A square or circular icon should then appear on your camera screen, shifting the focus of your shot to all of the content inside that icon.

"Negative space" simply refers to the areas around and between the subjects of an image and it can take your photos from "good" to "great." Adding a large expanse of open sky or sea makes your subject stand out more.

Taking photos from unique, unexpected angles tends to create an illusion of depth or height with the subjects. It also makes the image stand out, since most mobile photos are taken either straight on or from a bird's eye view. Experiment with snapping a photo directly upward and playing with the sky as negative space or, you can try taking it at a slight downward angle.

In some photos, there's a line that draws the viewer's eye toward a certain part of the frame. Those are called leading lines. They can be straight or curvilinear but sailing snappers swear by them. Leading lines are great for creating a sense of depth in an image, and can make your photo look purposeful even if you just happened to come upon a really cool shape by accident!

Did you know you can now add photos to your SailTies voyage logs? Here are our top ten simple tips to take great smartphone photos onboard that will make you the envy of all your friends and family

Ten top tips for taking better sailing photos on your smartphone

We have reached a major milestone in our startup journey and completed our first hire, appointing Fi Edwards as Marketing Specialist.

Fi joins the SailTies crew from British Marine / Southampton International Boat Show having previously held roles with Harken and World Sailing and worked as a freelance communications consultant. In her new role, she will take over the communications function of the business and help founders Chris Jacobs and Thomas Guy achieve their aim to be the largest digital community of sailors. 

SailTies is the simple way to capture, relive and share all your sailing in one place. The free-to-download app allows sailors to easily track voyages, log previous miles and add qualifications, which can all be shared at the tap of a button. Key stats, such as total miles and time at sea are calculated automatically and qualifications are verified by the SailTies team. This is already attracting interest from training organisations, charter companies and event managers as the perfect solution for tracking qualifying miles and verifying experience.

The idea for SailTies came about when founders Chris and Tom were doing their Day Skipper course. The pair were shocked that paper logbooks were the only way to track the miles and record their adventures. Having used apps to record cycling and skiing, the two decided to put their decade of experience designing and building apps to use and created a more exciting way for sailors to capture their experiences.

Co-founder, Chris, said of appointing Fi: “I'm delighted that our first hire is someone who is not only passionate about our vision, but also seems to love sailing even more than Tom and I! Fi has a big challenge ahead to grow our community, so her previous experience in the marine industry was very important to us. “

Fi added “I'm absolutely ecstatic to be joining SailTies ahead of this key growth period. I’ve always been a bit of a geek about building, championing and managing digital communities and boats are a huge passion of mine so to be able to continue my career in a role that blends both of these elements is a privilege. I’m looking forward to working with Chris and Tom to build an amazing brand that will help more people get together and out on the water.” 

SailTies is available to download for free on either iOS or Android at 

SailTies reaches a major milestone and completes our first hire, appointing Fi Edwards as Marketing Specialist.

SailTies App makes first hire 

Keeping a record of your voyages and qualifications lets you prove your experience as a sailor, which can help you gain experience and meet new people through crewing.

SailTies is a free app on iOS and Android, with a mission to be the best way to keep all your sailing in one place. You can build your full sailor profile by combining miles logged, boats sailed, crew photos and sailing qualifications.

Here's how three very different sailors are using SailTies to keep a digital logbook:

UserPreview

Latha - Adventure Cruiser

Latha has already logged a Coastal Skipper course, Britain Circumnavigation and an expedition from Iceland to Greenland!

“I have previously recorded my sailing on navigation apps, however it’s difficult to share. With SailTies my friends and family don’t even need the app to enjoy my logs.

I love that I can record trips straight in the app or import GPX files from Navionics and chart plotters.”

Koya - Day Skipper

Koya has a digital record of every mile he’s sailed, after SailTies was recommended by his sailing school.

“The crew on my course used SailTies to collate our photos onto our route each evening. As my miles increased I used my SailTies profile to charter a boat in Sicily!

I love that you can add qualifications. It’s going to make it even easier to book my next charter holiday.”

Cami - Liveaboard

Nobody has logged more miles on SailTies than Cami, including an Atlantic Crossing whilst pregnant! Travelling with her husband, son and cat, she is documenting their way from the Caribbean to Polynesia, with detours in Ibiza, Azores, Brazil and Patagonia.

“I use SailTies to log my adventures around the world. I write all of the memories in my log and love that our photos are displayed on the track.”

Download SailTies

 to build your personal logbook and join thousands of sailors who have logged over 100,000 miles worldwide. You can even start today by adding previous voyages and qualifications.

Keeping a record of your voyages and qualifications lets you prove your experience as a sailor, which can help you gain experience and meet new people through crewing. SailTies is a free app on iOS and Android, with a mission to be the best way to keep all your sailing in one place. You can build your full sailor profile by combining miles logged, boats sailed, crew photos and sailing qualifications.

How three sailors keep a digital logbook on SailTies

It's our final update for 2022, including two new 'off-the-water' features!

Watch SailTies December 2022 Update Video

Create a full sailing CV by adding qualifications on your profile. Just take a photo of your qualification to keep a digital copy in the app!

How To: Add Qualifications to SailTies

It's now even easier to log every mile to your SailTies profile, by importing GPX files recorded on hardware (e.g. chart plotters), wearables or other apps (such as Navionics).

How To: Import GPX to SailTies

It's not often we pause to look backwards, but the end of the year is a great time for reflection on some proud moments. Thank you for making these possible:

📊 Completed our first investment round

👩‍💻 Built a small team in UK & Ukraine 🇬🇧 🇺🇦

🌍 100,000 NM logged by sailors worldwide

📆 Non-stop voyages enter multiple weeks, including 

SailTies Voyage: Fiji to New Zealand

SailTies Voyage: ARC Atlantic Crossing

November and December have seen activity in the Southern Hemisphere, Canaries and Caribbean really increase, which is very exciting for an app built by two British sailors! Thank you ❤️

Las Palmas Round Trip (SailTies Voyage)

 - Crewed by Tom Veall and Jubilee Sailing Trust

Kyte around the island race (SailTies Voyage)

Whitsunday Sail in 30kts (SailTies voyage)

 - Crewed by Don McQueen and Katherine Elliott

After speaking with as many of you as we can, here's what we decided to work on next:

Is there something missing that you would love to see? 

Email SailTies Team

 to help make SailTies even better for you 🏆

It's our final update for 2022, including two new 'off-the-water' features: Qualifications and GPX Import! Watch our 2 minute video to catch up on all of this, or read on!

December 2022 Update

Adding sailing qualifications to your SailTies profile lets you create a full sailing CV. This short How To guide will explain:

Before beginning - you will need to upload a photo of your qualification so it can be verified.

Previews of your most recently issued qualifications are displayed on the My Sailing tab. You can view all of your qualifications in more detail by tapping any of the previews.

To remove a qualification, open the 'View all' qualifications screen and tap the 

 button in the top right corner of the qualification you wish to remove.

You will be prompted to delete the qualification. This will permanently delete the qualification from SailTies.

Simplified versions of your qualifications are displayed on the public version of your profile, so you can prove your experience whilst protecting your privacy. These public versions have the photo removed and only include the following fields:

When you submit a qualification, it is immediately added to your profile with a 'Pending Verification' label.

Once the SailTies team has reviewed the photo and information submitted, the qualification will either be updated to 'Verified' or we will get in touch if there are any problems.

Adding sailing qualifications to your SailTies profile lets you create a full sailing CV. This short How To guide will explain how to add, view, remove and share qualifications.

How To: Add Sailing Qualifications to SailTies

We are making it easier and easier for you to log every single mile. You can import GPX files for voyages recorded on hardware (e.g. chart plotters), wearables and other apps such as Navionics.

Best of all - you still get all the lovely SailTies features, such as photos on track and the ability to collaborate with crew to share photos and logs with each other.

This will create a new draft voyage in SailTies, which you can edit and publish just like a voyage recorded with the SailTies app.

Importing GPX from Navionics (and other apps)

If the app you tracked on has a GPX export function, it will present the default share screen to select where to send the GPX file.

SailTies is setup to receive GPX files and therefore will appear on the list of options.

The following screenshots are from Navionics, please let us know if you aren't sure how to export GPX files from your hardware or app.

We are making it easier and easier for you to log every single mile. You can import GPX files for voyages recorded on hardware (e.g. chart plotters), wearables and other apps such as Navionics. Best of all - you still get all the lovely SailTies features, such as photos on track and the ability to collaborate with crew to share photos and logs with each other.

How To: Import GPX files to SailTies

We are looking for a Marketing Specialist who can hit the ground running to own and execute our marketing strategy. This is an opportunity to have a real impact on a new product in the marine industry.

We are yet to start our marketing, so you will have a complete green field project!

You will be supported by and report directly to the founders and have the opportunity to work with our advisory team, including Johann Querne (Global Growth Marketing Director at Twitter, previously Uber), Ole Mahrt (former Head of Product at Monzo), Greg Chiappini (COO SALT Marine Finance) and David Harris (Chairman at One Big Circle).

We see the role split into two equal parts:

This role is fully remote. Ideally full time, but we can be flexible to find the right person. Our goal is to find someone who will be immersed in SailTies, not spread across multiple companies.

The salary for this role is £35,000 pro-rata.

B2B partnership management (e.g. clubs, schools, charter companies):

Creating and executing our digital marketing strategy:

3+ years marketing experience, including:

We understand you may not have all of these skills and that's ok. The successful applicant will have most of these skills and be excited to learn everything else on the job.

🕵️‍♀️ What Type of Person Are We Looking For?

We have three stages to the application process:

SailTies is the way for sailors to capture all aspects of their sailing in one place - the Strava of Sailing!

Unlike the paper log book, SailTies is easy to keep up to date, collaborative and simple to share.

We have raised funding to hire a small team to further develop the product and get SailTies into the hands of the 23 million global yacht sailors.

https://www.sailties.net

SailTies iOS App

SailTies Android App

Co-founders, Chris and Tom, each have 10 years experience in Design and Engineering, previously working at Facebook and Cookpad before leaving to work full time on SailTies.

Our mission is to make it easier to get on the water and for sailing to be more accessible.

SailTies is a remote first company. Both founders are currently in Bristol (UK), so we do occasionally work in person. Throughout the year we travel to work from sailing events.

We are looking for a Marketing Specialist who can hit the ground running to own and execute our marketing strategy. This is an opportunity to have a real impact on a new product in the marine industry. We are yet to start our marketing, so you will have a complete green field project!

Hiring: Marketing Specialist

When my husband suggested that we try out sailing, my initial reaction was, “Are you insane? I’ve never stepped foot on a sailboat in my life.”

That was quickly followed by, “That’s a rich man’s sport!”

You can’t blame me for thinking that sailing was not for me. Beyond the fact that I didn’t grow up sailing, nothing in the images I saw of sailing suggested this sport was welcoming to women.

I simply did not see many female sailors in anything from the RYA sailing book to magazines and shows. If I did manage to see a woman on a boat, generally, she was not behind the helm. Instead, she was a guest in a bikini or a wife along for the ride. She was there to soak up the sun and gentle breeze.

I am not the only one who’s noticed this; a 

World Sailing Trust report

 reports that 80% of women believe there is a gender gap in the sport of sailing. Unfortunately, for me, there weren’t any “role models.” Less than 25% of entrants into major sailing events were women in the last five years.

In all my time before becoming a sailor, I never saw this:

Getting more women into sailing starts with representation, and in my opinion, it was greatly lacking.

A few weeks after I had rejected the idea of sailing, I found myself on a ship with 

Nomad Sailing School

 for our Competent Crew course. This kind of structured training is not a mandatory step to get your Day Skipper, but I highly recommend it.

An equivalent course in the US would be your “Basic Keelboat Certification.” With International Yachting Training it is called “learning the ropes,” which is a pretty accurate description. You will learn boat terms, winds, how to get the boat moving, and the most common and essential sailing skill, tying knots!

Our teacher was Lou Barden, a woman. I cannot begin to express how relieved I was to have her as a teacher. I am sure that many other male teachers are just as good as Lou, but seeing Lou doing it all was the validation and reassurance I needed to know that I belonged there too.

Since then, I went on to do my Day Skipper (always with Nomad and Lou) and many other sailing trips around the Solent, in the Mediterranean, and lastly, four weeks of bliss, with just my husband and I, across 

Gaia's voyage in Greece

Gaia's voyage in Croatia

When there are only two people on board, that’s when you need to step it up. No one is there to tell you how you should do it, and your collective experience is all you can rely on. So you assess the situation, agree on what to do, and try to execute the best you can. This is when you start to get a feel for the boat, learn how she moves, the revs she likes, and how the wind moves through her sail. You get only it with time and experience.

I started recording all of my sailing on SailTies. 

Download SailTies App

 is a free, modern alternative to the paper logbook, which allows you to capture all of your sailing in one place. It made it easier to look back on my adventures and share them while crewing, chartering, and building my sailing qualifications. It’s easy to lose track of how far you’ve come as you develop as a sailor.

Scrolling through my feed gives me a sense of achievement and nostalgia while, at the same time, getting me excited for my next adventure. 

Gaia Riva on SailTies

Download SailTies app

I can proudly say I have long lining nailed down, that I am not shabby at the helm, and that I am more often land-sick than sea-sick. But, on the other hand, marinas still scare me, I can’t do a rolling hitch to save my life, and I fear getting crossed anchors.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I may not be the best sailor out there, but I am doing it, and I love every minute of it. To all those girls, women, and people who identify as such, give sailing a go. It’s the experience of a lifetime.

Dockwa Blog Post

When my husband suggested that we try out sailing, my initial reaction was, “Are you insane? I’ve never stepped foot on a sailboat in my life.” That was quickly followed by, “That’s a rich man’s sport!”

One Woman's Path on Becoming a Sailor

Three years ago, Tom and I met working on a recipe sharing platform in Bristol, UK. We quickly discovered a shared passion for the ocean, in particular sailing, so we booked an RYA Day Skipper course together.

Fast forward to a typical March day on The Solent (🥶) and we were in our element, but it didn't take long to discover that two important things were missing:

Like most sailors, we want to capture our time on the water for 3 main reasons:

To our surprise, there was no modern way to do this.

Sailors try to keep a paper logbook up to date, however those only provide very limited information about a trip, they are boring to share and longwinded to summarise (especially if you have more than one).

After completing our course, we crewed for other sailors to build our miles.

We tried to record our voyages on GPS devices (marine, cycling and smart watches) and exercise tracking apps (including Strava), however nothing was suited to recording long passages or the collaborative nature of sailing. It was also very difficult to share data from the hardware.

The last straw came in Greece, our first charter holiday sailing around the Ionian Islands. All we had to show for it was an uninspiring entry in our log books 😢:

We decided to fix these problems ourselves and started working on 

SailTies App

Our overall goal is to create a product that solves real problems for fellow sailors, that they love to use and will therefore share with sailing friends. At the start of our journey we agreed on four aspects of the product we wouldn't compromise on. We call them our '4 anchors'.

(Disclaimer: This isn't named after how we moor up at sea)

1. Easy to capture everything in one place

SailTies makes it easy to capture all of the important elements of your sailing experience together. GPS track, stats, crew list, log commentary, photos - it's all on the voyage record with a beautiful map.

More often than not, you will be sailing with crew. With SailTies only one person needs to record the voyage and they can tag the other crew to let them contribute photos and notes. Collaboration is not only more fun, but makes it much easier to capture a rich memory of the voyage.

All sailing is an adventure and those miles are something to be proud of. On SailTies, your profile is automatically updated with key stats such as total miles logged and time at sea.

There is image sharing to social media, a feed in the app and public links that can be sent to users without the app, to easily share your profile or a specific voyage.

We want sailors to get value from SailTies when they are 

Sailing for us is a time to connect with nature, develop a stronger respect for our oceans and have meaningful experiences with other people. So we have made it as simple as possible to capture on SailTies - one tap to start recording and then you can put it back in your pocket or even down below in a dry bag.

To leave the smallest possible footprint on your voyage, SailTies works offline (and offshore), uses accessible design practises, has low battery usage and is regularly tested at sea by real sailors.

Essentially - SailTies is built to be sea worthy.

Ready to capture your next voyage, or want to explore the trips already recorded on SailTies?

SailTies is completely free and available to 

Download SailTies iOS App

Download SailTies Android App

We are laser focussed on creating the best possible way for sailors to capture their experience. Our immediate plans are:

Three years ago, Tom and I met working on a recipe sharing platform in Bristol, UK. We quickly discovered a shared passion for the ocean, in particular sailing, so we booked an RYA Day Skipper course together. Fast forward to a typical March day on The Solent (🥶) and we were in our element, but it didn't take long to discover that two important things were missing:

The SailTies Blog