Need a hand aboard The Helm?

The Helm helps you make progress towards your goals. Set a goal if you like, choose a few small actions for each day, and log them as you go. Every action leaves a wake: your effort sails your ship on real passages between real ports, so your progress becomes a voyage you can see.

You can sail alone, or form a convoy with friends and keep each other honest.

The Helm runs on iPhone, Android and the web, and is in a closed test. Invited testers install it from the Google Play or TestFlight link in their invitation. There is no public download yet; see Testing for how the test works.

No. The Helm works without an account, and everything stays on your device. Create one if you want a copy kept safe, to use more than one device, or to sail in a convoy. Whatever you logged before signing in is carried aboard once, when you first sign in.

The first time you open the app, it walks you through setting up. We call this commissioning your ship. If you like, write down a longer goal you’d like to work towards. Then choose up to five Duties with a target for each, name yourself and your ship, and pick a first passage between two real ports: a suggested one, or your own on the globe.

Something you mean to do each day, with a target: steps, minutes, pages, reps, litres and more, or simply done once. You can also set a Duty to stay under a limit. Up to five Duties can be scheduled on any Watch, and you choose which weekdays each one applies.

Tap Log on a Duty and turn the Ship’s Wheel, slide the Sounding Tape, tap Measures such as a glass or a set, or type a total. Nothing is entered until you confirm. Partly done still counts (it earns half credit for the progress you made), finishing counts in full, and going beyond earns a little more. Entries can be amended until midnight, and every amendment stays visible in your Log.

Yes, for a Duty counted in minutes or hours. Tap the countdown on the Watch to open the timer and stopwatch, one activity at a time. On iPhone and Android the app can alert you when a timer ends, if you allow notifications. The timer runs on that device only.

You can add, change or stand down Duties until noon. After that they hold until tomorrow, so a Watch means what you said it would. You can still plan tomorrow’s Watch at any time.

A change counts from the moment it reaches The Helm’s online service. If you are signed in and your phone is offline, a Duty change made before noon that has not reached the service by noon applies from tomorrow. The Watch shows a card while a change is still unsent, with Send now.

At midnight in your timezone. Log the day’s progress any time before then. If your phone was offline, the entries it recorded that day still count when it reconnects, as long as it does so within about a day.

Stay the course: a missed day doesn’t take away the miles you’ve sailed or the passages you’ve made. A missed Duty does cost some Merit when the Watch settles, and if misses pile up your level or rank can drop, though privileges you’ve earned stay with you. Merit never goes below zero. If three Watches in a row go by with no Duty even a quarter done, your ship is laid up (resting in port): those three are charged as usual, and after that it stops losing Merit until you come back. When you know a day off is coming, Shore Leave lets you plan it without any penalty.

Optional: three small rotating tasks from the Bosun — reading, writing, rest, a kind message. Once you sign on, they join your Watch as one extra item. Sign on or off in the Ship’s Office.

You enter your phone’s Screen Time total by hand, once a Watch. The first 30 minutes are free; each started half hour beyond takes 1.5% off that Watch’s miles, up to 9%. It never touches Merit, rank, Doubloons or your Duties, and nothing is assumed if you don’t record it. The Helm does not read Screen Time or Health data from your phone.

A voyage between real ports — Sydney to Wellington, say — told in chapters along the way. Choose one from more than 150 ports, or draw through ports of call on the globe to make a longer passage. Choose how many Watches to take; every Watch you stand moves your ship. Make landfall by your Scheduled Arrival for a bonus. Arriving late still counts.

When you arrive, the landfall is celebrated once; then the Passage tab shows you in harbour, ready to charter the next. Every passage you have sailed is kept in the Log.

Think of Merit as your cargo. Every Watch you stand loads Merit into your hold: a full Watch loads more than a partial one, and a more demanding Watch more than a light one.

Cargo counts once it is delivered. Rounding a chapter mark or making landfall banks the hold in your Log, where it raises your level, and pays Doubloons: one for every five Merit. Make landfall by the Scheduled Arrival for a bonus on the passage’s cargo; once a passage is overdue, the hold fills at half rate.

Abandon a passage and the cargo in its hold is lost, with a Watch’s worth besides. A missed Duty is a fine paid from Merit already banked. Ranks from Deckhand to Master are conferred when you make landfall, and earned privileges stay with you.

Doubloons fill your purse as you sail. Spend them in the Chandlery on fittings for your Cabin, refits in the Dry Dock, a companion, or a few helpful stores. They never buy Merit, miles or rank.

No. In-app values have no cash value. The Chandlery takes only Doubloons earned by sailing; nothing in The Helm is bought with money.

Shore Leave is a planned day off. You earn it by standing full Watches, and a day on leave carries no penalty. Steady Watch is a small Merit bonus that grows with each day in a row you stand your full Watch, up to a cap.

A longer goal you keep in view across passages: in your own words, or with a total, a balance, a reading or waymarks, over a timeframe if you like. Duties can count towards it. Bearings are private to you and never change miles, Merit, Doubloons or how your Duties count.

You need an account. Open the Convoy tab and form a convoy, or join one with its six-letter code. A convoy holds up to eight ships, and you can be in one at a time. Convoys are optional; you can always sail alone, and a practice convoy of clearly marked, simulated sailors lets you try it without an account.

Your name, ship, rank and progress (bells and miles) from the day you started sailing together, and today’s weather on your Watch: your Headwind or Following Seas percentage, or your wind (turn this off under Ship’s Office → Settings → Share my weather with my convoy). They can also tap your name to see your Duties’ names and today’s progress. That sharing is on by default; turn it off under Ship’s Office → Settings → Share my Duties with my convoy, and they’ll see only your bells and miles. Your full Log, notes, Screen Time minutes and Bearings are never shown to your convoy.

A short message of your own to a convoy member, up to 180 characters. Signals are read in the app. If you turn on push notifications for signals, your phone tells you when one arrives.

In a Regatta, your convoy leader challenges another convoy, and the result is the share of each convoy’s ships that stood their Watch each day, so convoys of different sizes race fairly.

A match race is between two sailors in the same convoy over one, three or seven Watches, decided on bells. It earns no Merit or Doubloons, and you can turn challenges off under Ship’s Office → Reminders. Convoy Objectives are shared targets a Chief Officer can set for the convoy.

A quick way to challenge your friends. The people in your convoy (your group of friends in The Helm) take turns setting everyone a small task. When it’s your turn, you choose the type: moving, learning, calm, hands-on, outdoors or a kindness. The Helm then picks the task itself, such as ten minutes of music or thanking someone. Tasks take 5 to 20 minutes and need no equipment, and you find out what it is at the same moment as everyone else.

It shows in your convoy as a row of portholes, one for each person taking part. Tap yours to log your minutes, and watch your friends’ fill as they log theirs. Everyone has a day, and you can pass instead: nobody else sees who passed. Taking part doesn’t change your progress, rewards or anything else in the app: it’s just for each other. In a Family Convoy, a Guardian can switch Convoy Duties off for a Junior sailor.

A convoy for a household. Guardians set orders for Junior sailors, approve them for a Doubloon bounty and stock a shared Treasure Chest. A Family Convoy sits alongside your own convoy and never touches anyone’s Watch, Merit or rank.

Junior sailor is a role in the Family Convoy. Every member, Junior sailors included, needs their own account and must be 13 or older.

Your membership ends and your Log, Merit and progress stay with you. If you were the convoy leader, leadership passes to its longest-serving member; if you were the last member, the convoy is disbanded.

Open the Ship’s Office (the anchor on your Watch) → Account & online service, enter your email and a password, and choose Create an account. Then open the confirmation email from noreply@ayeaye.com.au on the same device. During the closed test, accounts are limited to invited testers.

Wait a few minutes and check spam or promotions. Make sure you typed the address you were invited with. If it still hasn’t arrived, email support with that address.

On the account screen, enter your email and tap “Lost your bearings?”. Open the reset email on the same device and choose a new password.

Yes. Your Log lives on your device and syncs when you’re back online. Entries that arrive after a Watch has been settled are kept in your Log but no longer change that Watch’s result, and your convoy sees very late entries marked as logged late.

Yes. Ship’s Office → Your Log’s safekeeping lets you export a restorable copy or a spreadsheet, and restore from an export. The device also keeps a few rolling backups.

No. Your account and synced Log stay with the service, and this device keeps its copy.

Ship’s Office → Account & online service → type DELETE and choose Delete my account. If you can’t use the app, email privacy@ayeaye.com.au. See Delete your account for details.

On iPhone and Android: one optional Watch reminder at the hour you choose, and an alert when a Duty timer ends, both scheduled on your phone.

You can also turn on push notifications for signals you receive, match races (a challenge or a result) and Convoy Duties. Each is off until you turn it on under Ship’s Office → Reminders, where you can also set quiet hours. On the lock screen a notification shows only who it’s from and what kind it is, unless you turn on Show message text. Junior sailors don’t receive push notifications. To stop them all, turn them off there or in your device settings.

Most fixes arrive automatically: close and reopen the app. Ship’s Office → About The Helm shows the version and update you’re running.

Tell us what you did, what you expected and what happened, with your device, its system version, and the version shown under About The Helm. A screenshot helps.

Note roughly when it happened and what you had just logged, and email support. Results are calculated by the service from your Log, so we can usually reconstruct what happened.

In the app: press and hold a signal, or open the ⋯ beside a convoy member, then choose Report or Block. Reports go to our moderator, never to the person reported, and we review every report within 24 hours. A sailor you block can’t signal you or challenge you, you won’t see their signals, and they aren’t told. Unblock them under Ship’s Office → Account → Blocked sailors.

For anything urgent, email support with the convoy’s name, the sailor’s name, what happened and when. If someone is in danger, contact emergency services first. See the Community Rules for what isn’t allowed.