Ahead
See fishing gear and floating hazards before your bow does.
An extra lookout that never blinks. Ahead watches the water in front of the boat and tells you what's there, how far, and how soon.
The lines you can't see.
Pot buoys, net floats and the lines between them are hard to spot from the helm, and they crowd the coasts cruisers love most: Galicia, Portugal, Brittany, Maine.
The flagged dan buoy is rarely the problem. Sailors tell us it's the dark can, the small white float, the weedy one with no flag, the one the tide has pulled half under. And off Spain and Portugal, the advice to stay close inshore away from orcas leads boats straight into the pot fields.
Catch one and the best case is a swim with a knife. The worst is a wrapped propeller, a damaged saildrive or rudder, and a passage that ends at the nearest port, or with a call for help. On a long coastal leg with a small crew, nobody can stare at the water for six hours straight.
boating accidents in US waters in 2024 began with hitting a floating object: 9 deaths, 44 injuries and $3.8M of damage.
of all fishing gear is lost at sea every year. What's lost keeps floating, unmarked and unattended.
a typical coastal leg between ports. A short-handed crew can't keep a perfect watch for all of it.
A second pair of eyes at the bow.
Start a watch. Then get on with sailing.
One tap and Ahead keeps watch on the water ahead, hour after hour, while you trim, cook, navigate or rest. You can see at a glance what it sees and how far away it is.
Know what, where and how soon.
When something's there, you hear about it in time: what it is, which side, how far, and how many seconds you have. The alarm sounds at the helm, on your watch and on every device aboard, so the crew below hears it too.
A log of every watch.
Every sighting is logged with the time and place, along with the moments when glare or haze limited the view. Review a passage in seconds, and know which stretches of coast to watch closely next time.
A watch you'll want to keep on.
We studied some eighty first-hand accounts of fouled props, near misses and watch apps that got switched off. Three lessons shaped Ahead.
Alarms worth hearing
Crews switch off alarms that cry wolf. Ahead speaks up for what's in your way, stays quiet about what isn't, and we treat every false alarm as a fault to fix.
Honest about its limits
Glare, haze, spray and dusk all limit what any lookout can see. Ahead tells you plainly when they do, so you never mistake silence for a clear sea.
Help if the worst happens
If a line does catch, a calm step-by-step checklist walks the crew through the first minutes, and the time and place go in the log for your insurer and your next passage.
Built for coastal passages.
Made for the waters where nets and pots crowd the sea, and tested at sea before every release.
| Watches for | Fishing-gear floats and flagged markers, pot buoys, mussel rafts and fish farms, floating debris, small craft without AIS |
|---|---|
| Conditions | Daylight and dusk. It tells you plainly when glare, haze or spray limit what it can see. Night watch is on our roadmap. |
| Alerts on | Helm display, smartwatch and every device aboard |
| Setup | Minutes, with no yard work. We set up pilot boats in person. |
| Boats | Cruising monohulls and catamarans |
| Where | Atlantic Spain and Portugal for the 2027 pilot season; wider Europe and the US East Coast to follow |
| Pricing | Announced before launch. A fraction of the cost of professional systems; founding crews get special terms. |
An aid to the watch, never a replacement.
The skipper and crew keep a proper lookout by sight and hearing at all times, as the collision regulations require. Ahead adds a second pair of eyes that doesn't tire, and it always tells you when it can't see well.
How we think about safetyFrom sea trials to every boat.
Sea trials
90 days of testing and data collection on the water ahead: Biscay swell, fog among the fishing nets of the Gulf of Cádiz, and the Strait of Gibraltar.
Pilot season
Founding crews sail with Ahead in Atlantic Spain and Portugal.
Launch
Open to cruising boats across Europe and the US East Coast.
Night watch
Seeing the water ahead after dark, and more hazard types.
Good questions, straight answers.
Does it replace a lookout?
What does it spot?
Will it bother me with alarms?
What if I catch a line anyway?
Does it work at night?
How hard is it to set up?
Where can I use it?
What will it cost?
What happens to my data?
Be one of the first boats to sail with Sailwatch.
We're inviting a small number of cruising boats to sail with our apps in summer 2027 and shape what we build.
Apply for early access