Capt. Charl Dettmer has launched The Handover App, the first product from his company, Helmwise, to help streamline rotational crew handovers on board. Dettmer, who has spent 25 years in yachting, holds an MCA Master 3000GT and has captained yachts up to 60 meters.
Helmwise aims to build “simple but efficient tools for yacht crew and the people who manage them,” Dettmer said. The app lets crew record notes using voice messages, photos, or WhatsApp, then automatically transcribes and organizes the information by department into a handover report that can be shared digitally or exported as a PDF.
The idea is to capture information as it happens rather than relying on crew to compile notes at the end of a rotation. Dettmer said details are often forgotten over weeks at sea. “Apply that to every handover, across every department, month after month, and you can see how a boat’s ‘operational memory’ can slowly leak away. That is something I noticed over my years on board, and The Handover is my attempt to reduce it.”
Dettmer noted that the app is not intended to become another management platform or inbox. Information is permission-based and tied to positions rather than individuals, allowing rotating crew to maintain shared records while limiting access to authorized users.
Dettmer said he is also developing products to address artificial intelligence privacy concerns on board. It’s “a bit eye-opening how loosely sensitive information gets put into AI tools,” he said, noting that users don’t fully understand how that data is handled.
“I’m approaching this as an insider,” Dettmer said. “That gives me an advantage in knowing where the pain points are.”
