Legal
What we collect, why we collect it, which companies help us run YachtGrade, and what you can ask us to do with your information.
Last updated 30 October 2026
This policy explains what information YachtGrade™ collects, what we do with it and what choices you have. "We" means FC Works LLC, the company that makes YachtGrade. It covers our website, yachtgrade.com, and the YachtGrade app at app.yachtgrade.com, including the report links, QR code guides and calendar feeds the app produces.
Two groups of people are involved. Our customers are the businesses and boat owners who use YachtGrade, and the people who work for them. The people our customers keep records about, such as boat owners and captains, are the second group. Their details are added by the business that looks after their boat, and that business decides what is recorded and why. We store and process it for that business.
Contact
Privacy requests: privacy@yachtgrade.com
Everything else: support@yachtgrade.com
In short: We collect what you give us when you sign up, what your business records about boats and clients, and the photographs and payment references that come with using YachtGrade.
Photographs are stored privately and opened only through links that expire. Before a photograph is uploaded, the app redraws it, which removes the information cameras embed in the file, including GPS location. We record the time the photograph was taken, as reported by the device, and the time it was uploaded. The app can print the date and time on the image, and usually keeps a copy without that stamp as well.
When someone records a voice note on a question, or answers a spoken feedback question in the app, we receive the recording. It is turned into text, and the person confirms the answer it becomes.
During the beta, anyone at your business can tell us about a problem through "Something wrong? Tell us" in the app. We receive what they write or say, and with it the screen they were on, their phone or computer and browser, the app version, how many photographs or answers were waiting to upload, and the last few errors the app recorded on that device. The app shows this list under the chat before anything is sent. Photographs and report contents are not included unless they attach them. Anthropic, our AI provider, reads the conversation to ask follow-up questions, and reads each day's reports to group them into one list for us. We use all of this only to find and fix problems in YachtGrade, and never to train AI models. It is kept and deleted like the rest of your business's records.
Payments are handled by Stripe. We never see or store card numbers. We keep only the references Stripe gives us and the status of your subscription.
The app uses only the cookies it needs to keep you signed in. It has no advertising or analytics trackers. To work without a signal, the app keeps photographs and answers on your phone until they upload. A QR code guide can remember ticked items in your browser for six hours; that never reaches us.
With your permission, our website uses Microsoft Clarity to understand how visitors use it. Clarity sets cookies and records clicks, scrolling and mouse movement on our pages. It does not run until you choose Accept, and you can change your choice at any time with Cookie settings at the bottom of any page. Microsoft's privacy statement covers how Microsoft handles that data. We use no advertising cookies.
If you ask us to tell you when the YachtGrade app is ready, on our app page, we keep your name, mobile number and, if you give it, your email address, with the date and the wording you agreed to. We store them on our website and in HubSpot, the system we use to keep in touch with customers, and use them only to tell you about the YachtGrade app. We send a text only if you ticked the box to agree to one. Reply STOP to any text to stop them, or write to us to have your details removed.
Our website loads its fonts from Google Fonts, so Google receives your IP address and browser details when a page loads, and our hosting and security providers may set cookies needed to protect the site.
Like any online service, our hosting providers may record technical information such as IP addresses and browser types in their server logs.
In short: We use your information to run YachtGrade, send the messages your business turns on, bill and support you, and, when asked, to help read uploaded documents or locate a berth. Voice recordings may also train our own speech recognition unless your business switches that off. We do not sell it or use it for advertising.
We do not sell personal information, and we do not use it for advertising.
When you upload an owner's manual or a service record and ask the app to read it, the relevant pages or file, with the boat's make, model and equipment list, are sent to Anthropic, our AI provider, to extract the information. What comes back waits for one of your people to confirm it.
Recordings are sent to OpenAI, our transcription provider, to be turned into text. We may keep each recording with its transcript and the answer the person confirmed, and use them to improve YachtGrade's own speech recognition and to train YachtGrade's own models. We never sell recordings, we do not use them to identify who is speaking, and we do not share them outside YachtGrade except with the providers that process them for us. An owner or admin can switch this off in Account settings, and from then on that business's recordings are not used for training. Recordings are kept and deleted like the rest of the business's records, as described under How long we keep it.
When a berth address is entered, our servers send the address to OpenStreetMap's Nominatim service to find its map position. Nothing else is sent.
In short: Only the providers that help us run YachtGrade, and whoever your business gives a report, QR guide or calendar link to. We do not sell your information.
Only the companies that help us run YachtGrade, each for its own part:
Things your business shares by link can be opened by anyone who has the link: report links, QR code guides and calendar feed links. Your business decides what to share.
We may also disclose information when the law requires it, to protect people or our rights, or to a buyer if our business is sold, in which case this policy continues to apply to it.
Other businesses on YachtGrade cannot see your information. Each company's records are kept apart in the database itself, and that includes boats removed from an account.
In short: We keep your information while your account exists and after, until you ask us to delete it. A boat's history stays with us after the boat is removed from an account, and is never brought back onto any account.
We keep your information while your account exists and after it ends, until you ask us to delete it. Apart from answers to a question removed from a check, which are deleted 10 days after it is removed, nothing is deleted automatically. Reports already issued are not affected by that deletion: each report keeps what was recorded when it was issued. You can export it yourself at any time: an owner or admin presses Export data under Account, Your data, and we email a download link, good for 7 days, to a zip with a folder for each boat, its reports as PDFs, its photos and spreadsheets that open without YachtGrade. Anyone who has that link can download the export until it expires, and you can switch the link off sooner in the same place. When an export is downloaded we record when, which file, and the IP address it was downloaded from, and keep that with the export. Or ask us and we will export or delete your data within 30 days, apart from boat history, below. Copies in backups can take longer to disappear.
When a subscription is cancelled. The account becomes read only at the end of the period you paid for. For the next 30 days your team can still sign in, see everything and export it, and reports you shared and the QR codes on your boats keep working. Then the account closes: its team can no longer sign in to it, and shared reports, QR codes and calendar feeds stop working. Closing does not delete your records. They leave your account and we keep them, as described in this section, until you ask us to delete them. Section 4 of our terms has the details.
When a boat is removed from an account. An owner or admin can remove a boat. We email them an export of it first, and then it leaves the account. We keep the boat's history: its equipment and hours, checks and their answers, findings, scores, photographs, maintenance and service records, dated items and berth history. Photographs of a boat can show people who happened to be aboard or nearby. The business's own records about the boat, including the names, email addresses and phone numbers of its owners and captains, are kept too. None of it comes back onto any account, including the business that removed the boat: adding it again starts a new, empty file. Reports already shared keep working.
In short: Connections are encrypted, files are private, and company records are kept apart. No system is perfectly secure and we will tell you if something goes wrong.
Everything travels over encrypted connections. Photographs and documents are stored privately and opened only through links that expire. Each company's records are kept apart by the database, and the passwords for any email account you connect are kept in an encrypted vault. No system is perfectly secure, and we will tell you if something goes wrong with your data.
In short: You can ask for a copy of your information or ask us to correct or delete it, opt out of non essential email, and reply STOP to opt out of texts.
In short: If a business recorded your details because it looks after your boat, that business is usually the best place to start. We can also help directly.
If your details are in YachtGrade because a business looks after your boat, that business decides what it records and who it shares it with, so it is usually the best place to start. You can also write to us at privacy@yachtgrade.com and we will help.
In short: YachtGrade is for businesses and boat owners and is not meant for anyone under 18.
YachtGrade is for businesses and boat owners. It is not meant for anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly collect information about children.
In short: Our providers may store and process information in the United States and other countries.
Our providers may store and process information in the United States and in other countries.
In short: We may update this policy and will email account holders about changes that matter.
We may update this policy. When we do, we will change the date at the top, and we will email account holders about any change that matters.
FC Works LLC. Privacy requests: privacy@yachtgrade.com. Everything else: support@yachtgrade.com.
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A YachtGrade report is a condition and readiness report. It is not a survey, is not carried out by an accredited surveyor, and is not a substitute for a pre-purchase, insurance or damage survey.
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