Offline-first by design
Ship management software that keeps working when the link doesn’t.
Maintenance, spare-part stock, requisitions, budgets and compliance evidence — all usable with the satellite down, on the hardware already on board. No vessel server, no replication window, no crew falling back to paper. When a link appears, everything the ship did uploads itself with the timestamps it was captured at.
What the crew can do with no connection
Maintenance and evidence
Open the job, record readings, attach the photograph, close it out. The record keeps the timestamp of the moment work was done at sea, not the moment the link came back.
Spares, stock and requisitions
Issue a part from the storeroom, adjust a count, raise a requisition with its lines and budget code. Stock on board updates immediately on the vessel copy and reconciles ashore on sync.
Everything queues, nothing is retyped
Each action goes into a sync outbox on the device. When any link appears — satellite, port Wi-Fi, a phone hotspot — the queue uploads in order and the office sees it without anyone re-entering it.
Replicated offline versus offline-first
Established suites solve connectivity with a database on every ship. That works, and it costs a server, an IT routine and a delay. Full Ahead removes all three.
| Aspect | Traditional replicated deployment | Full Ahead |
|---|---|---|
| Deployment on board | A vessel-side server and database installed, patched and backed up per ship | No shipboard installation — the app itself runs offline on the laptop or tablet the crew already has |
| How the office gets the data | Scheduled replication between ship and shore, so the office sees the ship as of the last window | Continuous sync the moment a link exists, item by item, with original timestamps preserved |
| When hardware fails | An IT rebuild of the shipboard database before the crew can work in the system again | Sign in on another device; the vessel's data caches down again |
| Cost of the offline capability | Server licences, shipboard IT support and replication maintenance | Included in the subscription at every tier |
Vendor deployment models change; confirm current requirements directly with any vendor you are comparing.
Related reading: SpecTec AMOS alternative, BASSnet alternative and the predictive planned maintenance system.
Offline questions we get asked
- Does ship management software really need to work offline?
- Yes. Even with VSAT and LEO coverage, links drop in heavy weather, in high latitudes, during antenna faults and inside some ports and yards. Software that only works online quietly pushes the crew back onto paper and spreadsheets in exactly the periods that matter most, and the record has to be rebuilt afterwards.
- How is this different from the offline mode in AMOS or BASSnet?
- Traditional systems achieve offline operation by installing a database on each vessel that replicates to shore on a schedule, which means shipboard servers, IT support and a delay between what the ship knows and what the office sees. Full Ahead is offline-first in the application itself: no vessel-side installation, and sync is continuous rather than windowed.
- What can the crew actually do with no connection?
- Read the last cached fleet data, work and close planned maintenance jobs, record readings and defects, attach evidence, issue spare parts from the storeroom, adjust stock counts and raise requisitions with lines and budget codes. All of it queues and uploads automatically on reconnect.
- What happens if two people change the same thing?
- Queued actions carry their own timestamps and are applied in order on the server, and stock movements are applied as deltas rather than overwrites, so an issue recorded at sea and a receipt recorded ashore both land correctly instead of one erasing the other.
- Is the offline data secure on the vessel device?
- The cached copy is scoped to the signed-in user's own fleet and cleared on sign-out, and the platform enforces workspace isolation server-side, so a device cannot hold or upload data belonging to another operator.
Test it the honest way: pull the plug
Tell us your fleet and trade, and we’ll walk a vessel through a full day of work with the connection switched off — then show it landing ashore.
Talk to us
Tell us about your fleet — we'll reply with a straight answer.
Ask about migrating an existing PMS, offline operation at sea, class and flag audits, or what your fleet would actually cost. No sales sequence, no discovery call gate.
- Answer from a person, usually same working day
- Data migration from spreadsheets or legacy PMS
- Pricing in EUR, published — nothing hidden