privacy.

The short version: we collect little, we sell nothing, and no advertiser follows you away from here. Two things deserve more than a line, so they get one below — we record how the site is used, session replays included, and if you sign in to ask a question we keep the question.

What we collect

• Searches. What you type into search is kept, along with how many results it found and how long it took, so that popular questions can be answered from a cache and so we can see what sailors are looking for. Nothing about you is stored beside it — no name, no address, no account — whether or not you happen to be signed in. Verified channel owners are the one exception, described below.
• Signing in. Browsing, searching and reading need no account. Asking a question, suggesting a channel and reporting a problem do — that gate is how those queues stay full of real sailors rather than software. If you sign in, with Google or with an emailed link, we store your name, your email address and, from Google, your avatar.
• Questions you ask. An Ask conversation is saved to your account so you can pick it up where you left off, and each question is also recorded on its own with your email address, so we can see what the fleet wants to know and where our answers fall short. Site operators can read both — that is how the answers get better. We never publish a conversation and never pass one on; one becomes public only if you press Share, and then only the conversation you shared.
• Things you send us. A channel you suggest or a problem you report is stored with your account attached, so we can come back to you about it and so one person can't flood the queue.
• Aggregate analytics. Plausible counts page views and a handful of events in aggregate. It sets no cookies, follows nobody between sites, uses no advertising identifiers and builds no personal profiles.
• Usage recordings. We also run Microsoft Clarity, which draws heatmaps and replays sessions — the pages you saw, where you scrolled, moved and clicked — so we can find the places this site confuses people. It sets two cookies of its own to tell one visit from the next. Anywhere you'd be typing something personal — Ask conversations (including one you've chosen to share on its own public page), the sign-in email field, the creator dashboard and its messages, the Founding Sailor manifest editor, and the suggest and report forms — is masked in the page itself, so what you write there is never recorded. On the public pages — a boat, a channel, a video — it records the page as it appears on screen. It never loads on operator pages. Clarity is Microsoft's product and the recordings are processed on Microsoft's systems under their terms; we neither sell what it collects nor use any of it for advertising.
• Email addresses you give us. If you subscribe to the newsletter, your address goes to Buttondown, who run the list and hold the double-opt-in consent record. Our own database keeps only a one-way hash of it and the page you signed up from — enough to tell one subscriber from another, never enough to recover an address. Every email carries an unsubscribe link, and unsubscribing takes you off the list.
• Verified creators. While you're signed in as a verified channel owner, we keep a record of the searches and questions you run here, so we can understand what creators as a group need from the directory. It's visible only to site admins, is never published or shared, and is retained as part of our records.

Founding Sailors

If you become a Founding Sailor you have an account with us. To take your payment and recognise your support, we store your name and email address, and — from our payment processor, Stripe — a customer reference and the amount you paid. We never see or store your card details; Stripe handles the card.

Founding Sailors may add a short entry to the public manifest on the home-page globe: a display name, a home port, a YouTube or Instagram handle, and a one-line message. You choose what appears, field by field — every field starts hidden until you turn it on. Your email address is never shown unless you deliberately switch it on, and it starts off with a clear warning. You can edit or clear your manifest whenever you like, or write to hello@sailing.directory to remove your details entirely.

If you pass the page to a fellow sailor with “share this with a sailor”, we send that one email and keep a note of the address you sent it to. That note is what stops the feature becoming a mailing list: the address never joins ours, and nobody writes to them again.

Cookies

None for advertising, and none that follow you to another site. The whole list:

• How the site looks. Your display mode — dark, light or the night modes — and whether you read in metric or imperial.
• Language. The language you're reading in, so your choice sticks. It is set on your first visit and whenever you change languages.
• Signing in. If you sign in, a session cookie keeps you signed in, alongside the short-lived pair that protects the sign-in form itself. Signing out clears them.
• Creator tools. For verified channel owners, a small marker so the site knows to offer you your own dashboard, and — if you manage more than one channel — which one you're currently viewing.
• Usage recordings. The two set by Microsoft Clarity, described above.

What we never do

• Sell or share personal data with advertisers or data brokers.
• Run advertising trackers, or hand what we collect to an ad network.
• Require an account to browse or search.

Questions or deletion requests

Write to hello@sailing.directory and a person will handle it. Channel owners: the creators page covers listing-related choices, including removal.

Last updated Jul 2026.