Legal

Terms of Service

Last updated: 2026-06-16

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of BoatClaw, a marine navigation app for iPhone and iPad published by Crab Labs LLC ("Crab Labs," "we," "us," or "our"). Please read them carefully. They include important limits on our liability and a critical safety disclaimer about how BoatClaw may and may not be used on the water.

Agreement

By installing, accessing, or using BoatClaw, you agree to be bound by these Terms and by our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not install or use the app. If you use BoatClaw on behalf of a vessel, crew, or organization, you represent that you are authorized to accept these Terms on their behalf.

The most important part: marine-safety disclaimer

BoatClaw is a planning and situational-awareness aid. It is not a primary means of navigation and not a substitute for any of the following:

• Official paper or electronic navigational charts (ENCs) and chart corrections;
• A properly installed and maintained marine chartplotter or ECDIS;
• Official depth soundings, Notices to Mariners, and local knowledge;
• Certified, type-approved AIS hardware;
• The USCG Navigation Rules / COLREGS (the Rules of the Road) and all applicable laws and regulations;
• The captain's own seamanship, judgment, and a proper lookout.

You acknowledge and accept the following about the information BoatClaw displays:

• Depth and hazard data may be incomplete, dated, or wrong. Depth shading, contours, and the Hazard Advisor are derived from public datasets and from on-device calculations based on a boat profile you supply. They can omit hazards, misrepresent the bottom for your specific waterway, and do not reflect real-time conditions such as shoaling, debris, ice, obstructions, or recent changes. Hazard awareness is an aid, not a guarantee of safe water.
• Weather, radar, AIS, tide, and current data come from third parties and may be delayed, gapped, or inaccurate. Forecasts can be wrong; live feeds can lag or drop out; AIS shows only vessels that are transmitting and reaching the feed. Never assume the absence of a target means the absence of traffic.
• Routes, ETAs, fuel, and clearance figures are planning aids only. Auto-routing, passage-plan timing, safe-harbor suggestions, and marina clearance math are estimates. Always confirm them against current conditions, official sources, your vessel's actual performance, and applicable rules before getting underway.

The captain is solely and at all times responsible for the safe operation of the vessel and the safety of those aboard. Do not rely on BoatClaw as your sole source of navigation, hazard, weather, or traffic information. If the app and your eyes, your instruments, or official sources disagree, trust the latter and proceed with caution.

Beta and TestFlight

BoatClaw is currently distributed as pre-release software through Apple's TestFlight program on an invite-only basis. Pre-release software is provided "as is" and is, by its nature, incomplete and subject to change. It may contain errors, may change significantly between builds, and may break, lose data, or be discontinued at any time without notice. It is not warranted to be reliable for any safety-critical or operational use. If you choose to send us feedback, bug reports, or suggestions, you grant Crab Labs the right to use that feedback to operate and improve BoatClaw without obligation or compensation to you. Your participation in the beta is also subject to Apple's TestFlight and App Store terms.

Eligibility

You must be of legal age and have the legal capacity to enter into a binding contract in your jurisdiction in order to use BoatClaw. BoatClaw is not directed to children, and you may not use the app if you are not legally permitted to agree to these Terms. If you use BoatClaw on behalf of an organization, you represent that you have authority to bind that organization to these Terms.

Your account and your content

An account is optional — core navigation works with no account at all. If you choose to sign in with Apple's "Sign in with Apple," you can enable secure backup of your own content so it can be restored on a new device.

You own your content. The boat profiles, routes, waypoints, layer preferences, recorded GPS track logs, and the documents and photos you store in the vessel vault are yours. To provide the backup, sync, and restore features you choose to use, you grant Crab Labs a limited, non-exclusive license to store, transmit, and process your content solely to operate those features and provide the service to you. We do not use your content to build other products, and we do not sell it. You are responsible for the accuracy and lawfulness of the content you store, and for keeping your own copies of anything important to you. See our Privacy Policy for how this data is handled.

Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Reverse-engineer, decompile, disassemble, or attempt to derive the source code or underlying methods of the app, except where that restriction is prohibited by law;
• Copy, redistribute, sublicense, rent, sell, or otherwise make the app or its data available to third parties;
• Use the app, or any data, design, or output from it, to build or assist a competing product or service;
• Interfere with, disrupt, probe, or place undue load on the app or the services and data providers it relies on;
• Remove, obscure, or alter any proprietary notices in the app;
• Use the app for any unlawful purpose or in violation of these Terms or any applicable maritime, export, or other law.

License to use the app

Subject to these Terms, Crab Labs grants you a personal, limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to install and use BoatClaw on Apple devices you own or control, for your own non-commercial recreational use. All rights not expressly granted are reserved.

Intellectual property

BoatClaw, the BoatClaw name, and the app and its interface, design, and original content are the property of Crab Labs LLC and are protected by intellectual-property laws. Nothing in these Terms transfers any ownership in the app to you. Third-party data displayed in the app remains the property of its respective providers.

Third-party data and services

BoatClaw fetches and displays data from third-party providers, including the Mapbox basemap, public agencies and services for weather and conditions (such as NOAA, NWS, and NDBC), and a third-party provider for live AIS vessel traffic. Each provider's own terms, licenses, and privacy practices apply to its data. We do not control these services and do not warrant the accuracy, completeness, timeliness, or availability of their data. Outages, gaps, delays, and errors in third-party data are outside our control.

No warranty

To the maximum extent permitted by law, BoatClaw and all data, features, and content it displays are provided "as is" and "as available," without warranty of any kind, whether express, implied, or statutory — including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, title, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the app will be uninterrupted, error-free, accurate, or suitable for any safety-critical or navigational purpose.

Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Crab Labs LLC, its members, and its principals shall not be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, data, goodwill, or other intangible losses, arising out of or related to your use of, or inability to use, BoatClaw — including, without limitation, property damage, grounding, collision, allision, loss of or damage to a vessel, personal injury, and loss of life — whether based in contract, tort (including negligence), strict liability, or any other theory, and whether or not we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.

To the extent any liability cannot be excluded, our total aggregate liability arising out of or relating to these Terms or the app shall not exceed the greater of the amount you paid us for the app in the twelve months before the claim, or ten U.S. dollars (USD $10). Some jurisdictions do not allow certain exclusions or limitations of liability; in those jurisdictions our liability is limited to the smallest extent permitted by law.

Changes to the app and these Terms

We may update, modify, suspend, or discontinue the app or any of its features at any time, with or without notice. We may also revise these Terms from time to time. When we do, we will update the "Last updated" date above. Your continued use of BoatClaw after revised Terms take effect constitutes acceptance of the changes. If you do not agree to the revised Terms, stop using the app.

Termination

You may stop using BoatClaw at any time and may delete your account and its cloud backups from within the app. We may suspend or terminate your access to the app or its connected services if you violate these Terms or if we discontinue the app. Sections that by their nature should survive termination — including the marine-safety disclaimer, intellectual-property terms, disclaimers of warranty, and limitations of liability — survive.

Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State in which Crab Labs LLC is organized, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules, and by applicable U.S. federal and maritime law. You agree that any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the app shall be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in that State, and you consent to the personal jurisdiction of those courts. Nothing in this section limits any non-waivable rights you may have under the laws of your place of residence.

Contact

Questions about these Terms: team@boatclaw.com.