Frequently asked questions

A free quiz at vesselguide.net for people shopping for a used boat. Tell it how you’ll use her, where she’ll live and what you can take on, and it matches you against the 263 models in our catalog built 1975–2010 — showing what the catalog confirms, what to check closely, and the problems owners report. No account needed. Take the quiz.

Yes. “Save my search” copies your matches into a free Custom Boat Manual account so you can come back to them. When you buy, add her from My boats and start her owner’s manual.

No. Any boat for sale may have been modified or repowered since she was built. Always get a marine survey — and read the buyer’s guide for what to inspect, system by system.

A free web app for owners of used boats. It writes an owner’s manual for your particular boat, keeps her maintenance schedule and service history, prints checklists for her systems, helps you troubleshoot problems using your own manuals, draws her DC wiring, and keeps a logbook — typed, or read from your handwritten pages.

No. Custom Boat Manual is free, and there’s no card to enter.

Any boat can be added. Our reference catalog covers 263 trawlers, cruisers, sportfishers and sailboats built from 1975 to 2010. Boats from those years often change hands without their manuals, and they were built before integrated electronics made every boat different. Pick your model and the questionnaire starts with what that model is known for.

If your boat isn’t in the catalog, add her anyway: the questionnaire, maintenance schedule, checklists, owner’s manual, logbook and troubleshooter all work without a catalog match. Browse the catalog by make.

Yes — it works in any phone or tablet browser. To open it like an app, use your browser’s “Add to Home Screen”.

The manual is written a chapter at a time — engines, fuel, cooling and exhaust, running gear and steering, DC and AC electrical, water, heads and bilge, electronics, anchoring, safety and emergencies, getting underway, maintenance, winterizing, troubleshooting, and rig and sails for sailboats. Only the chapters that apply to your boat appear.

For each chapter it reads your questionnaire answers, the manuals and surveys you’ve uploaded and the reference data for your model. Where a fact is missing or two sources disagree, it asks you up to eight short questions first. Then it writes the chapter: procedures as numbered steps, cautions, key figures with where each came from, and a list of things to confirm aboard.

Treat it as a well-organised starting point, not the final word. It isn’t the builder’s or an equipment maker’s manual, and no marine professional has checked it. Any figure it couldn’t confirm for your boat is labelled “typical — confirm for your boat”, and it doesn’t invent part numbers, capacities, torque values or wiring details. Confirm specifications against the equipment maker’s documentation and your own boat, follow USCG regulations and ABYC standards, and use a qualified marine technician for work you aren’t trained to do.

When your answers, documents or open items change, the chapters written from them are marked out of date so you know to rewrite them — one click each.

Yes. Print the whole manual or single chapters, plus a startup checklist, shutdown card, generator run card, winterization procedure (for your storage: in the water, on the hard or trailered), spring recommissioning list, start-up log, service book and electrical diagram.

Yes. Photograph the pages (up to 10 photos, or a PDF, per upload, 20 MB each) and they’re read into draft log entries. You check and correct each one before it’s saved, and the original photos stay with the boat.

Owner’s manuals, engine and equipment manuals, surveys and your own notes — PDF or text files up to 40 MB each, up to 40 per account. Scanned (image-only) PDFs are read page by page, up to 600 scanned pages per owner every 30 days.

Describe the problem in plain words. It searches the manuals you’ve uploaded, uses what it knows about your boat’s engines and systems, and tells you which pages it relied on. Boating terms in its answers link to the glossary. For anything that could put the boat or crew at risk, get a qualified technician.

Each owner can ask the troubleshooter 40 questions a day, and the owner’s-manual assistant (asking chapter questions, writing chapters, reading logbook scans) can run 40 times a day. Both reset over 24 hours.

The Learn section is free and open to everyone: a glossary of 469 boating terms, how to tie the essential knots, handling your boat in different sea conditions, marine electronics, and a used-boat buyer’s guide.

You sign in with your username or email and a 6-digit code we email you. Codes expire after 10 minutes and work once, so there’s no password to forget or leak.

No. We don’t sell or share your personal information — not with brokers, dealers, advertisers or anyone else. We only send marketing email if you tick the box to get it, and every one has an unsubscribe link. See the privacy policy.

Other owners can’t — your boats and records are shown only to you when you’re signed in. The public model pages show catalog information about each model, never your boat. The people who run Custom Boat Manual can see account data to keep the service working, and if you opt in to marketing email we use your boat’s basic details (such as her engines and home port) to choose what to send you.

Yes. “Export / back up” on your boat downloads one file with her profile, hour readings, maintenance log, open items, electrical diagram, logbook, the text of her manuals and her owner’s-manual chapters. The new owner imports it into their own account with “Import a boat”; the chapters arrive marked out of date, ready to rewrite with the new owner’s answers.

On your account page, choose Delete account. We email you a code and ask you to type your username, then your account and everything in it are deleted. You can download all your data from the same page first.

Email hello@vesselguide.net.