Sailing clubs run on SailHQ
SailHQ is the HQ family app built for sailing clubs. Duty rotas, race series, boat management, and a member portal in one system, so the same four volunteers stop carrying the whole club on WhatsApp.
- Free under 20 active members
- Nothing to install
- One login for the whole club
What is sailing club management software?
Sailing club management software is the system a sailing club uses to run duties, racing and membership together: who is on the safety boat this Sunday, who is qualified to run the race, whose boat is on the water and who has paid to be there. Most club platforms handle the membership half well enough. The duty rota and the race series are where they run out of road.
The rota has to say no on its own
A duty list that only records names will happily put someone without a powerboat ticket on safety cover. The qualification has to sit on the duty, so the wrong person cannot take it and the right person can pick it up without asking anybody.
- Every duty carries the ticket it needs, checked at the moment somebody takes it.
- Members swap between themselves inside the rules, with no email to the secretary.
- The gaps in a Sunday are obvious weeks out, not on the Saturday night.
SailHQ on a phone. Nothing to install.
What sailing asks for that generic club software does not do
Any club platform will hold your members and take your subs. These are the parts clubs end up running in a spreadsheet alongside it.
Duties are what actually keeps the club open
Race officer, safety boat crew, galley, bar. No duty means no racing, so the rota is not an administrative nicety. It is the thing the season depends on.
Not everyone can do every duty
Powerboat certificates, first aid, race officer training. Putting an unqualified member on safety cover is not a scheduling error, it is a safety failure, so qualifications have to gate the rota rather than sit in a folder.
Racing is a series, not a set of events
A season of races with discards, handicaps and results that carry across weeks. Scheduling one race is easy. Scheduling a whole series, then keeping it right when three Sundays blow out, is the hard part.
The club does not own most of the fleet
Members bring their own boats, with sail numbers, classes and handicaps attached. The club still has to know what is on the water and who is in it, without owning any of it.
The weather makes the decisions
Racing gets abandoned at short notice and the whole club needs telling at once, including the people already driving to the club.
Swaps have to happen without the secretary
Someone always cannot make their duty. If every swap goes through one volunteer by email, that volunteer burns out by August.
What SailHQ handles
The short version. SailHQ has its own site with the full detail, demos and pricing.
Duty rota
Duty types with qualification gates and points. No more chasing.
Race series
Series templates that schedule a whole season in minutes.
Boat register
Club boats, private boats, and live availability in one list.
Member portal
Members see their next duty, the weather, and club news on login.
Live weather
Wind and conditions pulled straight from your club coordinates.
Events and calendar
One calendar for racing, training, and social events.
Moving over without losing a season
The usual reason a committee stays on something that half works is the thought of moving. It is a smaller job than it looks, and you do not have to do it in one go.
What clubs come from
- Dutyman for the duty rota
- A season calendar pinned to the noticeboard
- WebCollect or standing orders for subs
- Email chains for every duty swap
- Sailwave results kept on one laptop
Most clubs arrive with three or four of these running at once. That is normal.
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Send us what you already have
A membership spreadsheet, a CSV export, or the list your treasurer keeps. It does not need tidying up first. Messy is what we expect.
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We load it and check it with you
We import members, kit and your season, then sit with one person from the committee to check it looks like your club rather than a demo.
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Run both for as long as you want
Nothing forces you to switch everything on day one. Plenty of clubs run the old rota alongside for a few weeks until people trust the new one.
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Leave whenever you like
Your data exports in full, at any point, at no charge. A system you cannot walk away from is not one you should sign up to.
Not sure how much work your club's move would be? Send us what you have and we will tell you honestly.
Who is behind SailHQ
There is no published sailing case study yet, and we are not going to invent one. What we can point at is the engine underneath. RowHQ runs Oundle Town Rowing Club day to day, with real members, real money and real race entries going through it.
SailHQ is a different sport on the same foundation, built by the same people. It is live now, and early clubs get a direct line to the people writing it.
Questions about sailing club management software
What is sailing club management software?
Sailing club management software is the system a sailing club uses to manage race duty rotas, race series, boat registers, membership and subscriptions in one place. It replaces the duty spreadsheet, the series calendar pinned to the clubhouse noticeboard and the email chain that currently handles every swap.
Can it stop unqualified members being put on safety cover?
Yes. Duties carry qualification requirements, so a member without the relevant certificate cannot be assigned to or pick up that duty. The club keeps a record it can actually produce if anyone asks.
How does it handle members swapping duties?
Members arrange swaps between themselves inside the system, within the qualification rules, and the rota updates itself. Nobody has to email the sailing secretary to ask permission for a straight swap.
Does it cover race results and handicaps?
SailHQ schedules series and manages entries, duties and the club side of racing. Clubs that use dedicated scoring software for results keep using it, because rewriting a results engine that already works is not a good use of anyone's time.
Does this work as yacht club management software too?
Yes. Yacht club management software and dinghy club software are the same job with different boats: a duty rota that checks tickets, a race calendar across a season, a boat register the club does not own most of, and subs to collect. SailHQ was built at a dinghy club, so the language leans that way, but keelboat and yacht clubs run the same four problems and the fleet register handles boats the members own.
How much does sailing club management software cost?
SailHQ is free for clubs with up to 20 active members, then priced in flat monthly bands set by active member count. Every band includes every feature and there are no transaction fees on subs or event entries.
Rather ask a person first?
Not everyone wants to sign up to find out whether something fits. Tell us how your club runs and we will tell you straight whether SailHQ suits you.
If it does not, we will say so.
The rest of the HQ family
One app per sport, sharing an engine underneath. Plenty of clubs run more than one.