Last updated: August 13, 2026
Here's the plain-English gist. It's a summary, not a replacement for the full terms below.
These Terms of Service ("Terms") are an agreement between you and Blue Helm LLC, a California limited liability company ("Blue Helm," "we," "us," or "our"), and they govern your access to and use of the BlueHelm mobile application, our related websites, and our online services (together, the "App" or "Service"). Please read them carefully. If you have questions, email us at services@getbluehelm.com.
By downloading, installing, creating an account, or otherwise using the App, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated here by reference. If you don't agree, please don't use the App.
If you use the App on behalf of a business or another person, you confirm you're authorized to accept these Terms for them.
You must be at least 18 years old to have your own BlueHelm account. People under 18 may use the App only under the supervision and with the consent of a parent, guardian, or other responsible adult who accepts these Terms on their behalf and remains responsible for their use. The App is intended to be used by a competent adult who is responsible for the vessel.
You also confirm that you can form a binding contract with us and that you are not barred from using the App under the laws of your jurisdiction.
Subject to these Terms, we grant you a personal, limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to install and use the App on devices you own or control, for your own personal, non-commercial boating use. We reserve all rights not expressly granted to you.
BlueHelm is a situational-awareness aid, not a navigation system, a safety system, or a life-saving device. It is meant to help an attentive captain stay informed. It is not a substitute for proper seamanship, official charts, required equipment, a proper watch, or your own judgment.
Every feature can be wrong, delayed, or simply unavailable. That includes anchor watch, Man Overboard, route suggestions, wind and weather forecasts, tides, travel-window guidance, and AI answers. Reasons include (among others): GPS drift and inaccuracy, your device going to sleep, the operating system suspending or killing the App to save battery, loss of cellular or network signal, dead or low batteries, notifications that don't deliver, and errors or gaps in third-party data.
You, the captain, remain solely responsible for seamanship, keeping a proper watch, using official up-to-date charts and required navigation and safety equipment, and complying with the Navigation Rules (COLREGS) and all applicable laws. Specifically:
Boating, sailing, anchoring, and related activities on the water are inherently hazardous and can result in serious injury, death, or loss of or damage to property. You knowingly and voluntarily accept these risks when you use the App and when you're on the water.
You are solely responsible for the safety of yourself, your passengers, your crew, and your vessel, and for making your own decisions in light of actual conditions — not what the App shows.
Assumption of risk. You expressly assume all risk of injury, death, illness, loss, or property damage arising out of or relating to your use of the App and your activities on or around the water, including risks arising from weather and sea state, equipment failure, the condition or handling of any vessel, the acts of others, and the possibility that information the App shows you is inaccurate, delayed, incomplete, or entirely unavailable.
Release and waiver of claims. To the fullest extent permitted by law, you hereby release, waive, discharge, and covenant not to sue the Blue Helm Parties for claims of ordinary negligence — including claims for personal injury, death, or property damage — arising out of or relating to your use of or reliance on the App, and specifically arising out of the risks identified in Section 4: inaccurate, delayed, incomplete, or unavailable position, depth, chart, route, weather, tide, hazard, alarm, notification, or AI information; GPS error; loss of signal; battery exhaustion; and your device or its operating system suspending, delaying, or silencing the App. This release is given by you for yourself and your personal representatives and assigns.
This release is deliberately limited. It does not apply to gross negligence, recklessness, fraud, or willful misconduct; it does not apply to any claim that cannot lawfully be released; and it does not release any claim belonging independently to another person who has not agreed to these Terms.
Waiver of unknown claims (California Civil Code § 1542). You expressly waive the protections of California Civil Code § 1542 and any similar law of any other jurisdiction, which reads: "A general release does not extend to claims that the creditor or releasing party does not know or suspect to exist in his or her favor at the time of executing the release and that, if known by him or her, would have materially affected his or her settlement with the debtor or released party." You understand that this waiver applies to claims existing at the time you accept these Terms that you do not know about or suspect.
What this release does not cover. Nothing here releases or limits liability that cannot lawfully be released or limited — including liability for gross negligence, fraud, or willful misconduct, and any rights you have under law that cannot be waived. In particular, nothing in these Terms waives or limits any right under the California Consumers Legal Remedies Act (Civil Code § 1750 et seq.), which may not be waived under Civil Code § 1751, or any other non-waivable statutory right. Some jurisdictions do not allow the release of certain claims, so parts of this section may not apply to you; the rest remains in effect.
Your acceptance is recorded. When you accept these Terms in the App, and when you acknowledge the in-app safety notice before arming an anchor watch or starting a planned route, we record the fact of your acceptance, the version you accepted, and the date and time.
BlueHelm can generate a personalized operating guide for your boat from a questionnaire you fill out, and it offers an AI assistant ("Your Boat") that answers questions about your vessel. These features are processed on our servers using third-party AI models.
"Your Content" means the things you add to the App — for example boat details and questionnaire answers, photos of your boat or profile, float plans, saved places, checklists, and messages you send to the AI assistant.
You keep ownership of Your Content. You grant Blue Helm a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, copy, process, transmit, and display Your Content solely as needed to operate, secure, and improve the Service and to provide the features you use — including syncing it to your account, generating AI guides and answers, and delivering a float plan or live location to the people you choose to share it with. This license lasts only as long as we hold Your Content and ends when it's deleted, except for backups kept briefly in the ordinary course or records we must keep by law.
You are responsible for Your Content and confirm you have the rights to share it. Don't upload anything unlawful, infringing, or that violates someone else's privacy or rights.
Some features require an account, which you create with your email address and a one-time code we send you. Keep your device and email secure — anyone with access to them may be able to access your account. You're responsible for activity that happens under your account. Tell us promptly at services@getbluehelm.com if you think your account has been compromised.
Please use the App fairly and lawfully. You agree not to:
We may suspend or limit access that we reasonably believe violates this section or threatens the Service or other users.
The App offers a free trial and paid subscription plans (currently "Crew" and "Captain"), plus optional add-ons such as additional boat slots. Some features are available only on a trial or paid plan.
BlueHelm relies on services whose costs change over time — including AI and computing capacity, marine data, and infrastructure. Because of this, we may change our subscription prices, and the usage allowances included with a plan (for example, the amount of AI guide generation or "Your Boat" chat included), on a going-forward basis. Any change applies only to future billing periods — it is never retroactive and never changes a subscription term you have already paid for. Before a price increase or a material reduction in allowances takes effect, we will give you reasonable advance notice (for example, an in-app notice or an email), and where an app store requires it, the store will ask you to confirm the new price before it applies. The change takes effect at your next renewal on or after the notice period. If you don't agree to a change, you can cancel through your app store before your next renewal; continuing to use a paid plan after the change takes effect means you accept the new pricing or allowances. Your app store handles all billing, cancellations, and refunds under its own policies.
The App works with third parties we don't control, including the Apple App Store, Google Play, our subscription processor, our hosting and AI providers, and public marine-data sources such as NOAA and Open-Meteo. Your use of those services may be subject to their own terms and policies. We're not responsible for third-party services or for the accuracy, availability, or timeliness of third-party data, and reliance on such data is at your own risk.
Government data is not official navigation data. Chart, depth, tide, buoy, boundary, and hazard information shown in the App may be derived from products of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Ocean Service, and similar public sources. Those agencies do not endorse BlueHelm, and the data as presented here has not been certified for navigation and must not be used as a substitute for official, corrected nautical charts and publications. Depth information may be surveyed at low resolution, may be decades old, or may not exist at all for your area.
The App and everything in it that we provide — software, text, graphics, logos, the "BlueHelm" name and brand, guide templates, and design — belongs to Blue Helm or our licensors and is protected by intellectual-property laws. Except for the license in Section 3, these Terms don't give you any rights in our intellectual property. If you send us feedback or suggestions, you grant us a perpetual, royalty-free license to use them without obligation to you.
THE APP AND ALL CONTENT AND DATA IN IT ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE," WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY. To the fullest extent permitted by law, Blue Helm disclaims all implied warranties, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement, and does not warrant that the App will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, error-free, or that any data, forecast, route, alert, or AI answer will be accurate, complete, current, or reliable. No advice or information you get from the App or from us creates any warranty not expressly stated here. Some jurisdictions don't allow certain warranty exclusions, so some of these may not apply to you.
TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, Blue Helm and its members, officers, employees, agents, and suppliers (the "Blue Helm Parties") will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, data, goodwill, or for personal injury, death, or property damage, arising out of or relating to your use of — or inability to use — the App or your reliance on it, even if we've been advised such damages are possible.
IN ALL CASES, THE TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY OF THE BLUE HELM PARTIES for all claims relating to the App will not exceed the greater of (a) the total fees you paid us for the App in the twelve (12) months before the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) one hundred U.S. dollars (US $100).
These limits apply to the maximum extent permitted by law. Some jurisdictions don't allow certain limitations, and nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law — for example, liability for our own gross negligence, fraud, or willful misconduct, or any statutory rights that can't be waived.
To the extent permitted by law, you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless the Blue Helm Parties from and against reasonable third-party claims, damages, losses, and costs (including reasonable attorneys' fees) that arise out of: (a) your misuse of the App; (b) your violation of these Terms or of any law or regulation; (c) Your Content; or (d) your negligent or unlawful operation of a vessel. We'll notify you of any claim and may participate in the defense; you won't settle anything that imposes obligations on us without our consent.
Let's try to sort it out first. If you have a concern, please email services@getbluehelm.com so we can try to resolve it informally. Most issues can be handled quickly this way.
Binding individual arbitration. If we can't resolve a dispute informally within 60 days, you and Blue Helm agree that any dispute relating to these Terms or the App will be resolved by binding individual arbitration administered by JAMS or the American Arbitration Association (AAA) under their applicable consumer arbitration rules, rather than in court. The arbitration will take place in California or, at your election, your home county or by remote/telephone hearing, and will be conducted in English. Judgment on the award may be entered in any court with jurisdiction.
Class-action waiver. Disputes will be handled only on an individual basis. You and Blue Helm each waive any right to bring or participate in a class, collective, consolidated, or representative action.
Small-claims carve-out. Either of us may still bring an individual claim in small-claims court if it qualifies. And either of us may seek injunctive relief in court to protect intellectual property or stop unauthorized access.
Your 30-day right to opt out. You can opt out of this arbitration and class-waiver agreement. Just email services@getbluehelm.com with the subject line "Arbitration Opt-Out," and your name and the email on your account, within 30 days of first accepting these Terms. Opting out won't affect the rest of these Terms, and it won't affect your use of the App.
You can stop using the App and delete your account at any time (see the Privacy Policy for how). We may suspend or end your access if you materially breach these Terms, if required by law, or if we discontinue the Service — we'll give reasonable notice where practical. Sections that by their nature should survive termination — including Sections 5, 7, and 12 through 18 — will survive.
We may update these Terms from time to time. If we make material changes, we'll give reasonable notice — for example, by posting the updated Terms here with a new date, or through an in-app notice. Changes are not retroactive. Your continued use of the App after the changes take effect means you accept the updated Terms. If you don't agree, please stop using the App.
Questions about these Terms? Reach us at services@getbluehelm.com.
Blue Helm LLC, California, USA.
© 2026 Blue Helm LLC. All rights reserved. BlueHelm is a boating companion and situational-awareness aid, not a navigation or safety system.