Groups and badges
Groups bring yacht clubs, cruising associations, flotillas, and friends together in BoatKit. Membership belongs to your account. Each group has its own titled discussions, members, and optional badge or burgee variants.
You need a signed-in account with access to BoatKit Cloud. Open Messages, then Groups, in Account Web, the Viewer, or an official BoatKit app. Group discovery, membership, discussions, and badge changes require an internet connection. Your boat's onboard features continue to work offline.
Find or create a group
Choose Find groups, enter a name, and select Search. A group's profile shows its name, icon, description, rules, privacy, and active member count.
| Privacy | How membership works |
|---|---|
| Open to all | Anyone can find the group and join immediately. |
| Request to join | Anyone can find it and request membership. Its owner or an administrator approves requests. |
| Hidden | It does not appear in search. An owner or administrator must invite you. |
Invitations appear in My groups. Choose Accept invitation to join, or Decline. Receiving an invitation does not make you a member. You must join before you can read discussions or see the member list.
To create a group, select Create group, enter its name, choose privacy, and select Create. You become its owner. Names can be shared by several groups; a name or burgee does not mean BoatKit has verified an organization.
Browse discussions and choose notifications
Open a group and select Discussions. Members can start a discussion by entering its title. There is no automatic general chat. All active members can read the group's earlier discussions, including discussions started before they joined. Use Archived discussions to browse retained, read-only topics.
Browsing a discussion leaves its push notifications off. Select Follow, or send your first message, to receive notifications for that discussion. Select Unfollow to stop them; later messages you send do not undo that choice. Mute all group notifications overrides individual follows until you unmute. Your device's notification settings still apply.
Owners and administrators can pin, lock, or archive discussions. Locked and archived discussions remain readable. Members can report messages or members; moderators can remove messages with a visible removal notice. Reports about group leadership go to BoatKit staff. The Members section contains the moderation queue for group managers.
Choose profile affiliations and burgees
Owners and administrators manage the group's icon and its badge variants under Settings and Badges. For example, one group can offer White, Gold, and Platinum burgees. Members may choose any active variant; BoatKit does not check eligibility for an award or membership tier.
In Groups → My profile, independently choose which groups to show on your account profile and up to three badges. The first selected badge is primary; use Make primary to change it. The group must allow public display for its affiliation or badges to appear publicly. Hidden groups start with public display disabled.
For a boat, open that vessel's Settings → Profile → Group badges. Only vessel owners can select, remove, or order its badges. Select up to three, including several variants from one group. The selecting owner must belong to each group. An administrator's vessel role alone does not permit this edit.
On the community map, selected public badges appear alongside an already public boat's name and on its profile. The group filter uses displayed badges; membership never makes a private boat public. Group membership grants no boat access and does not change who can send you direct messages.
Manage membership or leave
Owners and administrators use Members to invite people, approve requests, remove members, and manage bans. To invite someone, enter their exact BoatKit account email, select Find, and then Invite. Invitations do not require a direct-message relationship. Use the Show selector to review join requests, invitations, and bans separately. The owner can appoint administrators or transfer ownership. A group has exactly one owner.
Choose Leave group to end your membership. Discussion and media access ends, and your profile and vessel badge selections for that group are removed. Rejoining restores access to retained history, but does not restore badges or discussion follows. Another boat owner must select a badge themselves if they want it to remain on a shared boat after its selecting owner leaves.
Before an owner voluntarily leaves, they must appoint a successor administrator. Leaving passes ownership to the oldest-joined administrator. Account deletion uses the oldest-joined administrator, then the oldest-joined member if necessary. A group with nobody remaining closes.
The owner can also choose Close group under Settings. Access ends immediately. The owner has seven days to restore it from My groups; after that, discussion and media cleanup runs in the background. Moderation records may be retained for support.