Support

My track stops when I lock the screen

It is missing the “Always” location permission. With “While Using the App”, iOS stops giving positions once the screen turns off and the passage ends up half recorded. Change it in Settings → Offing → Location.

Does it work without a signal?

The GPS does: the passage keeps recording in airplane mode and miles offshore. The chart only if you have downloaded the area first — the arrow button at the top of the chart. Without downloading, no signal means no chart.

The app does not show up on my Apple Watch

Open it once manually on the watch. After that it comes to the front on its own when you start a passage on the iPhone. The app’s help — the (i) button — includes a diagnostic that says exactly what is missing: whether the watch is paired, whether the app is installed, and whether the Health permission has been granted.

Why does it want Health permission?

To open a sailing workout on the watch, which is what keeps its screen awake while you sail. Offing only writes that workout: it reads no health data of yours.

Where is my logbook? Can I get it off the phone?

Under Passages. From there you pick a date range and get the logbook as a PDF to keep, print or send, and each passage can be exported as GPX. Everything is stored on your iPhone: there is no account and no server.

How do I back everything up?

Under Passages → Save a backup. You get one file with everything — passages, entries and photos — and the system asks where to put it: choose Save to Files → iCloud Drive and it is off the phone. Do it at the end of the season, or after any trip you would hate to lose.

I lost my phone, or changed to a new one

Offing keeps a copy of the logbook inside the app itself, and that copy is included in the iPhone backup. When you restore the new phone from iCloud or from a computer, open Offing and the logbook comes back on its own: passages, entries and photos. You do not have to do anything.

What if I delete the app?

Then it is lost, unless you have a copy saved somewhere else. When you uninstall an app, iOS removes its files too, and that includes the internal copy. And the app cannot warn you at that moment: iOS does not allow it.

That is what the Save a backup button is for. Keep that file in iCloud Drive and you can delete Offing, reinstall it and get everything back with Restore a backup.

The suggested route passes close to a shoal

It might. That line only knows where land is: it knows nothing about depths, shoals, rocks awash, cables or fish farms. It gives you a rough idea of the way to go and how long it might take, not a course to steer.