Privacy Policy

How FindCaptains collects, uses, shares, and protects information.

Last updated: August 27, 2026

FindCaptains is a discovery, evaluation, and connection platform. It helps customers Discover Captains, evaluate public profiles, and Connect through Contact Requests. FindCaptains is not the Captain, a vessel operator, an employer, a charter operator, or automatically a party to later arrangements between a customer and a Captain.

These pages explain how FindCaptains currently works. They are not licensed legal advice.

Information we collect

The information FindCaptains collects depends on how you use the platform.

Account and Captain information

When you create a Captain account, we collect the email address and password you submit. Passwords are securely hashed and are not stored in plaintext.

As you build a Captain profile, we may store name and display information, phone and other contact settings, profile photo and cover images, biography and profile content, selected Services, service Areas, credentials you add, Boat information, gallery and Captain’s Log media, membership and publication state, and moderation or account-status information needed to operate the account.

Contact Requests

When you send a Contact Request, FindCaptains collects the details you submit. The current form collects name, email, optional phone, optional service of interest, optional requested date, optional guest count, and required consent. Confirm-your-email is used to check the address you typed and is not stored as a separate account field. If a compatible client also submits a message, that text is stored as part of the request.

Contact Request information is made available to the Captain you contacted so they can respond. Requests persist in FindCaptains for that purpose. Unpublished Captain profiles are not generally public; an owner may use Private Preview to review their own profile, including authorized preview of Contact. Preview or test requests created while an owner reviews an unpublished profile may be kept as test records for that Captain and are not treated as ordinary customer leads.

Search, location, and activity

When you search Discovery, FindCaptains may retain submitted search activity such as the Service or Service Family you selected, location you typed or selected, whether a location could be resolved, and result counts. This is not keystroke tracking. FindCaptains does not record every character you type as a keystroke log.

If you choose Use my location, your browser asks permission first. Coordinates are used to resolve a nearby or canonical search context for that request. Precise coordinates are request-scoped and are not kept as a permanent precise-location history on your account. Typed or selected search locations may still be retained as search activity.

Captain Insights can record discovery and contact-path events when that feature is enabled. Insights is off by default. When enabled, events are intended to help Captains understand profile performance. FindCaptains does not use Insights as a dossier of identified visitors, and raw IP addresses are not stored on those events.

Technical, security, and rate-limit data

FindCaptains keeps technical logs needed to operate, secure, and troubleshoot the service. That can include timestamps, request metadata, security and error events, and hashed or derived identifiers used for rate limiting and abuse prevention. Raw IP addresses may be hashed for rate limits rather than stored as Contact Request content.

Cookies and similar technologies

FindCaptains uses cookies and similar technologies necessary for authentication, security, session management, and operation of the service. These include signed-in session and authentication cookies, security and form-protection technologies, and a short-lived cookie or similar technology used to support search or session functionality. That short-lived cookie is not used as advertising identity. FindCaptains does not currently use advertising cookies or a public cookie-preference center.

Email

FindCaptains sends transactional email needed to operate accounts and Contact Requests. That includes email verification, password reset, account or security notices, and Contact Request notifications to Captains. FindCaptains does not currently operate a marketing newsletter or promotional mailing list.

Payments

If you use a paid membership, payment is processed by a third-party processor such as Stripe. FindCaptains does not store full card numbers. The processor receives the payment information needed to complete checkout, billing, and membership status.

What becomes public

A Captain profile is not generally public until it is published. Unpublished profiles stay private except for authorized owner Private Preview. When a Captain publishes, allow-listed public profile information — such as name, profile and cover photos, Services, Areas, credentials the Captain chose to display, Boats, Captain’s Log entries, and other published profile content — can appear on FindCaptains and may be indexed by search engines. Private account data such as login credentials, unpublished drafts, private contact destinations the Captain has not made public, billing details, and Contact Request inboxes are not the source of public Discovery.

How we use information

Create and secure accounts, verify email, and reset passwords.
Host Captain profiles, Services, Areas, credentials, Boats, media, and Captain’s Log content.
Operate Discovery, public profiles, membership, publication, and moderation.
Deliver Contact Requests to the intended Captain and show Captains their requests.
Understand search and marketplace activity at an operational level.
Protect the service against spam, fraud, abuse, and security threats.
Send transactional email and process payments when paid features are used.
Meet legal, security, and integrity needs.

How we share information

FindCaptains does not sell personal information. We share information when needed to operate the service:

With the Captain you contact, when you submit a Contact Request.
With infrastructure and service providers that host, email, store, or operate FindCaptains on our behalf.
With a payment processor such as Stripe when you use paid membership features.
When published profile content is public, including possible search-engine indexing.
When needed for legal, security, fraud-prevention, or platform-integrity reasons, or if we are required to do so by law.

Retention

We keep information as long as needed to operate FindCaptains, provide accounts and Contact Requests, maintain marketplace integrity, resolve disputes, and meet legal or security requirements. Retention periods vary by record type. We do not publish a single deletion schedule for every category of data. Search, Insights, and technical records may be kept for a limited operational period and then reduced or removed as systems allow.

Your choices

Captains can update profile, contact, publication, and related account information in their account.
You can deny or withdraw browser location permission in your browser settings.
You can choose not to submit a Contact Request or to provide only the required fields.
You can contact FindCaptains through the Contact page about a privacy request.

FindCaptains does not currently provide a self-service data-export or account-deletion button for customers. If you need help with a privacy request, use the Contact page and we will handle it as a human support request where we can.

Children

FindCaptains is a professional marketplace intended for adults who can form a binding contract. It is not directed to children. Do not use FindCaptains to submit a child’s personal information. If you believe a child has provided personal information, contact us through the Contact page.

Security

FindCaptains uses reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational measures to protect information, including access controls, hashed passwords, rate limiting, and abuse controls. No online service can guarantee complete security. Unauthorized access, scraping, or interference may still occur.

Updates

We may update this Privacy Policy as FindCaptains changes. The date at the top of this page shows when it was last updated. Continued use of FindCaptains after an update means the updated policy applies to that later use.

Contact

For privacy questions or requests, use the FindCaptains Contact page.