Terms of Use

SeaWise Weather · last updated 1 September 2026

Agreeing to these terms

By downloading, installing or using SeaWise, or by starting a trial or subscription, you agree to these terms and to the Privacy notice in Settings. If you do not agree, do not use the app. Terms shown at the point of purchase by the App Store also form part of your agreement for that purchase.

Who provides SeaWise

SeaWise is made and published by Jason Cain, an individual developer in Texas, United States. In these terms "we", "us" and "our" mean Jason Cain. You can reach us at contact@seawiseweather.com.

Who can use it

You must be at least 18 and able to enter a binding agreement. A subscription is a contract, and in most places someone under 18 cannot enter one. Anyone younger may use SeaWise only under the supervision of an adult, who remains responsible for any decision made with it. Putting a boat on the water is an adult decision and nothing in this app is a substitute for one.

Your licence to use the app

We grant you a personal, revocable, non-exclusive licence to install and use SeaWise on Apple devices you own or control, for your own lawful, non-commercial use, subject to the App Store's usage rules. You may not sell, rent, sublicense or transfer it. Apple's Standard Licensed Application End User Licence Agreement also applies; where a mandatory App Store term conflicts with these terms, that term wins.

What SeaWise is

SeaWise gathers public marine forecasts and observations — wind, gusts, waves, period, tides, currents, thunderstorm probability, visibility, radar, advisories and station readings — and summarises them into a rating and a score for the boat you tell it about. It is an aid to your own planning and nothing more. Which features work depends on your location, the coverage of the underlying sources, and whether those sources are up.

Not for navigation, and not an emergency service

SeaWise is not a navigational aid. It is not a nautical chart, chart plotter, ECDIS, radar, AIS, depth sounder, compass, autopilot, VHF radio, EPIRB or any other required or professional equipment, and it must never be connected to or used to control any of them.

Do not use SeaWise to steer a vessel, choose a course, judge depth or clearance, avoid collisions or grounding, identify hazards, decide whether a bar or channel is passable, or replace official charts, notices or warnings.

SeaWise is not a coast guard, harbour master, weather authority, rescue service or distress service. It cannot receive a distress call and cannot send help. In an emergency, stop using the app and use the proper emergency channels and equipment for where you are.

What a forecast can and cannot tell you

Forecasts are predictions. They are produced by numerical models over grid areas and time steps, and the water in front of you can differ from the model and can be worse. Conditions change faster than forecasts are reissued, and they change over short distances because of land shape, depth, harbour effects, river outflow, surge and local squalls.

Tides and currents are predictions rather than live measurements. Observations from buoys and shore stations can be stale, sparse, wrong, or missing entirely.

A rating, a score, a wave height or a colour on a map is not a statement that conditions are safe for your boat, your crew or your plan. SeaWise shows how old its data is and says when a source is missing, but it cannot tell you what the water is actually doing where you are. Never make it your only source before going out.

Advisories and alerts

Advisories, watches and warnings are published by the National Weather Service and are shown in SeaWise as issued. We do not create, verify or amend them.

Notifications may be late, duplicated, or never arrive at all — because a device is offline, notifications are switched off or restricted by the system, background time is not granted, a source is down, or a product covers an area the app did not check. SeaWise is not an official warning receiver. Treat NWS channels, VHF weather radio and your own eyes as authoritative, before you leave and while you are out.

You are the skipper

Whoever is operating the boat is solely responsible for it, and for the crew, the passengers, the route, the speed, the lookout and every decision to go, continue, turn back, anchor or dock. SeaWise takes no part in that responsibility.

That responsibility includes holding the required licences and insurance; using current official charts, forecasts and notices; keeping a proper lookout and obeying the navigation rules; checking the boat is seaworthy and its equipment sound; carrying properly fitted lifejackets and the required safety, signalling and firefighting gear; judging fuel, range and reserves; assessing the fitness and experience of everyone aboard; leaving a float plan where sensible; checking the actual conditions immediately before you leave and continuously while underway; and not letting a phone distract you from any of it.

No rating, score or window in this app moves any of that onto us.

The risks you are accepting

Being on or near water carries risks an app cannot fully see or predict — drowning, cold-water shock, hypothermia, lightning, squalls, fog, wind shifts, breaking seas, bars, wakes, currents, surge, shoals, rocks, submerged objects, other vessels, mechanical failure, fire, carbon monoxide, and loss of power or communications.

You choose whether and when to go out. To the fullest extent the law allows, you accept the inherent risks of being on the water and remain responsible for your own decisions, preparation and conduct. When in doubt, stay ashore or turn back.

Maps and location

Maps in SeaWise are context, not charts. Depths, channels, buoys, lights, obstructions, bridge clearances, restricted areas, marinas and shorelines may be missing, approximate, out of date or wrongly placed. GPS and sensor readings can be wrong through interference, signal loss, permissions or device limits.

A pin, a line or a saved spot in SeaWise is not a statement that a place is navigable, deep enough, clear, open, lawful or safe. Verify every one of them against current official navigation products.

Laws, permits and access

Rules differ by state, waterway, boat and activity. You are responsible for knowing and obeying all of them — registration, operator licensing, safety equipment, navigation rules, speed and no-wake zones, restricted areas, anchoring, discharge and pollution rules, protected areas, fishing rules, permits and insurance conditions.

A spot, marina or ramp appearing in SeaWise is not a statement that access is public, lawful, available or safe.

Recreational use only

SeaWise is licensed for recreational planning by consumers. It is not designed, tested or warranted for commercial shipping, carrying passengers or cargo for hire, charter operations, professional instruction, racing decisions, offshore passage management, search and rescue, law enforcement, survey work, insurance underwriting, or any other use where inaccuracy could reasonably be expected to cause death, serious injury, major property damage or environmental harm. Do not rely on it for any of those.

Subscription and billing

SeaWise is one subscription covering the whole app, beginning with a free trial. Purchases, renewals, refunds and cancellations are handled by Apple through your App Store account, not by us, and are governed by Apple's terms. The price, period and trial shown by the App Store at the point of purchase are what apply.

A subscription renews automatically unless you cancel at least 24 hours before the period ends. Deleting the app does not cancel it — cancel in your Apple account settings. If we change the price, Apple will give you whatever notice and cancellation right the rules require. Nothing here removes a refund or cancellation right the law gives you.

Things you must not do

Do not use SeaWise unlawfully, or as a navigation, emergency, rescue or collision-avoidance system. Do not use it in a way that distracts whoever is operating the boat. Do not attempt to defeat the subscription, entitlement checks or rate limits; scrape, bulk-download, resell or redistribute its data or imagery, or build a competing dataset from it; reverse engineer the app except so far as the law allows; use its output to train a competing forecast or rating system; or claim any affiliation with SeaWise, NOAA, the National Weather Service, the Coast Guard or any data provider.

Where the data comes from

Forecasts, observations, radar, tides and imagery come from the providers listed under Data sources in the app, including NOAA and the National Weather Service, NOAA CO-OPS, NOAA NDBC, USGS, Open-Meteo, WebCOOS and SECOORA, Caltrans and Apple. NOAA and USGS data are public domain.

SeaWise is not endorsed by, affiliated with or approved by NOAA, the National Weather Service or any other provider. Attribution does not mean a provider stands behind what SeaWise makes of their data. Radar imagery that SeaWise renders itself from public model output carries the same limits as the model underneath it.

We are not responsible for a provider's outage, delay, error, gap, price change or withdrawal.

AI features, if we add them

SeaWise does not currently use artificial intelligence to produce forecasts, ratings, scores, summaries or advice. If we add such a feature, this section governs it, and the app will say plainly where AI-generated text appears.

AI output is produced automatically and probabilistically. It can be wrong, incomplete, out of date, internally inconsistent, or unsuited to your boat, your water or your experience — and it can be all of those while sounding entirely confident. Check it against the underlying numbers and against official sources before acting on it.

AI output is not an official forecast, and it is not navigation, emergency, legal, insurance, medical or professional maritime advice. Never make it the only basis for a decision where being wrong could hurt someone.

An AI feature will never be the thing that tells you conditions are good. SeaWise's rating comes from stated thresholds applied to forecast data, and any AI text would sit above that and explain it rather than replace it or overrule it.

Where an AI feature is offered it will be for adults only. Do not submit confidential information, sensitive personal data, or another person's information. What any AI provider receives and how long they keep it would be described in the Privacy notice before the feature ships. We may label AI content, filter it, decline a request, limit the feature, or withdraw it.

Your data and your feedback

SeaWise has no accounts and no login. What you save — your spots, your boat, your settings and your alert rules — stays on your device, and what the app sends to a provider is described in the Privacy notice in Settings.

If you send us feedback or an idea, we may use it without payment or restriction, and we will not name you as its source without asking.

Availability and changes to the app

We may update, change, limit, suspend or discontinue any part of SeaWise — for safety, legal, security, technical or provider reasons, or because a feature is not working out. We do not promise the app will be available, uninterrupted or error-free, and a source can disappear with no notice to us at all. You may need to install an update to keep using it.

Ending your use

You can stop at any time: cancel the subscription in your Apple account settings and delete the app. We may suspend or end access if these terms are breached — for instance by trying to defeat the subscription or to redistribute data in bulk. If we withdraw the app entirely, refunds for an unused paid period are handled by Apple under Apple's terms. The sections that should outlive the agreement — the disclaimers, the liability limits, ownership and governing law — do.

No warranty

SEAWISE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE", WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.

We do not warrant that any forecast, rating, score, alert, map, radar frame or reading will be accurate, current, complete, uninterrupted, or suitable for your boat or your plan; that it will identify every hazard; or that it will satisfy any legal or professional standard. Nothing here excludes a warranty or consumer right that cannot lawfully be excluded.

Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenue, data, use, opportunity or goodwill; nor for towing, salvage, rescue, repair, replacement, haul-out, marina, storage, cleanup, fuel, accommodation, travel, charter, cancellation, fine or insurance-excess costs, arising from your use of SeaWise or from any decision made with it or while unable to use it.

THIS SECTION INCLUDES CLAIMS BASED ON OUR OWN NEGLIGENCE. To the fullest extent the law allows, and except where the law forbids it, you release us from claims arising out of our negligence, including any alleged failure to provide accurate, complete, timely or safe information, to identify a hazard, to deliver an alert, or to have designed the app differently. To the fullest extent the law allows, we are not liable for harm arising from the inherent risks of being on the water; your decision to go out, continue, navigate, anchor or dock; failure to use official sources or proper equipment; inaccurate, delayed or missing third-party data; alerts that arrive late or not at all; map, GPS, unit or time-zone errors; or the acts of other people.

Subject to the paragraph below, our total liability for all claims relating to SeaWise will not exceed the greater of the amount you paid for SeaWise in the twelve months before the event giving rise to the claim, or one hundred United States dollars.

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else the law does not permit us to limit. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain exclusions, so parts of this section may not apply to you.

If you misuse the app

To the extent the law allows, you are responsible for reasonably foreseeable losses and costs we incur as a direct result of your unlawful use of SeaWise or your material breach of these terms. If you use SeaWise on behalf of a business, that business will defend and indemnify us against third-party claims arising from its unlawful use, breach, or reliance on the app for a safety-critical purpose contrary to these terms — except so far as we caused the problem ourselves. This does not apply to an individual using SeaWise as a consumer.

Events beyond our control

We are not responsible for delay or failure caused by things outside our reasonable control, including severe weather, natural disaster, war, civil disorder, power or network failure, cloud or internet outage, cyberattack, government or App Store action, satellite or sensor failure, or the withdrawal or failure of a weather, tide, radar or map provider.

Apple

These terms are between you and Jason Cain, not Apple. Apple is not responsible for SeaWise or its content, and has no obligation to provide maintenance or support for it.

If SeaWise fails to conform to any applicable warranty, you may tell Apple, and Apple may refund the purchase price; to the maximum extent the law allows, Apple has no other warranty obligation. We, not Apple, are responsible for any claim relating to SeaWise, including product liability, consumer protection, privacy, regulatory compliance, and any claim that SeaWise infringes someone's intellectual property.

You confirm you are not in a country subject to a US Government embargo or designated as supporting terrorism, and are not on a US Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.

Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these terms and may enforce them against you.

Ownership

SeaWise — its software, design, wording, rating logic and brand — belongs to Jason Cain or to the people we license it from, and is protected by copyright and other laws. Apart from the licence above, you get no rights in it. Third-party data, maps and marks stay with their owners.

What you are agreeing to

READ THIS BEFORE USING SEAWISE. By using the app you confirm you have read and understood these terms, and in particular that: SeaWise is a planning aid and not a navigational, emergency or safety-of-life system; forecasts and observations can be wrong, late, missing, or worse than shown; you remain solely responsible for your boat, your crew, and every decision to go out or stay in; you accept the inherent risks of being on the water; and you accept the warranty disclaimer, the release covering our negligence, the liability cap, and the arbitration agreement. If you do not accept all of that, do not use SeaWise.

Arbitration, and no class actions

PLEASE READ. THIS AFFECTS HOW DISPUTES ARE RESOLVED. IT GIVES UP YOUR RIGHT TO A JURY TRIAL AND YOUR RIGHT TO TAKE PART IN A CLASS ACTION.

Except for a claim that qualifies for small-claims court, and except for a claim seeking an injunction to protect intellectual property or security, you and we agree that any dispute arising out of or relating to SeaWise or these terms will be resolved by binding individual arbitration rather than in court. The Federal Arbitration Act governs this agreement to arbitrate. Arbitration will be administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, and may be held remotely or on written submissions. An arbitrator may award the same individual remedies a court could.

No class or representative proceedings. To the fullest extent the law allows, claims may be brought only in an individual capacity, not as a plaintiff or member of any class, collective, consolidated or representative action, and an arbitrator may not combine more than one person's claims without everyone's agreement. Any non-waivable right to seek public injunctive relief is unaffected.

How to opt out. You may opt out of this arbitration agreement by emailing \contact@seawiseweather.com within 30 days of first accepting these terms, saying that you opt out and giving the Apple account email you use for SeaWise. Opting out changes nothing else in these terms, and we will not treat you differently for doing it.

If the class-action waiver is held unenforceable for a particular claim, that claim will be decided by a court after any arbitrable claims are resolved. If the arbitration agreement as a whole is held unenforceable, disputes are governed by the section below.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas, United States, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules, and any dispute will be brought in the state or federal courts of Texas. If you are a consumer, this does not take away any right you have under the law where you live.

General

These terms, the Privacy notice and any terms shown at purchase are the whole agreement about SeaWise. If any part is unenforceable, the rest still stands. Not enforcing something is not giving it up. You may not transfer these terms; we may transfer them if the app changes hands, without reducing your rights. Nothing here creates a partnership, employment or agency relationship. Headings are for convenience. The English text governs.

Changes to these terms

These terms may change as the app changes. The date at the top says when they were last revised, and continuing to use SeaWise after a change means you accept it, so far as the law allows.