Helm Operations

New at Helm Conference this year: the Helm Science Fair!

Nobody ever leaves a product demo wishing it had been longer. They leave wishing they'd been able to get deeper on the parts they care about.

So this year at Helm Conference we're trying something different! We're filling a room with open stations — each focused on a new feature of Helm CONNECT — and putting the product managers and developers who built them right next to the screens.

No fixed schedule, no rigid agenda. Go where you want, stay as long as you want, and talk to the person who actually built it.

We're calling it the Helm Science Fair, and we think it's going to be great.

Here's what we're planning and why:

Notes from the Event Director: We're Adding a Science Fair to Helm Conference (Yes, Really) — Helm I’m Jonathan Cheng, the Event Director for Helm Conference. Notes from the Event Director is my way of giving you an inside look at what we’re planning for Helm Conference, and my own personal view on things. Enjoy, and see you at Helm Conference!

We visited Patagonia Wellboat in Puerto Montt, Chile! Spending time aboard the Patagon IV, we took the time to understand their operations and to learn more about how Helm CONNECT could make things easier for their crew. Thank you especially to Pablo and the rest of the team for their warm hospitality!

Early bird pricing ends Friday. After that, it's just pricing.

Helm Conference 2026 → October 20–22 → Fairmont Empress → Victoria, BC

Three days of sessions that respect your time, hands-on Helm CONNECT training, a first look at what we're building next, and a room full of people running fleets like yours.

$200 says register now instead of later.

https://conference.helmoperations.com/events/helmoperations1/2204863

A document nobody can find under pressure is a document that doesn't exist. ⚓

Picture it: a vessel underway at night, an engine room alarm the watch engineer hasn't seen before, and the shutdown procedure buried somewhere in a library of thousands of PDFs. OEM manual? SMS? A standalone bulletin nobody remembers the name of? The clock's running, and "it's in there somewhere" isn't good enough.

Helm CONNECT 1.36 fixes that. Upgraded document search now reads inside the full text of your published PDFs — not just their titles. Type the fault code or the equipment name, and the right document opens to the exact page, with your match highlighted.

A few things you'll love about it:

🔍 It searches contents, not filenames — so that document labeled SMS-04.3.2-Rev-C is finally as findable as everything else.

🎯 Click a result and land right on the page that matters, not page one of a 90-page manual.

🔐 Results respect your existing access controls. People only see what they're already permitted to see.

⚙️ Zero setup. Your PDFs index automatically in the background — no tagging, no housekeeping.

Fast search isn't just convenience. It's a safety and reliability feature. When your crew can pull up the right guidance the moment they need it, your documented procedures stop being a compliance formality and start doing the job they were written to do.

Read the full story: https://www.helmoperations.com/news/a-document-you-cant-find-might-as-well-not-exist

Helm CONNECT 1.36 is here — and it's a brighter, more accessible way to run your fleet. ⚓

This release brings the first wave of our 2026 brand refresh, rebuilt around WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility guidelines. Better contrast, clearer visual cues, and a night mode that finally looks the part — because the environments maritime crews work in demand it.

A few of the highlights:

🌍 French and Italian are now available, so more of your crew can work in the language they're most comfortable with.

🔍 Smarter document search in Compliance — search now reads inside the full text of your published PDFs, not just their titles. Open a match and it lands right on the highlighted result. No more hunting for the exact title.

📊 A major Analytics update, with two brand-new dashboards (Requisitions and Inventory), a fully rebuilt Vessel Utilization dashboard, and a long list of improvements to help you spot problems faster and plan smarter.

🚢 Time-savers across Logistics and Personnel — duplicate voyages, color-coded invoice statuses, certification equivalencies that stop flagging false gaps, and more.

That's just the surface. See everything that's new:

What's New in Helm CONNECT 1.36? — Helm Our latest release is here, and it's a brighter, more accessible Helm CONNECT. Alongside the first wave of our 2026 brand refresh, we've added French and Italian, and made meaningful updates across our Compliance, Logistics, Personnel, and Analytics product lines. From a fresh new look to faster doc

⏳ Last call — our Summer Sale on Helm CONNECT training ends this Wednesday, July 15th.

Whether you're onboarding new staff or turning your team into in-house experts, there's no better time to invest in the people who keep your fleet running.

⚓ 25% off a single registration
⚓ 40% off each when you register two people

Our Certified Administrator Courses are taught by the trainers who know the platform inside and out — Maintenance, Compliance, Logistics, Personnel & Payroll, and Advanced Reporting.

Once the deadline passes, so does the discount. 🗓️

👉 https://www.helmoperations.com/training-and-certification

⏳ Early bird pricing ends July 31 — save $200 on Helm Conference 2026. ⚓

If joining us in Victoria, BC this October has been on your list, this is your nudge. Lock in your spot before the discount sails away.

Here's what's waiting for you at Helm Conference, October 20–22:

- Practical, hard-hitting sessions that leave you armed and inspired to grow your business
- Hands-on Helm CONNECT training to take your team's performance to the next level
- An inside look at what's coming next on the product roadmap
- Real face time with the people who build Helm CONNECT — and a genuine say in where it goes
- A community of maritime leaders who show up for each other and push the industry forward

And yes — it's a genuinely good time. Nobody said conferences can't be fun. 🎉

💰 Save $200 with early bird pricing — but only until July 31.
👉 Register now: https://www.helmoperations.com/conference

Your crew knows the water. Helm CONNECT's Certified Administrator Courses make sure they know the platform just as well — Maintenance, Compliance, Logistics, Personnel & Payroll, and Advanced Reporting, taught by the trainers who know it best.
For a limited time, our Summer Sale has you covered:

⚓ 25% off when you register

⚓ 40% off when you sign up two people

Whether you're onboarding new staff or turning your power users into in-house experts, there's no better time to invest in the people who keep your fleet running.

🗓️ Register before July 15th to lock in the savings.

Training starts here 👉 https://www.helmoperations.com/training-and-certification

🕕 6:00 AM: the mate writes the departure time into the logbook. Legible — for now.

📅 Six weeks later: an inspection notice arrives, and someone's tracking down 90 days of binders across the fleet. A few are on vessels underway. One page has coffee stains.
Sound familiar? ☕

We mapped out a normal day on a working vessel — paper logs vs. Helm CONNECT Logbook — to show what the difference actually looks like on the water.

With Logbook, every entry is already ashore the moment it's made: time-stamped, signed, searchable. That 90-day scramble becomes about 30 seconds.

And now that Helm CONNECT Logbook's Record Books are officially recognized by the US Coast Guard, going digital doesn't mean taking on regulatory uncertainty.

Full breakdown + side-by-side comparison 👉 https://www.helmoperations.com/news/paper-logbooks-vs-digital-logbooks-what-the-difference-actually-looks-like-on-a-working-vessel

CONNECT

Most fleets aren't short on data. They're short on the one number that tells them a requisition has been sitting with a vendor for three weeks, or that they're overpaying for the same part two divisions over.

The next release of Helm CONNECT Analytics is built to surface exactly that.

Two brand-new dashboards, one rebuilt from the ground up:

→ Requisitions (Maintenance Pro) — see what's piling up, which vendors are sitting on orders, and where you're paying more than you should
→ Inventory (Maintenance Pro) — out-of-stock, below-minimum, and overstocked parts at a glance, plus the value sitting on each asset
→ Vessel Utilization Activities (Logistics Pro) — rebuilt to show availability, utilization, and exactly where your 24 hours are going

Plus the quiet wins that add up: your filter selections now stick when you refresh, and your exports finally reflect what you actually selected — not the default.

Full tour here 👇
https://www.helmoperations.com/news/through-the-spyglass-smarter-dashboards-and-sharper-insights-coming-to-helm-connect-analytics