Your SMS, built by someone who used to inspect them
James Parnell has skippered charter boats in the Whitsundays, run the outer harbour for Manly Ferries, and inspected commercial vessels for AMSA. Now he builds your Marine Order 504 safety management system, loads it into SMS Marine, and hands it over ready for the day an inspector steps aboard. From $950 to build. $395 a year to keep it that way.
Book a 15-minute callOr start a free trial and look around first — no card, no commitment.
Two things, and they do different jobs
We sit down with your operation, run the risk assessment properly, write the SMS against the current MO504, and load the whole thing — vessels, crew, certificates, drills, maintenance, emergency plans — into the system. You get a working safety management system, not a folder of blank templates.
Then it stays alive. Expiries chase you instead of the other way around. Drills, toolbox talks and inductions get recorded and signed as they happen. Your annual review and change ledger build themselves. When AMSA asks, you print one pack.
Pricing
One vessel · $395/year
You load your own vessel data — we show you how.
Want it done for you? Add from $555 once-off and we build it out from your existing paperwork.
2 or more vessels · $595/year
You load your own vessel/Crew data.
Want it done for you? Add from $1,100 once-off and we build it out from your existing paperwork.
Setup is optional and can be added later — start it yourself and hand it over any time.
Included
What we load, and what keeps running
Secure cloud database — your data isolated to your organisation
Role-based access: Owner, DPA, Master, Crew, Auditor, Inspector
Vessel, crew & certificate register with expiry alerts
Risk assessments, training & drills, toolbox talks
Maintenance, logbook, incidents & corrective actions
Internal audits, reviews & revision log
Document library + certificate, plan & procedure uploads
Dashboard compliance alerts (expired / overdue / due soon)
Edit, archive & restore with a full audit trail
Professional Print / Export PDF for every record
Compliance Print Pack — whole-vessel record set for AMSA
Hosting, maintenance & MO 504 rule-change updates
"Why is there a build fee when other apps don't charge one?"
Because they're selling you software and we're selling you a finished SMS.
An app with no build fee hands you an empty system and a login. You still have to write the risk assessment, decide your drill schedule, work out what MO504 changed in June 2025, and get it all in there — which is the part that takes weeks and the part that gets picked up in an inspection.
We do that part. A former AMSA inspector writes it, we load it, and you start from a system that already works. If you'd rather build it yourself, AMSA publishes free templates and we'll happily point you at them.
How we compare
AMSA's free templates. Fifteen Word documents and a verification checklist, free from amsa.gov.au. If you have the time and you're organised, they work. What they won't do is remind you that a drill is due, capture a crew signature, or produce five years of records on demand.
A cheaper app. There are good ones. They'll cost you less per year and they'll hand you an empty system. The question is who writes your SMS and who's accountable if it doesn't hold up.
A marine consultant. You'll get a properly written SMS and, usually, a PDF at the end of it. Then it's yours to keep current, in Word, for the next five years.
Us. The consultant's SMS and the system that keeps it running, from the same people, for less than most consultants charge for the document alone.
Founding operators — first 15 vessels
We're building the reference list. The first 15 operators get the build at cost — $450 instead of $950 — and their $395 rate locked for as long as they stay with us.
What we ask in return: once you've had it through a season, tell us honestly how it went, and let us put your name and your vessel on this page if it went well.
13 places remaining
The person building your SMS
James Parnell has spent his working life on every side of a commercial vessel.
Ten years skippering charter boats in the Whitsundays. Years working as a commercial diver. Eight years as Operations and Outer Harbour Manager at Manly Ferries, accountable for a passenger fleet and the people running it. Support Group Manager for the Navy on the east coast of Australia for 5 years. And then 4 years as an AMSA Marine Safety Inspector — the person who steps aboard and asks to see your paperwork.
He has held the ticket, run the fleet, and written the deficiency notice.
The inspector years are why the system stands up to scrutiny. The twenty before them are why it's something a crew will actually use. James knows which part of a safety management system gets looked at first, which part quietly fails an inspection, and — just as important — which part gets abandoned by week three because it was written by someone who has never worked a deck.
Ready to get audit-ready?
Get your entire Marine Order 504 (MO 504, also written MO504) system organised, current and inspection-ready.
or Call us on 0480 222 169