Free tool
Crew share calculator.
Put in the trip’s gross stock, the shared costs, the boat percentage and each berth’s share weight, and it works out what every crew member is owed. The shares are allocated to the cent, so they always add back to the pool exactly. It runs in your browser and nothing you type is sent anywhere.
The trip
Trip costs
Off the top comes out before the boat takes its share, so the boat carries part of it. Off the crew comes out of the crew pool only. Which is which is your agreement, and it is the thing most spreadsheets get wrong.
The crew
- Name or berthWeightAdvance
A full share is 1.00. A captain often carries 1.25 or 1.5, a greenhorn 0.5 or 0.75. The weights only matter relative to each other.
CREW SETTLEMENT
4 aboard
- Gross stock
- $48,200.00
- Less costs off the top
- ($8,520.00)
- Distributable
- $39,680.00
- Less boat share at 50%
- ($19,840.00)
- Less costs off the crew
- ($1,220.00)
- Crew pool
- $18,620.00
| Crew | Weight | Gross | Net |
|---|---|---|---|
| Captain | 1.25 | $5,350.57 | $5,350.57 |
| Mate | 1.10 | $4,708.51 | $4,708.51 |
| Deckhand | 1.00 | $4,280.46 | $4,280.46 |
| Deckhand | 1.00 | $4,280.46 | $4,280.46 |
| Total | 4.35 | $18,620.00 | $18,620.00 |
What is a crew share, in one paragraph?
Nobody on a share boat is on a wage. The trip earns what it earns, the shared running costs come off, the vessel takes its cut for the boat, the gear and the licence, and what is left is divided among the crew in proportion to their share weights. A good trip pays well and a bad one can pay nothing, which is why the arithmetic being visible and right matters more here than in almost any other kind of pay.
Why does it matter whether a cost comes off before or after the split?
Because it decides who pays for it. A cost taken off the top comes out before the boat takes its percentage, so the boat carries its share of it. A cost taken off the crew pool is paid by the crew alone. Fuel is usually off the top and food is usually off the crew, but there is no universal rule and getting it backwards changes what everybody is owed. It is the single most common mistake in a hand built spreadsheet.
Why does the last cent matter?
Divide a pool by an odd set of share weights and the shares will not come out even. A spreadsheet rounds each share on its own and the total quietly ends up a cent or two off the pool. Nobody notices for a season, and then somebody adds it up on the way home and you are the outfit whose settlement does not add up. This calculator works in whole cents and allocates the remainder deliberately, so the shares always sum back to the pool.
What about a bad trip?
Push the costs past the stock and the pool goes negative, and so does every share. That is not an error state, it is a season. What happens next is your agreement’s business: owed back, or carried to the next trip. Software that falls over on a bad trip is software you cannot use in a bad year.
Doing this every trip, by hand?
The same engine sits behind Settle, which pulls the gross stock straight off the landings, keeps your agreement as data, nets the advances, and renders a statement for every crew member. This page is the free half of it, and it will stay free.