Building Ship Companion: A No-Server Side Project Adventure

Hey everyone,

I recently launched a little side project called Ship Companion, an app designed to help guests on traditional sailing ships, particularly those navigating the beautiful IJsselmeer in the Netherlands. This wasn't just about building another app; it was a personal journey driven by specific goals and constraints, and I wanted to share a bit about the process.

Spotting a Need (and a Personal Challenge)

Working alongside my day job, I was itching to build something tangible, something different. A key personal constraint I set was: no servers. My day-to-day often involves backend systems, and I wanted this project to be entirely client-side.

Around the same time, I noticed a few things in the traditional sailing community. Firstly, many ships, despite offering amazing experiences, sometimes struggle to connect with new guests. Secondly, once guests are onboard, there's often a recurring pattern: skippers patiently explain the same details about harbours and points of interest trip after trip. It struck me that there wasn't really a dedicated app for any of these ships yet.

Providing guests with easy access to information about the ship, the trip, and the locations visited could reduce uncertainty and enhance their experience. An offline map, accessible even when wandering around a harbour town without the skipper, seemed like a logical core feature.

Choosing the Tools: Flutter and... Google Sheets?

With the "no server" rule firmly in place and the need to support both iOS and Android, the tech stack started taking shape. I opted for Flutter. I have prior experience with it, and frankly, I wasn't keen on learning React Native from scratch for this side project. Flutter allows for a single codebase targeting both platforms effectively.

Now, how do you get ship-specific data (like schedules, ship details, points of interest) into a serverless app, especially when you need an easy way for non-technical ship owners to update it? This needed a robust but simple onboarding pipeline. The solution? A surprisingly low-tech but effective one: a highly structured and validated Google Sheet. Skippers or owners can fill in their details in a familiar spreadsheet format. I then wrote a set of Python scripts to parse this sheet, validate the data rigorously, and convert it into configuration files that the Flutter app can bundle and read locally. It keeps the onboarding simple for them and manageable for me as a solo developer on the side.

The Big Technical Hurdle: Offline Maps Without the Bloat

The map feature was crucial, but it presented the biggest technical challenge under the "no server" constraint. How do you get detailed map data for the entire IJsselmeer region onto a user's phone without requiring a multi-gigabyte download or constant backend calls for map tiles?

Standard offline map SDKs often download large regions or rely on tile servers. My solution was a bit more involved:

• Local Dev Server: During development, I set up a local OpenStreetMap (OSM) tile server.
• Hyperlocal Tile Generation: Using this server, I generated very specific, hyperlocal map tile packages. Instead of grabbing entire countries or large regions, I focused only on the relevant coastlines, harbours, and waterways of the IJsselmeer.
• Limited Zoom Levels: To drastically cut down on size, I only included tiles for two essential zoom levels: an overview level to see the general sailing area and a detailed city/harbour level for navigation on foot.
• Bundling: These pre-rendered, minimal tile sets are bundled directly within the app.

This approach keeps the app size reasonable and ensures the core map functionality works entirely offline, fulfilling the no-server requirement.

Beyond the Code: The Full Product Lifecycle

This project wasn't just about coding. I explicitly wanted to experience the entire process of bringing a product to market, warts and all. This meant:

• Actually founding a small company (necessary legal structures).
• Navigating the sometimes-painful App Store and Google Play review processes.
• Creating basic marketing materials.

It's easy to underestimate these steps when you're focused on the tech, but they are integral to shipping a real product.

Reflections

Building Ship Companion has been, and continues to be, an incredible learning experience. It's stretching me beyond pure software development into areas like business administration and marketing. There's a deep satisfaction in tackling these varied challenges and seeing an idea through to completion.

It also feels great to give something back to the sailing community, a world where I've personally learned and experienced a lot. And honestly? It's been fantastic to just build again, driven by the enjoyment of the process itself, without the pressure of the project needing to be my primary source of income. It's reminded me why I fell in love with software development in the first place.

Thanks for reading about the journey!