Captain Karynn Marchal
Co-founder and CEO
Karynn holds a U.S. Coast Guard Master Unlimited license and sails as an active containership captain. Misses that she or RegKnot’s users flag are traced to the source and fixed.
About
About RegKnot
RegKnot answers maritime compliance questions from the regulation text itself, scoped to your vessel, with every requirement cited so you can check it. It's built for U.S. mariners and vessel operators by a USCG Master Unlimited and her engineer brother.
What RegKnot is
Ask a compliance question and RegKnot answers from the texts that govern it: 46 and 33 CFR, Coast Guard NVICs and policy, SOLAS, MARPOL, STCW, COLREGs, the ISM Code and the rules of 14 flag states. It reads your vessel profile (flag, tonnage, route, subchapter, cargo) and scopes the answer to it: a Subchapter M towboat and a containership get different answers.
Without an account you can read plain-English guides to U.S. regulations, each beside the regulation's own text, practice for USCG exams with the National Maritime Center's sample questions, and ask RegKnot a question. See every source in the library.
Who builds it
We know these regulations because we live them. RegKnot is the tool we wished existed.
Blake Marchal
Co-founder and CTO
Blake is an engineer and Karynn’s brother, and builds the software as CTO.
How answers are sourced and checked
From the text, not from memory
General-purpose AI answers from memory. RegKnot answers from the regulation text and your vessel profile, and cites the section behind each requirement. Tap a citation to read the text it points to.
Every citation is checked
Each citation is checked against the regulation text before you see it, and any that don’t hold up are dropped. When an exact figure isn’t in the text, RegKnot won’t make one up: it tells you who publishes it and who to confirm with.
Misses get fixed at the source
Misses that Karynn or our users flag (an Annex V exemption, another flag’s rule, a pilot-ladder material) get traced to the source and fixed. A mariner in the loop, not a wrapper around an API.
How the regulation pages are checked
Each page under Regulations explains one section in plain English beside the section's own text. The explanation is written with AI from that text and checked automatically before it's published:
- every requirement quotes the passage it comes from, and the quote must appear in the text;
- every number must come from the text;
- every section the page names must exist in the library;
- a second model must confirm that each statement says what the text says, adding nothing and dropping no qualifier.
A page that fails a check is held back and never served. Each week, pages whose regulation text has changed are held and rewritten against the new text.
The fine print
RegKnot is not affiliated with the U.S. Coast Guard. It's a navigation aid, not legal advice: the regulation text governs.
10% of every dollar, not profit, goes to charity: Mercy Ships, Waves of Impact and Elijah Rising. More about our giving.
Tees, mugs and stickers for mariners who read the regs are in the RegKnot shop.
Questions or feedback: hello@regknots.com.