MBN gives the vessel side one place to govern its contracts: publish a defined scope, receive bids against that exact scope, keep every clarification on the record, and award under explicit authority. It's tendering held to an institutional standard: the discipline of formal procurement, without the bureaucracy. Built by someone who has worked both sides of the tender: defining the scope from vessel operations, and bidding for the work as a service provider.
For owners' offices, vessel managers, captains, and chief engineers, MBN turns contracting from a chain of emails into a governed record. You publish what you need done, once, as a defined scope. Matching service providers receive it automatically: MBN Tender Distribution routes each tender to the providers whose engineering categories and service sub-regions fit, so your reach grows without a vendor list to maintain. Active coverage today is the United States and the Caribbean, with the Mediterranean and Central America built in for expansion.
Every bid answers that same published scope. Every clarification is recorded on the tender, not scattered across inboxes. Every award names who authorized it, and when. So when the invoice arrives, and it always arrives, it traces cleanly back to a scope, a bid, and an authority.
Registration is a guided, autosaving flow: sign up and confirm your details, build your vessel profile (legal entity plus the vessel's operational identity), assign your team's roles (Admin as legal representative, captain, chief engineer), keep Admin yourself or hand it to the owner, then submit for MBN officer review. You can leave and resume from any device, and finish in about 20 minutes.
See the full step-by-step guide →An MBN officer reviews each submission. On approval, your organization is formed and your dashboard unlocks. If changes are requested or it's rejected, you'll see the reason and can act from the same Awaiting Approval suite.
Tendering is live. From your vessel dashboard, you can:
Define the scope: what work needs doing, what timeline, what parameters matter. MBN Tender Distribution emails your tender to every service provider whose engineering categories and service sub-regions match, so you don't curate or maintain the list. Every matched provider receives the same defined scope; bids land back on the tender record.
Service providers with matching engineering categories are notified. Their bids answer the exact scope you defined, not interpretations of it.
Questions and follow-ups from service providers are recorded against the tender. When you review bids later, you see the conversation that shaped each one. No separate inbox, no lost context.
Award happens through the platform with an explicit decision recorded. The successful service provider knows immediately; unsuccessful bidders see the outcome. The award is attributable, not implied.
That structure (defined scope → structured bids → recorded clarifications → attributable award) is what governs every tender on MBN.
Not every job needs an open competition. When you have a provider you trust, a repeat relationship, or an urgent breakdown, a Direct Request gives you the same governed scope as a tender, sent to exactly one provider, with no bidding.
Write a fully-scoped request: work type, category, the equipment it concerns, location, goods and shipping, and what the quote must include. The AI Scope Assistant can draft it from a plain description, and you flag how fast you need it: routine, priority, or urgent.
Choose a service provider from your Preferred library, or invite an outside company by email. Providers already on MBN receive it in their dashboard; an outside company gets a secure link and can quote with no account.
Their quote comes back structured and priced, and they can revise it. You and the provider share one governed thread throughout. Accept to turn the agreed quote into a Maritime Service Agreement, the same governed contract a tender award produces, or decline. Every step is user-, role-, and time-stamped.
Once you accept, set the service date together on the thread: propose a date and time, the provider confirms (or counter-proposes), and it drops onto both calendars. No side channel, no lost confirmation.
Direct Requests are authored by your vessel team under role-based authority, and every request carries the user, role, and time behind it. Accepting creates the Maritime Service Agreement, the same governed contract a tender award produces, for both sides to sign. Post-award execution governance (workrooms) follows in MBN's next phase, ~January 2027.
Your parts library can now be a living spares store. Track what's on board, see what's running low, and keep it current just by telling MBN what you used or received. When stock runs low, it becomes a restock tender in a click, back into the same network you buy from.
Turn on tracking per part: give it a unit (each, litres, a kit) and an on-hand count, and, if you like, a reorder level that flags it low. Parts you don't set stay untracked, so your list stays clean.
Tell the Inventory Assistant what happened, “used four primary fuel filters,” “received six impellers.” It finds the parts, proposes the change, and nothing is recorded until you confirm. It never guesses: if something is unclear, it asks.
When parts dip below their reorder level, turn them into a draft goods tender or Direct Request in a click, grouped and ready to review. Depleting stock feeds straight back into procurement.
Every change, by hand or through the assistant, is stamped with who, when, how many, and why. Your on-hand count is always reconstructable from the ledger, the same governed record MBN keeps for everything else.
Once tendering is grounded, MBN extends governance into the rest of the contract lifecycle. Activating in January 2027:
None of this is live yet. We label it explicitly so you can plan for it, not so you mistake it for what's available today.
The platform is live now, and access is open. Request free access, and the moment our team approves your organization you can start publishing tenders. MBN is free to use through February 2027, with no card required to join.
What that means:
Requesting access early means your first tender publishes as soon as you're approved, and your organization's governed record starts building now, while it's free.
Request free access below. Once our team reviews and approves it, you're in a real account: build your vessel profile, assign roles, and publish your first tender. MBN is free to use through February 2027, with no card required to join.
Already invited to a team's account? Use the link in your invitation email to accept your role.
Request free access for your vessel →