Navigate · Passage Planning
Everything before you leave the dock, in one workflow.
Passage planning is the longest, most fragmented job in cruising. You're jumping between a routing app, a tide table, a weather forecast website, a provisioning list, and a crew briefing document — all separate tools, none of them aware of each other. I wanted a single workflow that starts at "I want to go from here to there" and ends at "ready to cast off".
The workflow
Seven steps, none of them manual.
The workflow is designed so you make decisions, not spreadsheets. The data comes from the platform; you just confirm and move on.
Draw or import waypoints on the chartplotter. The passage planner pulls them automatically — no re-entering coordinates.
The system queries the multi-model forecast for the route corridor and scores possible departure times across wind, wave state, and comfort threshold. It shows you three candidate windows with colour-coded summaries — you pick the one that suits your schedule.
Your boat's polars are applied to the selected departure window. The system checks each leg against the forecast — is this beat into 25 knots actually achievable at 4 knots, or is the timing wrong? Slow legs get flagged. You decide whether to adjust the route or accept the forecast.
The system checks whether any of your waypoints fall inside a Traffic Separation Scheme or regulated area. If current AIS traffic shows a pattern of vessels that would put you at risk at your estimated arrival time, it flags the waypoint. You are not the first person to arrive at that anchorage after a night passage — the system knows what the ferry schedule looks like at 0600.
For each port of call, the planner aggregates harbour approach notes, depth at entrance, marina contact frequencies, fuel availability, and known hazards from the integrated pilot data. Not a link to an external website — inline, in the workflow, in the same UI.
Number of crew, passage duration, and meal preferences go in. A provisioning list comes out — quantities, categories, and a shopping checklist. I calculate fuel consumption from the route length and your engine-hours estimate. The list exports to PDF or shared text for someone ashore to shop from.
The system generates a crew brief as a PDF: departure time, route summary, expected conditions, watch schedule, emergency contacts, flare and life raft locations, nearest coast guard frequencies for the passage. The kind of brief you'd give a new crew member before a night passage. One tap, not an hour of typing.
Real example
Palma to Menorca, Thursday departure.
A specific passage, with actual numbers, showing what the planner produces.
The decision
38 nautical miles, expected 7.5 hours at 5 knots. Two crew. The weather window tool shows Wednesday morning as unsuitable — 22-knot northwesterly with 1.8m swell on the nose for the first 20 miles. Thursday 1400 departure shows 12 knots from the southwest, 0.6m swell, forecast holding through the night. Friday 0800 is marginal — 16 knots with a building wind event after 1600.
The Thursday window is the one. The system selects it, applies the GFS and ECMWF models to the route corridor, and validates each leg against the polars for a 40-foot sloop. All seven legs pass. AIS shows no traffic conflicts at the Cap de Formentor waypoint arrival time of approximately 2100.
| Window | Wind | Swell | Assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wed 0600 | 22kn NW | 1.8m | rough |
| Thu 1400 | 12kn SW | 0.6m | good |
| Fri 0800 | 16kn W | 1.0m | ok |
What the planner produces
With the departure confirmed, the planner generates:
A provisioning list for 2 crew over 30 hours (passage plus one overnight at anchor): 4 litres of water per person per day, meals for 3 including passage snacks, 6 litres of fuel for motoring in and out of the berths.
A crew brief PDF: departure from Palma Bay at 1400 Thursday, route via Cap de Formentor to Ciutadella, first watch 2000–0200, expected arrival 0800 Friday, marina frequency 09, harbourmaster contacts, nearest coast guard (Palma MRCC, VHF 16 + Madrid MRCC in range after Cap de Formentor).
The harbour pilot section for Ciutadella shows the entrance channel: minimum depth 3.2m at chart datum, approach bearing 050° magnetic, traffic light system for the channel, last survey date. All of this is inline — no switching apps.
Roadmap
The passage planner builds out in three phases.
Core workflow
Weather window detection from multi-model forecasts. Polar validation on each leg. Provisioning calculator. Crew brief PDF generator. Harbour approach notes for Mediterranean and North Atlantic ports.
Regulated areas + AIS
Full Traffic Separation Scheme and regulatory area avoidance on the route. Live AIS-based arrival conflict detection at waypoints. Per-leg objective selection: fastest, safest, or most comfortable.
AI-assisted replanning
The AI agent host monitors the forecast during the passage and proposes route adjustments if conditions deviate from the plan. The crew brief updates automatically. You approve or dismiss.
Plan a passage in the demo.
The demo lets you walk through the passage planning workflow with synthetic data. Or look at the weather page to understand the forecast engine underneath it.