A quick pass through the app, in order:

1. Enter your vessel & default info first — fill in the Vessel panel (boat name, speed, crew, registration) and your comfort thresholds. These save automatically and are reused on every plan and printed Float Plan, so you only set them once.

2. Plan a route — type or import waypoints and pick your travel window (see Planning a Route below).

3. Get the forecast — tap Get live forecast, scan the day cards for a good window, then tap a day to open the full detail.

4. Check passages & timing — set your departure time in the Float Plan bar and review the tidal-passage slack timing.

5. Print the Float Plan — when you're happy, print it or save as a PDF to leave with a shore contact.

Running on an iPad? See Troubleshooting at the end for the best way to load the app.

Set this up first. Enter your vessel details in the Vessel panel — all fields save automatically and appear on the printed Float Plan.

1. Waypoints — Type place names (Sidney, BC / Friday Harbor, WA) or coordinates (48.65,−123.40). 80+ PNW locations resolve instantly. Tap + Add waypoint for stops, use ↑↓ or drag to reorder, and tap the map to pin a waypoint. The forecast runs automatically once you have at least two waypoints.

Rename (✎) — Tap the pencil on any waypoint to give it a friendly name. For a coordinate, the name shows with a teal 📍 pin and the exact position is kept underneath — tap the field to reveal or edit the full lat,lon@Name. Ideal for labelling imported GPX points (Active Pass, Porlier, etc.).

✕ Clear route — Wipes the waypoints back to blank Departure/Destination and clears the current forecast, detail panel and map so you can start a fresh plan. Saved Routes and Float Plan Notes are kept.

Route label (From → To) — shown under the Route heading, at the top of the route summary above the day cards, on each day’s Float Plan bar, and on the printed Float Plan. A loaded saved route shows its name (including any “via”); a manually built route shows the Departure and Destination waypoint names. When you load a saved route whose endpoints are bare coordinates, the first and last waypoints are automatically named from the route’s From/To (e.g. “Roche”, “Anacortes”) so they read cleanly in the leg table, map pins and label. Any endpoint you’ve already named yourself is left untouched, and you can always rename with ✎.

Tap ⇊ Import route from GPX to load a route from Garmin Boating, Navionics, etc. If the file has many shaping points you’ll be offered a choice: Key turns (simplified to the meaningful turns — recommended), Named marks (only points with real names), or All points. Auto-generated IDs (WP…, WPT001, bare numbers) and exact duplicates are stripped so labels stay clean.

+ Save route stores the current waypoints under a name so you can reuse them on any date. Keep the name as Start to Destination and put the pass or channel in the optional Via field — the planner assembles “Start to Destination via Path” for you. Using Via keeps names consistent so both directions of a run still group by their end points (e.g. “Shilshole to Roche via Admiralty” and “…via La Conner” sit together under Roche).

Finding a route. Your two most-recent routes show as cards; the rest collapse into a dropdown grouped under headers by end point. The Group by toggle switches those headers between Start (where you depart) and Dest (where you arrive) — handy when you cruise a leg both ways. Any “via” note shows on the route line but never splits a group.

Manage / delete. Tap Manage to expand every saved route into a grouped list, each with a delete ✕ (tap twice to confirm) — this is how you remove a route that’s tucked inside the dropdown. Tap Done to go back.

Update a route. Load it, edit the waypoints, then + Save route again with the same name — it overwrites in place instead of making a duplicate.

Saved routes persist on the device and travel with saved/exported planner files.

Dates — pick a start date and the end auto-fills to a 6-day window (you can shorten it, but not extend past 6 days). Set comfort thresholds in the Vessel/Scoring panels, then tap Get live forecast from the sidebar or the Float Plan bar.

Where the forecast is sampled. Routes under 30nm are sampled at a single point — the route’s mid-point 🚩 (halfway by distance along the track, flagged on the map). Routes over 30nm are sampled at three: Departure, Mid-route and Destination. Day scores always use the worst case across the sampled points, so a long route is scored on its roughest stretch. To see one point at a time, use the Hourly at toggle above the detail panel’s hourly charts, or read the per-point Route conditions table (which gives each point’s conditions at your estimated arrival there).

Each card shows score (0–100), GO/MARGINAL/NO-GO rating, moon phase, wind, waves, visibility, temperature, cloud cover and a suggested depart time. Tap any card to open the detail panel.

⏱ Suggested depart is the 3-hour slot with the lowest combined wind + waves within a fixed 05:00–14:00 window — early enough for PNW summer daylight, late enough that a multi-hour passage still finishes before dusk, and biased toward the calmer morning hours before afternoon inflow winds build. It’s a suggestion only: set your actual time with the Depart picker in the Float Plan bar, and everything recomputes.

Appears at the top of the detail panel when you tap a day card. This is the master control for the day’s plan.

Below the Float Plan bar, tidal passage warnings show your estimated arrival versus the nearest slack window:

Tap any day card to open the full detail view. Changing the departure time in the Float Plan bar updates all conditions, Start/Mid/End times and passage timing automatically.

Live current data. Where a station is available, the planner pulls real slack times from official sources — NOAA CO-OPS for US passages and CHS/DFO (the IWLS current stations) for Canadian passages. Slack is derived from the predicted current; when your arrival would miss it, a recommendation appears: “→ depart ~HH:MM to hit slack HH:MM.”

⚠ General planning only. In-app slack times are for planning — always verify exact timing against the official current predictions (a per-passage link is provided) before transit. Any passage without a live in-app source shows that link instead of a time. The app never fabricates slack times.

On route vs nearby. Passages your route transits directly (within ~2nm) are auto-included. Passages within ~5nm appear under “Nearby — check to include” so you can opt them in, and every on-route passage also drops a diamond pin on the map coloured by its slack quality. To add a passage that isn’t near your route at all, use the “All passages — add one manually” dropdown in the panel; it lands under an amber “Manually included — off route” heading. Ticks/unticks you make are respected and saved with the plan. Every passage row, dropdown entry, detail card and map-pin popup shows the passage’s official station ID (e.g. CHS 07312, NOAA PCT0246) so you can cross-check it on the source site directly.

Add a passage to the route (+ route). Each passage row has a + route button that inserts the passage as an actual waypoint, dropped at the point along your track nearest to it — so the leg table, distances and ETAs then account for the transit point itself, and the passage name shows in the route. Add a sequence like Yuculta → Gillard → Dent one at a time and they self-order correctly by position. The button turns into ✓ route once added; tap it again to remove that waypoint. This supplements the slack check rather than replacing it — the passage still appears in the panel with its arrive-vs-slack analysis.

Skipper’s Notes. Enter the exact slack/turn times you’ve verified (plus any comments) in the Float Plan Notes box — in the day detail or the sidebar. They print on the Float Plan under “Skipper’s Notes.”

Slack Calculator. Computes any secondary station’s slack from a CHS reference plus offsets. Pick a reference station (the full CHS Table 4 list) or type a station code, or choose a secondary station from the preset list to auto-fill its reference and turn-to-flood / turn-to-ebb offsets (e.g. Dent Rapids −15 / −25 from Gillard). Set the date and Calculate — it pulls the reference’s live current, derives slack, applies each offset to the matching turn, and lets you add the result to your Float Plan Notes with + note. Save often-used stations with ★ Save station.

Severity reflects peak current: Mild (≤3 kn, most tides), Moderate (prefer within 1h of slack), Strong (slack required), Extreme (expert slack-only timing).

The table above is representative — the planner auto-detects many more Gulf Islands and Discovery Passage secondary passages along your route. A few stations (e.g. the Johnstone Strait — Central group) are non-operational in the official feed and have no live in-app source; those rows link straight to the official CHS predictions instead.

The Tide & Current Stations panel pins any official station so its predictions show for each day in the Float Plan detail — independent of the auto-detected passages.

Enter a station ID and tap + Add station. The type is detected automatically:

The station’s official name is fetched from its ID, so it always matches the source. Note that official names can differ from informal ones — e.g. 07010 is “Point No Point” and 08045 is “Surge Narrows”. Use the lookup links (🔎 CHS tides, 🔎 NOAA tides, 🔎 NOAA currents) to find the correct ID, and tap ✎ to give a station a label you recognise — your rename sticks.

Build a set of stations, then ★ Save as favorite under a name (the name is its identifier — saving again with the same name updates it). Saved favorites show the most recent, with the rest in a dropdown; pick one to bring it up. Check one or more and use + Add to plan or − Remove to add/subtract their stations. Remove a single station with ×.

Pinned stations appear in two places in each day’s detail: a compact 🌊 Tides summary (chips: ▲ high · ▼ low with heights, ◑ slack/flood/ebb for current stations) near the passage arrival rows, and a full station card — in the same style as the passage cards — inside ◆ Tidal Passages & Stations, with an event table and a link to that station’s own official page. Heights are m (CHS) / ft (NOAA); these are official predictions — always verify against the source before transit.

If a station can’t load, its card states why (e.g. which data series the station offers) and gives a retry ↻ link. Stations that publish predictions as high/low events rather than a continuous curve (common for operational gauges like Campbell River 08074) are handled automatically.

Sidebar start pages. Under Get live forecast, the links open the general forecast landing pages — EC Marine — Pacific (weather.gc.ca) and NOAA — NWS Seattle (weather.gov/sew) — plus a Windy link pre-loaded with your route and waves.

Detail zone drill-down. Each day’s detail works out exactly which marine zones your route passes through — it samples points ~4nm apart along the track and matches them to NOAA coastal-waters (CWF) zones and EC marine regions — then fetches the plain-language synopsis and per-zone text where available and shows an ◆ Official zone forecasts — drill down row of cards linking to each specific zone’s forecast. Zone boxes are approximate, so a neighbouring zone may occasionally be listed too.

Tap Print Plan in the Float Plan bar (tap a day card first to open it). The full float plan opens as an on-screen preview — laid out with a centered masthead and enlarged text for easy reading — with a Print button at the top. What you see in the preview is what prints. It includes:

Tap Print in the preview to open your device’s print/share sheet — on iPad you can print or choose Save to Files to keep it as a PDF; on Mac the system print dialog opens (choose Save as PDF there). The preview is shown in-page rather than a pop-up window, so nothing gets blocked. Tap Close to go back to the plan.

The planner saves as a self-contained HTML file with your route, settings, Saved Routes, Float Plan Notes and tide/current favorites baked in — reopen it any time to carry on.

On desktop, Save / Save As download to (or update in place in) your chosen folder. On iPad the Share sheet opens (“Save to Files”); if the browser asks “Allow downloads?”, tap Allow and find the file in Files → Downloads. If the system name dialog is blocked in an in-app browser, the planner shows its own name box.

You can send the planner file to someone else, but it must be opened in a real browser to run — email, Messages and the Files preview show HTML but don't execute the app, so it looks blank or frozen. Tell the recipient (or yourself on another device) to tap the attachment’s Share icon → Save to Files, then open it from the Files app and choose “Open in Safari” (or open in Chrome); on a computer, open it with a web browser. Sharing via AirDrop or a cloud link (iCloud Drive, Google Drive, Dropbox) is the smoothest, since the recipient saves the file first and then opens it in a browser. The file itself shows an amber “this is a preview” notice whenever it’s opened somewhere that can’t run it.

⌖ Re-centres on route  ·  ⛶/✕ Expands / collapses map  ·  Tap to pin a new waypoint

Tap a day card to update the wind barb and current arrow overlay for that day. Tap a B buoy marker for a link to live NDBC station data.

Thresholds are in the sidebar under your waypoints. Scoring weights are in the Scoring panel at the bottom of the sidebar — total should equal 100.

These resolve instantly without a network call. Case-insensitive, province/state suffix optional.

Open the HTML file in Safari. For a permanent URL: go to netlify.com/drop on your Mac, drag the file onto the page, then open the URL in Safari on your iPad and tap Share → Add to Home Screen.

Documents uses a restricted in-app browser that can block the live weather and tide API calls. Always use Safari or Chrome for best results.

Quick fix (iPad): Settings → Safari → Clear History and Website Data.

Safari aggressively caches local HTML files. Before reopening a newly saved file go to Safari → Settings → Privacy → Manage Website Data. Find “Local documents on your computer” and remove only that entry — this is the specific cache for local HTML files and almost always the cause. The others (cartocdn, jsdelivr, windy etc) are map tiles and API responses that speed up the app — leave them.

The planner can run as a real Home Screen app — own icon, full screen, its own app-switcher card, and it opens with no signal. This needs the planner to be published at an https address (a file opened from the Files app can’t be installed).

Publish the folder once to any free static host (Netlify Drop, Cloudflare Pages, GitHub Pages), then on the iPad: open the link in Safari → Share → Add to Home Screen → make sure Open as Web App is on → Add. Friends install by opening the same link — nothing to email, no “open it in Safari” instructions, no preview problem.

Offline, the app opens but live data can’t: forecasts, tides and map tiles are never cached, so you’re never shown stale weather. Note that saved routes live in storage tied to the address, so the installed app starts from whatever is baked into the published file — move a setup across with ⤓ Save Route then ⤒ Upload Route.

⤓ Save / Save As… writes the planner itself — the whole app with your current state baked in (Saved Routes, passage selections, thresholds, vessel/crew info, notes, tide favorites). This is what creates or overwrites your master file, and it’s what you open in a browser to actually use the planner.

⤓ Save Route writes the same data without the app, as a small .json. It’s a lightweight snapshot — quick as a checkpoint, or to carry a setup to another device (then ⤒ Upload Route there). Note it is not route-only: it also includes your Saved Routes list and preferences, so it isn’t the way to hand a single route to another boat.

Rule of thumb: Save when you want a planner you can open and cruise with; Save Route when you just want to capture or move the data.

Recommended workflow: Save (or Save As…) → remove the “Local documents” cache entry → reopen the file.

⤓ Save updates the current file in place on Chrome/Edge desktop; on Safari and in-app browsers it re-downloads the same filename, so replace (or delete) the older copy in Downloads/Files. Use ⤓ Save As… for a new named copy and ⤒ Open to reload a saved planner. See Saving, Opening & Sessions above for the full rundown.

• Always cross-check with Environment Canada (weather.gc.ca) and NOAA (weather.gov) before departure.

• For BC passages, tidal slack timing is often more critical than wind and wave conditions. BC passage times are estimated — verify with Canadian Hydrographic Service current tables (waterlevels.gc.ca).

• Swell periods under 6s mean steep, uncomfortable seas regardless of wave height.

• Visibility data is only available for US waters (NOAA NWS). Canadian waters use a cloud-cover estimate.

• The Light Day colour theme is easiest to read in bright sunlight on the water.

• For routes over 30nm, the detail panel shows separate conditions at Departure, Mid-route and Destination — check all three.

• Changing the departure time in the Float Plan bar updates all conditions, passage timing and arrival estimates instantly without re-fetching.