Today
What is happening around me?
- Current conditions.
- What is developing.
- Warnings on your water.
- The call, and what drove it.
Plan
What happens if I actually go?
- Best departure.
- Latest return.
- The roughest stretch.
- Places to get in.
- What would change the answer.
Share
What does somebody ashore need?
- When you are expected back.
- A check-in before the hour passes.
- A float plan, and who to call.
What it actually says
The call, and the reason under it.
Today · Vista, an example boat · 12 kt and 2 ft limits
Thunderstorms drive today’s call, from about two o’clock.
Wind and seas stay inside Vista’s limits all day. They are not what closes this out.
What would change this
A morning departure. The storm risk sits after midday, and the water before it is comfortably inside your numbers.
And the kind of thing it tells you about a run: “the window stops at the light rather than at the weather.”
What actually lands in your inbox
One document. The same comprehensive briefing every day.
A minute at the dock tells you the call. Everything under it is there for the days you want the detail.
Thursday, August 20 · Annapolis, MD
A good day for VISTA
Your boat, by name
The call is made against VISTA’s numbers, not against a generic small craft. A 19-foot center console on the same water gets a different answer.
Early
GO
Morning
GO
Afternoon
CAUTION
Evening
GO
North wind holds under 14 kt through the morning and the bay stays comfortable for her. It builds past your 15 kt line around 2p and the chop follows about an hour later, so an early start and an early finish is what this one asks for.
Custom, not canned
It opens on whichever factor came closest to your line, so the first sentence is never boilerplate. Today that is the wind. Tomorrow it might be the seas, or the fog.
On the water now · Thomas Point, 4.1 nm
7 kt from the north, seas 0.7 ft, water 76°F, reported 12 minutes ago.
The same readings in the same order, wet or dry: when one is missing it says which and why. An example boat on an example morning. The rest of the briefing is the hours ahead, the week ranked, the water, the sky, and how the call was reached.
Going somewhere, not just out
A briefing on every leg, at the hour you are on it.
A run is not one piece of water. It is a different one every hour.
- The roughest stretch, and when you would be on it.
- The latest you can leave and still be in before dark.
- Where you can get in, if it turns.
- The stretches where wind over tide makes it steeper than the height suggests.
- What would change the answer.
Then a float plan for whoever is expecting you.
An example passage
Annapolis to Rock Hall, Saturday, aboard Vista
22.1 nm · away at 8:00a · alongside about 10:20a
- Annapolis → Bay Bridge8:00a to 8:40a
9 kt from the north, seas under a foot.
Wind on the bow, and light enough that it does not matter.
The stream turns at 8:52a, from ebb to flood.
6.8 nm · heading 348° · 10.1 kt over ground
- Bay Bridge → Swan Point8:40a to 9:55a
Building to 15 kt, seas 2 ft with the odd 3.
Wind forward of the beam for this whole stretch.
A knot and a half of foul current under an opposing breeze.
Wind against tide from about 9:20a. Expect it steeper and closer together than the height suggests.
11.4 nm · heading 012° · 8.9 kt over ground
- Swan Point → Rock Hall9:55a to 10:20a
Back inside 10 kt once you are behind the point.
Wind astern, and the fetch runs out.
3.9 nm · heading 067° · 9.4 kt over ground
Move the departure an hour and every one of those lines moves with it, because each leg is read at the hour your boat is actually on it.
Tell it what you are doing. That is the whole setup.
Around here
A departure and a return window. No destination, because there is not one.
Out and back
Where you are headed, how long you want there, and when you want to be in.
Going somewhere
The run end to end, read leg by leg at the hour you are on each one.
Or write it the way you would say it out loud, and check what we read back before anything is built.
What you get
Set it up once.
It runs every day after that, at the time you choose.
Your GoNoGo WX marine conditions briefing. Nothing to open, nothing to remember, nothing to check.
Everybody ashore and aboard.
Going out for the afternoon, share when you are expected back. Going somewhere, hand over the whole float plan: the boat, who is aboard, the route, the check-ins, the arrival, what safety gear is on board, and what to do if you are overdue. Send the morning's briefing to as many as 3 of your crew.
A captain to ask.
Put your plan in front of it and ask what you like, in plain words. It answers from the same live readings, about your water and nothing else.
The readings, reconciled.
Official forecasts and live stations do not always agree. It reads them together, tells you how sure the day is, and says so by name when one goes quiet.
Change the plan without starting over.
- What if we leave two hours later?
- Can we be home before dark?
- Which leg is roughest?
- Where can we get in?
- Is tomorrow better?
It answers from the readings already on your plan, and it will tell you when the briefing does not say.
Every briefing draws on multiple sources and hundreds of data points: NOAA forecasts, National Weather Service marine warnings, and the government buoys nearest your water, combined into one comprehensive briefing for your boat.
Why this exists
Built by experienced boaters who were tired of piecing together current and predicted boating conditions from a dozen places, and still not knowing what the day meant for their own boat.
Wind from one source, seas from another, storms in a third, and none of them scored against the vessel you actually keep or the limits you actually run. Whether it is a short day cruise or a passage, the question is the same: is today inside your limits, and when does that change. So the numbers here are always read against a boat, and the call is always left with the captain.
It gives you the answer. You keep the wheel.
Leave the dock already knowing.
Pick your boat, set your home port, and the briefing is on screen before you are asked for anything else. It tells you where the day sits against your own numbers and the hour that changes. You know your boat, so the call stays yours.
$65 a year at the founding rate, $89 after. One briefing every morning of the season, and passage planning whenever you are going somewhere.
10 days of the whole product first. No card.
Questions? The FAQ answers most of them without an account, and pricing has the rest.