Frequently Asked Questions
How GoNoGo WX works.
How does planning a cruise work?
Give it where you are leaving from, where you are going and when. It splits the run into legs and reads each leg at the hour you would actually be on it: the wind against that course, the sea state, the stream, and the stretches where wind over tide makes it steeper than the height suggests.
You get the hour to leave, the hour to turn for home, and a float plan for whoever stays ashore: the route, the boat, who is aboard and when to start worrying. Move the departure an hour and every line moves with it.
What is Ask the Captain?
A question box that answers from your briefing, in plain words. Ask what a number means, why today came back CAUTION, whether the chop on the second leg is going to bother you, or what changes if you leave at six instead of nine.
It reads the same live conditions the briefing does and it talks about your water and your boat. It is not a chatbot with opinions about the weather in general.
What does a GO / CAUTION / NO-GO read mean?
Whether the day falls inside the limits you set. GO is inside them, CAUTION means something is marginal, and NO-GO means a reading is past a line you drew. It is decision support, not permission or an instruction. The call is yours.
How is the read actually computed?
Every live and forecast condition is measured against the limits you set for wind, seas, rain, storms and visibility, each on your own number. The day is called on the one closest to your line, because the roughest hour is the one you will remember. On a route, each leg is read at the hour you would actually be on it.
How is this different from the forecast in my other weather app?
Every condition that matters to a boat is read together: wind and gusts, seas and their period, storms, visibility, tide and current, and the daylight you have left. Each one is measured against the limits you set for your own boat, and what comes back is a briefing rather than a report. It gives you the call, the one condition driving it, the hour the day turns, and what would have to change to turn it around. On a route, every leg is read at the hour you would actually be on it. The readings and their sources are named, so you can check any of it yourself.
Why can't I just put my plans into a chatbot?
For some things you can, and we use one ourselves: the follow-up questions on a briefing are answered that way, from the document already on your screen. What a general assistant cannot do is the part that matters. It has no live reading of your water, no memory of the limits you set, and no way to score one against the other at the hour you would actually be out there.
The call here is computed, never generated. The numbers come from official forecasts and live stations, measured against your own limits. That is why the same plan gives you the same answer twice, and why a plan you saved on Tuesday reads the same on Thursday: it is rebuilt from our record rather than written again.
And it refuses. Ask for a route it cannot keep on navigable water and it says so instead of drawing one. A confident answer is easy; knowing when not to give one is the harder half, and it is the half a boat depends on.
How do my personal limits work?
You set thresholds for the three things that would actually change your day: sustained wind, sea height, and the chance of rain you are willing to run in. Every briefing ends by printing those numbers back to you, and a limit you never set says so rather than being quietly filled in. Gusts and wave period are reported but are not limits: a gust is called out when it reaches past your wind line, and a short, steep period is described inside the sea state where it belongs. Start from your boat type’s preset and move the sliders from there.
Does it work for sailboats, or is this a powerboat product?
It works for both, and it does not treat them the same. A powerboat only ever needs to know when the wind is too much. A sailing hull has a second line underneath it, and that is the one nothing else scores: pick Daysailer, Cruising Sailboat, Performance Sailboat or Cruising Catamaran and the day is scored on whether there is enough wind to sail as well as on whether there is too much. A glassy Saturday stops reading as a perfect day and reads as what it is, which is a day under engine. You set the wind you want as well as the wind you will take, and the seven-day row ranks the week on both. Draft and air draftare yours to set too, so the boat’s particulars travel on the float plan.
Where does the weather data come from?
Official US government sources: the National Weather Service, NOAA buoys and tide stations, and the US Coast Pilot. Nothing behind a GoNoGo WX read is crowd-sourced or user-reported, ever.
What you are paying for is the reading of them: those feeds are public and free, and turning them into one answer about your boat, on your water, at the hour you are on it, is the work.
How accurate is it, and how current is the data?
The feeds are the official ones and they update on their own schedules: a buoy reports roughly hourly, a coastal waters forecast is reissued a few times a day. GoNoGo WXreads them fresh when you ask and shows their age, so every observed number carries the station it came from, how far away it is, and when it was taken. A station that has stopped reporting says so instead of showing you its last words as though they were current, and a feed we cannot reach reads “not available” rather than quietly passing.
What no app can do is see the water. Conditions move faster than any forecast, so the read is a decision aid and the captain is responsible for the vessel.
Is this a substitute for an official forecast or briefing?
No. GoNoGo WX is a fast personal gut-check, not a replacement for NWS and NOAA forecasts and marine warnings, or for your own training and judgment. See the Terms for the full safety notice.
What areas do you cover? Is it US-only?
US waters, in full: the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, the Pacific coast, the Great Lakes, Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico and the USVI, every one of them on the same government sources and the same limits you set.
The forecast for Saturday keeps changing. Would I know?
Yes, and it is one of the few places any app will tell you. The seven-day row is a photograph of one model run, so beside it we print what yesterday’s run said about the same day whenever that has moved enough to matter to your boat: “Tuesday’s wind read 12 kt in yesterday’s forecast. It now reads 21.” It speaks only when the change crosses one of your own lines and is bigger than the forecast’s own noise, so it stays quiet on the ordinary drift every forecast has.
How do you know about local hazards like bars, shoals and passes?
By hand, one row at a time, and every row has to be traceable. The table holds crab-pot concentrations, shoaling outside marked channels, commercial traffic and ferry lanes, entrance bars that break, and passes with a tidal stream worth timing. Where being wrong means a grounding or breaking seas, which is bars, shoaling and currents, the row cites the volume and paragraph of the US Coast Pilot, NOAA’s own sailing directions, so you can look it up and argue with the evidence rather than with us. Nine real hazards were deleted rather than shipped uncited. Where coverage is thin the briefing says so instead of implying a clean route.
Does it handle tides and currents?
Yes. Tide height tells you whether there is water over the bar; tidal current tells you how fast you will actually get there. GoNoGo WX reads NOAA CO-OPS predictions for both: water level at any moment plus the next high and low, and current set and drift with slack water timing. Current is folded into arrival times on a route, which is why the ETAs hold up, and a wind against a strong opposing stream is called out, because that chop is worse than the wave height alone suggests.
What is the conditions map, and why is it colored the way it is?
Because the color is the answer, not the data. A raw wind field leaves the interpretation to you. This map tints the water against your boat’s own limits: green inside them, amber close, red beyond. Drag the slider to run the whole picture forward 48 hours and find your window. It covers wind and seas, and says so on the map, because lightning, fog and marine warnings live in the briefing above it.
Can I just tell it where I'm going instead of filling in a form?
Yes. On Plan a cruise, type something like “Leaving Annapolis Saturday morning for Cape May” and it fills in the route and the departure time for you to check. Place lookup covers about 98,000 maritime places plus towns, marinas and zip codes, and “Use where I am” is on both the departure and destination fields. Nothing is submitted automatically: you review the route before the briefing is built.
Can I send a briefing to my crew or to someone ashore?
Yes. A departure briefing goes out as a text through your phone’s share sheet, as an email to up to five people with a note, or as a copy or a printout, with your name on it. The float plan shares separately, because it goes to whoever stays ashore rather than to the crew.
What does it cost, and is there a free trial?
Every account starts with 10 days of the whole product and no credit card. Nothing is held back during it: your home port scored against your own limits, the wind chart, the hour the day turns, leg-by-leg passage briefings, float plans and the daily email. When it ends you keep today's read for your home port; the passage briefings, float plans, saved spots, alerts and the week ahead need a subscription. The rates, including the founding one, are on pricing.
How do I cancel, and can I get a refund?
Cancel anytime from your account. Canceling stops future renewals and your access runs to the end of the period you paid for. If something is not right, email support@gonogowx.com and we will make it right.
Can I use it offline?
Not really: GoNoGo WX fetches live conditions each time you check, so it needs a connection. Add it to your home screen for one-tap access and it still pulls fresh data when you open it.
What do you do with my data and location?
Your location fetches conditions for that spot and your profile personalizes the read. We do not sell your data and we run no advertising trackers. See the Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy.
Still deciding?
10 days of the whole product, no credit card. Set up your boat and read tomorrow morning against your own limits, or take the manual screen by screen first.