By Tom Burden, Last updated 11/30/
The pillars of functional and practical onboard instrumentation are speed, depth, and on sailboats, wind data. Marine instruments are available as standalone units (basic depth sounders, for example) or as systems with identical displays. We'll walk you through the components of a typical system and help you choose the right ones for your boat.
Racing sailboats should have a complete integrated instrument system, including boat speed, wind speed and direction, depth, and GPS data.
Cruising sailboats can get by with less complete instrumentation, but skippers interested in performance will probably want to have at least boat speed, depth and wind information.
Powerboats need to have boat speed and depth as well as the normal engine monitoring gauges, and may add wind information for voyaging or Race Committee duties. It&#;s nice to be able to monitor environmental conditions on a voyaging powerboat, since steering from a pilothouse or interior helm station makes it hard to determine the wind conditions.
Raymarine's i50 Speed Instrument is a great knotmeter for smaller powerboats, sailboats and rigid inflatables.
A knotmeter measures a boat&#;s speed, and knotlog records distance traveled through the water. Both are basic navigation tools and provide information of general interest. Virtually all boaters want to know how fast the boat is going.
Sailors want to trim sails to optimize boat speed, and the powerboaters want to optimize towing, cruising or trolling speed, or just know how quickly they are getting somewhere.
A depth sounder indicates how deep the water is so you can avoid running aground, can set your anchor with proper scope, and can navigate more accurately. Transducers, similar to those of a fishfinder, gather depth and speed information and pass it to connected displays.
The Garmin gWind Masthead wind instrument features twin-fin tech and a three-blade propellor for more accurate True Wind Speed (TWS).
Wind instruments display wind angle and speed in the cockpit or at the base of the mast. This information allows you to sail as fast and efficiently as possible, and helps you know when to reduce sail. Wind instruments are also helpful for night sailing, when watching the water for waves and gusts is impossible. They are occasionally found on powerboats, especially those that cruise or perform race committee duties.
Wind instruments, when connected to speed, depth, compass and GPS data, can calculate an array of useful data: true and apparent wind, velocity made good, closehauled wind angles and tacking angles. Instrument packages are a simplified way to buy three common sailboat instruments: a knotlog, depth sounder and wind instrument.
As the name suggests, a repeater mimics information that is being transmitted on the data network, and can occasionally create new information by combining data. For example, true wind angle can be computed from boat speed, wind speed, and apparent wind angle. Repeaters do not have transducers; they merely process data measured by other instruments.
Digital and/or analog readout of a fluxgate compass.
Garmin's GMI&#; 20 digital marine mulifunction instrument is designed for both power and sail vessels. GMI&#; 20 clearly shows depth, speed, wind and 100+ marine and vessel parameters.
The instruments we described above display one sort of data only. A knotmeter, for example, outputs your speed and distance traveled. It won&#;t display wind or depth data. Multifunction instruments combine different information read outs, like depth, speed, wind and more, into a single display. Instruments that use the NMEA network are essentially small multifunction displays and can be customized to your preferences to show just about any information from anywhere on your boat&#;s network. Raymarine&#;s i70, Garmin&#;s GMI 20 and Simrad&#;s IS40 are examples of these NMEA instruments. The GMI 20, which is pretty typical, shows depth, speed, wind and more than 100 marine and vessel parameters.
An instrument system allows you to view a variety of useful data when using your boat
Speed over the ground (SOG) allows you to see the effect of current, which may be substantial. Connected to a GPS, your instruments can tell both how fast you&#;re going through the water and your SOG.
Just like your car&#;s Trip Odometer. Good for determining your cruising speed and fuel consumption.
Very useful for anglers, cruisers wondering if they have entered the Gulf Stream, or divers.
The wind you feel when stationary is the true wind. Apparent wind is a vector that combines your boat&#;s speed with the true wind. True wind is useful for showing wind shifts, how high a sailboat is pointing and tacking angles.
Shows your true speed toward a waypoint. If you&#;re heading directly at the destination, your SOG and VMG will match, but when traveling off-course your VMG will be lower. Especially important for sailors going upwind. For example, if you point a little lower, but travel through the water faster, your VMG may go up or down.
Alarms that show decreasing or increasing depth are very important safety features to keep from running aground, or show if your anchor is dragging.
Countdown or count-up timers provide a great way for racing sailors to keep track of their start time, with big letters visible anywhere in the cockpit.
The Raymarine i50 Speed Instrument displays speed through water, speed over ground (GPS required), sea surface temperature, trip and log data.
The most affordable choice is a segmented monochrome display. Since you&#;re mainly looking at numbers on these single-purpose instruments, this inexpensive LCD display works fine.
Fully networked instruments take advantage of this pictorial format to show you a huge selection of gauges, diagrams, very large and bright numbers&#;with NMEA networking, the sky&#;s the limit.
When choosing an instrument system, consider how close you&#;ll be when reading the numbers. If you&#;re looking at mast-mounted instruments from the cockpit of a 40&#; racing sailboat, you&#;re going to want bigger displays than if you&#;re reading a dash-mounted display on your 19&#; Sea Ray. Look at B &G and Nexus for sail racing instruments for all sizes of boats.
The availability of wireless connections for boat instruments eliminates the headaches associated with drilling holes in the deck or hull and routing cables up the mast. Micronet instruments talk to each other through a secure wireless network that does not interfere with other onboard systems and that does not transmit one boat&#;s data to another with the same system.
Although boating has been done for centuries without any fancy apps or technology we have today, we relied on many different apps aboard PIVOT. During our 6,000-mile boating journey around the United States and Canada, we consistently used several marine and boating apps on both our smartphones and tablets. We&#;ve compiled the apps we&#;ve personally used most frequently, from navigation assistance to boat locators and social networking for boaters. By downloading these apps before you leave your dock, you&#;ll set yourself up for success by having the right tools (or apps) to enjoy a stress-free boating experience. In this comprehensive guide, we&#;ll explore some of the best boating apps available today and which ones we actually use. Whether planning a leisurely cruise or embarking on a nautical adventure like America&#;s Great Loop, these apps will surely enhance your boating experience.
Note: We use affiliate links which provide us a little kickback each time you use one of our links and make a purchase, without any additional cost to you. We do not recommend products that we don&#;t already love or have heard great things about, so you can trust we&#;re only suggesting great products to you.
A screenshot of our BOAT Folder pt 1 A screenshot of our BOAT Folder pt 2Navionics is a top-rated navigation app that provides detailed charts and maps for boaters worldwide. Its strengths lie in its extensive coverage and user-friendly interface, making it easy to plan routes, mark waypoints, and navigate safely on the water. We love the ability to mark anchorages, customize relief shading to identify areas of shoaling easily, and its connection to Active Captain. Garmin owns Active Captain, an open-source software that collects reviews on anchorages, marinas, and other important boating information in one easy-to-use platform. Navionics was our most used app while living on a boat.
Price: the app requires an annual subscription, and the price depends on the extent of maps you want. For example, the navigation maps in the United States and Canada cost $49.99/year.
AquaMap is another popular boating navigation app that offers a wide range of features. In addition to detailed charts and maps, AquaMaps includes advanced navigation tools such as route planning, weather, tides, and AIS integration. We used AquaMaps primarily for two use cases:
We also downloaded Bob423&#;s Tracks, which overlaid onto AquaMaps and helped us navigate the chronic shoaling areas on the ICW. AquaMaps also has a built-in anchor alarm, and a connection to Active Captain, which we use frequently! Our friends have also told us that AquaMaps are superior in the Bahamas.
Price: The app requires an annual subscription, and the price depends on the number of maps you want. For example, the navigation maps in the United States and Canada cost $14.99/year or $49.99 for a forever license.
Ditch is a new navigation app released in . Ditch brings &#;Local Knowledge&#; to your navigation by using real AIS data combined with NOAA and USACE, all with their AI Smart Path technology. Waterways are constantly changing, and accurate, historical AIS information is a great way to ensure your tracks are currently navigable.
Price: The app requires an annual subscription, currently $30 / year (as of 7/)
Argo is another navigation app that compiles offline charts, weather, wind, tides, custom depth shading, charts, and routes into one seamless app. We love the custom depth shading, which allows us to identify areas of shoaling and log captain reports easily. Having personally met the founder of Argo, Jeff Foulk, we really like how the app blends marine navigation and social boating. We didn&#;t use Argo while boating, mainly because we didn&#;t learn about it until later! If you use Argo, let us know what you think in the comments!
Price: Free for their Basic Plan, Argo Premium is $19.99/year.
Read The Best Marine Weather Apps for Boating to see what marine weather apps we recommend and regularly use!
Tides is a handy app that provides accurate tide and current information for thousands of locations worldwide. We used Tides to plan our trips to optimize current, save fuel, safely navigate shallow waters, and avoid strong currents. While the app&#;s basic features are free, premium features such as extended tide forecasts and offline access require a subscription. Tides offers essential information for boaters in an easy-to-read format so we can easily plan our cruises with the tides. We often used Tides on the east coast to favor the current in our direction of travel, giving us an extra boost of speed.
&#; Add Tides to your smart watch to know the tides at a glance!
Price: Free
Boating Apps for CommunityOne of the best parts of boating is the community. Hands down. These are a few apps that use apps to strengthen the boating community by allowing you to connect with other boaters, communicate with messaging, and ask for recommendations or suggestions.
Nebo is a unique boating app that combines a captain&#;s log with social networking, allowing users to share their boating experiences with friends and fellow sailors. It was easily one of our favorite apps on the water because it allowed us to connect with other boaters, ask boaters for recommendations, and have a unique flag icon that helped us find other Loopers. We&#;re huge fans of Nebo for elevating our Great Loop experience, and we wouldn&#;t do the Great Loop without Nebo and the hardware device.
Price: The Nebo Starter Membership is free, the Nebo Silver Membership is $53.90/year, and the Nebo Gold Membership is $99.99/year. The Nebo Link has a one-time cost of $199.
Sea People is a new app developed by the crew from Sailing La Vagabonde. This app is designed to track your voyages without needing a hardware device; instead, it uses your &#;s internal GPS. It&#;s designed to make connecting with other boaters and staying in touch with the friends you make on the water easier. If you&#;ve tried Sea People in Beta, let us know what you think below!
Price: TBD
Although Travel Boast isn&#;t a &#;boating-specific travel app,&#; it is a fun way to document your travels by boat (or other means of travel) and share it with friends and family or on your social media accounts. The app allows you to customize your travels through an easy-to-use interface.
Price: Free with in-app purchases for upgraded features
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Boating Apps for MaintenanceYachtWave is a comprehensive boating app that offers a wide range of features tailored specifically for yacht managers and boat owners. With a tagline Boat Ownership has Never Been Easier, YachtWave focuses on the daily and yearly maintenance obligations of boat ownership. After setting up your boat(s) and their engines, generators, and heavy equipment, you can add your spares and set up your boat maintenance tasks. The best part is that you can share this with other crew members if you are not personally maintaining your own boat. Since your maintenance is moving from your captain log into the YachtWave App, you can now easily share and search your information and pull it up whenever you need it.
Price: Free for personal use.
Boating Apps for LockingLock Status is a great app for finding information about upcoming locks. We found it a great resource when planning our travel itinerary for the following day, as it allowed us to see what was coming up and the last lock-through that occurred.
Price: Free
Read our post on How to Lock A Boat (Our Step-By-Step Process)
Boating Apps for Vessel Tracking
Marine Traffic is a must-have app for boaters seeking real-time vessel tracking and AIS data. With its extensive database of ship positions and comprehensive coverage of maritime traffic worldwide, Marine Traffic provides invaluable insights into vessel movements and navigation hazards. While the app&#;s basic features are available for free, premium features such as extended vessel details and route predictions require a subscription. Marine Traffic remains a valuable tool for boaters seeking to enhance their situational awareness of the water. We frequently used this app since we didn&#;t have AIS and wanted information on barge, tug, and ship traffic in the Chesapeake Bay, Great Lakes, and Midwest rivers. Whenever we experienced fog, we used Marine Traffic to give us extra data on boats near us.
&#;&#; AIS data is sometimes delayed through Marine Traffic so keep that in mind
Price: Free with optional in-app purchases.
Boating Apps for EmergenciesThe US Coast Guard app is a great way to request a USCG Safety Check, review your safety equipment, check state-by-state safe boating information, file a float plan, and report hazards, pollution, or suspicious activity. We used this app to look up boating rules as we cruised, ensuring we followed the rules and obeyed the laws on the waters to the best of our knowledge.
Price: Free
Boating Apps for TowingThe BoatUS app allows you to carry your BoatUS membership card easily, request a tow, add your insurance policy, and find out location information such as weather, tides, buoys, and discounts. We used the app to keep our BoatUS membership card handy as we thankfully did not need a tow.
Price: The app is free, but a Boat US yearly membership costs $215/year for unlimited towing with other cheaper membership options available.
We used BoatUS to have peace of mind while cruising, knowing help was only a radio call away. Sign up for BoatUS here!
The Sea Tow app allows you to request a tow, carry a digital version of your Sea Tow membership card, and show your latitude and longitude.
Price: The app is free, but Sea Tow&#;s yearly membership is $249/year.
The C-Tow app is specifically for Canadian boaters or boaters who are boating in Canada and want towing assistance. The app allows you to request a tow, carry a digital version of your C-Tow membership card, pinpoint your GPS location, check current Environment Canada marine weather conditions, including weather alerts, see tide predictions for coastal areas, check your speed and heading, and locate nearby marinas, marine facilities, and fuel docks. Note that some Sea Tow and BoatUS memberships won&#;t cover you in Canada, so if you&#;re doing the Great Loop you may want to look into C-Tow!
Price: The app is free, but membership ranges between $145-250/year.
Boating Apps for Anchor AlarmsHaving an anchor drag alarm is easily one of the best apps to have readily available if you&#;re planning on anchoring. We recommended downloading a few apps before leaving your home port and testing them one by one when you arrive at your anchorage to find the app you like best. If you don&#;t want another app, specifically for anchor alarms, try out Aquamaps if you already are using it for navitation.
This simple anchor drag alarm is easy to use with various options depending upon your anchoring set up. It allows you to set a circle perimeter or an arch, has a dark screen mode for anchoring at night, and makes adjusting your alarm distance easy.
Price: one-time cost of $4.99
You can easily set your distance, see your past movements, and set your anchor alarm after anchoring. You can also be alerted on a secondary .
Price: $5.99
This anchor alarm app has many similar features to the previous apps and is free.
Price: Free
Check out our blog post on the best Marine Weather Apps for boaters!
Boating Apps for MarinasDuring our Great Loop, we found that many larger marinas worked with companies to make reserving a marina spot easier. As we planned our route and marina stays, we often reviewed these apps for availability and amenities. Here are the two most popular marina apps:
Snag-A-Slip is owned by Marina Life Company and is an easy way for boaters to book a marina or private boat slip. The app allows you to explore marinas from Canada to the Caribbean, book your slip or mooring ball with their easy-to-use app reservation system, and pay via card. It helps take the Google searches and tag with a marina out of the equation. Snag-A-Slip doesn&#;t charge booking fees and offers their service free of charge with a price match guarantee.
&#; Pro tip: Snag-A-Slip partners with Sea-Tow to give members an extra discount!
Price: Free
Dockwa is a convenient app that simplifies the process of finding and booking marina slips and moorings. With its extensive database of marinas and user-friendly interface, Dockwa makes it easy for boaters to search for available dockage, reserve slips in advance, and manage their reservations on the go, making marina bookings hassle-free. Pro tip: Dockwa partners with Boat US to give members an extra discount!
Price: Free
Use our Referral Code 450ZMS3 for a $15 discount on your Dockwa reservation!
In conclusion, there are many apps for boat navigation and boat apps in general. Whether you&#;re seeking navigation assistance, boating community, vessel tracking, marina bookings, or tide information, an app can help you navigate confidently. As a software engineer (Elliot) who loves to test the latest apps and software development, we thoroughly enjoyed using and experimenting with the wide array of boating apps. We hope this list of boat navigation apps and other boat apps gives you the resources you need to have an enjoyable time out on the water. If you have any favorites that we may have missed, let us know in the comments below!
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