Boating by Garmin
Formerly known as Navionics, Boating by Garmin is the most widely used charting app among recreational sailors. It offers detailed nautical charts for virtually every cruising ground in the world, with community edits, sonar data, and chart plotting tools.
Quick Facts
- Price: From ~$15/year (region-based)
- Platforms: iOS, Android, Web
- Coverage: Global (charts by region)
- Offline: Yes — download charts in advance
What You Get
Nautical Charts
Based on official hydrographic office data with community corrections. Shows depths, buoys, lights, hazards, harbours, anchorages, and restricted areas. Charts are updated daily with community edits — if someone finds a new rock, it shows up fast.
SonarChart
Crowdsourced bathymetry data from users running sonar-equipped devices. This gives you much higher resolution depth data than official charts — incredibly useful in poorly surveyed anchorages or shallow coastal waters.
Community Edits
Users can report chart corrections — missing buoys, changed depths, new pontoons. These edits are verified and integrated quickly. This makes Boating often more up-to-date than official charts for marina layouts and coastal changes.
Route Planning
Basic route planning with waypoints and distance calculation. Not as sophisticated as Savvy Navvy's auto-routing, but reliable for manual chart plotting. You can drop waypoints, measure distances, and check depths along your planned route.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Best chart coverage globally
- Community edits keep data current
- SonarChart for high-res depth data
- Offline chart downloads (essential at sea)
- Familiar interface — industry standard
- Integrates with Garmin hardware plotters
Cons
- No auto-routing (you plan manually)
- No tidal overlay on route planning
- Interface can feel dated compared to newer apps
- Chart regions can be confusing to purchase
- Annual subscription required to keep charts updated
Tips for Sailors
Download charts before you leave Wi-Fi. Select your cruising area and download charts while on shore. Cell coverage at sea is unreliable at best, and you want your charts available offline.
Enable SonarChart overlay. In settings, enable the SonarChart layer to see crowdsourced depth shading. It gives you much more depth detail than the standard chart view, especially in anchorages.
Report what you find.Spotted a missing buoy or changed depth? Submit a community edit. The system relies on sailors helping each other, and your correction might prevent someone's grounding.
Use alongside Savvy Navvy. Many sailors run both — Boating for chart detail and SonarChart depth, Savvy Navvy for auto-routing and passage planning. They complement each other well.
Try Boating by Garmin
Download the app and get access to detailed nautical charts for your sailing area. Plans start from around $15/year.
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