Savvy Navvy
Savvy Navvy is often called "Google Maps for boats" — and for good reason. You enter your start and end points, and it automatically calculates a safe route that accounts for depth, tides, weather, and your boat's characteristics. It's the closest thing to turn-by-turn navigation that exists for sailors.
Quick Facts
- Price: From ~$60/year
- Platforms: iOS, Android, Web
- Best for: Passage planning, tidal routing
- Unique strength: Automated route optimisation
Key Features
Auto-Routing
The headline feature. Set your departure and arrival, and Savvy Navvy plots a route avoiding shallow water, restricted areas, and hazards. It factors in your boat's draft and beam. For tidal waters, it calculates the best departure time to carry a fair tide — something that used to require a tidal atlas and hours of planning.
Weather Integration
Wind, waves, and visibility are overlaid directly on your route. You can see at a glance where you'll hit headwinds, when the sea state will build, and whether conditions deteriorate towards the end of your passage. It colour-codes the route so bad sections stand out immediately.
Tidal Streams & Heights
For areas with significant tidal range (UK, France, Brittany, the Solent), this is transformative. Savvy Navvy shows tidal stream arrows on the chart and calculates how the current affects your route, ETAs, and fuel consumption. It can mean the difference between a 4-hour passage and an 8-hour slog.
Multi-Stop Trips
Plan a full week's itinerary with multiple stops. The app optimises departure times for each leg. Particularly useful for flotilla-style cruising around the Greek islands or Croatian coast where you're island-hopping daily.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Auto-routing saves hours of manual planning
- Tidal stream integration is excellent
- Weather overlay on route is very intuitive
- Clean, modern interface
- Active development — new features regularly
- Offline chart downloads
Cons
- More expensive than Boating by Garmin
- Chart detail not as rich as Navionics/Garmin
- No SonarChart equivalent for high-res depth
- Auto-route should always be verified manually
- Tidal data coverage varies by region
When to Use Savvy Navvy
Passage planning.This is where Savvy Navvy shines. Use it to plan passages of 20+ nautical miles where tides, weather, and routing decisions matter. For popping around a harbour, it's overkill.
Tidal waters. If you sail in the UK, Brittany, the Channel Islands, or anywhere with significant tides, the tidal stream routing is worth the subscription alone. It does the maths that would take you an hour with a tidal atlas.
Unfamiliar waters.Sailing somewhere new? The auto-routing gives you a solid starting route that avoids the hazards you don't know about yet. Always verify it against the chart, but it's a huge head start.
Multi-day cruising. Planning a week of island-hopping? Enter all your stops and let it optimise. It will suggest which days to move and which to stay put based on weather windows.
Try Savvy Navvy
Smart routing that accounts for weather, tides, and depth. Start planning your next passage in minutes, not hours.
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