Boatze

Waze for the water · boats & jet skis

Know what's out there before you get there.

Boaters share what they see: patrol boats, sandbars, no-wake zones, debris, manatees, fish biting. Boatze warns you by voice as you get close, and routes you through the channels instead of over the shoals.

Coming soon to theApp Store Coming soon toGoogle Play

Free on iPhone and Android. Launching in Florida waters first.

Navigating · the line turns amber where the water is slow speed

19kinds of report, each with its own clock
2natural voices that warn you as you get close
1 tapfrom the map to SOS, your position and towing
4draft classes, from jet ski to deep keel

The app

Built for the helm, not the dock

Big targets, voice alerts and short trips through menus, because one hand is on the throttle. Swipe through the main screens.

The live mapReports from boaters nearby, places along the water and today's wind, tide and weather in one line.
Caution: police can see youEvery patrol report draws its line of sight in red, cut off behind land. Cross into it and Boatze says so out loud and reminds you of the posted limit.
Two taps to reportPick what you saw. It drops where you are, or where you tap on the map. Caution areas are drawn corner by corner.
A route, not a guessTime counted at the legal speed in every zone, fuel for your boat and the lowest tide over the trip. The dashed line is what a straight shot would cross.
SOS, one tap awayWho to call where you are, your position ready to send, the Mayday script with your boat's name, and towing nearby.

Map markers

Every pin is a little scene

The same illustrated markers you see in the app. A patrol boat moves, a sandbar doesn't: every report lives as long as that kind of thing usually lasts, then fades from the map on its own.

Patrol spotted

Drawn as a line-of-sight zone, cut off behind land and islands. Inside it you hear "Police can see you".

  • Police boat90 min
  • FWC / Marine patrol90 min
  • Coast Guard90 min
  • Patrol baseplace · always on

On the water

Hazards and conditions that change how you run. No-wake and accidents become speed zones; a "Wrong route here" report teaches the planner to go around.

  • No-wake zone30 days
  • Shallow / Sandbar7 days
  • Caution area7 days · drawn
  • Wrong route here180 days
  • Obstacle / Debris24 h
  • Rough water / storm4 h
  • Party / raft-up4 h
  • Congested area3 h
  • Boat adrift3 h
  • Accident2 h

Wildlife & fishing

Sightings reach Boatze users within a few miles, each person picks which ones in Notifications. Manatees and turtles slow you down.

  • Manatee3 h · slow zone
  • Sea turtle2 h · slow zone
  • Fish biting4 h
  • Shark2 h
  • Dolphins1 h
  • Other sighting2 h

Places along the water

Marinas, fuel docks with prices boaters post (gas, REC-90, diesel), restaurants you can dock at, ramps, beaches, bait, rentals, dive shops and towing.

  • Marinadocks & slips
  • Fuel docklive prices
  • Dock & dinerestaurants
  • Boat ramplaunch
  • Beach & sandbarhangouts
  • Bait & tackleshops
  • Rentalsboats & jet skis

Big ships on AIS

Ships are drawn from above, pointed where they're heading and sized by their real length. Boatze sounds an alarm when one is closing on you. Sea Tow and TowBoatUS boats get their own orange mark.

  • Tankerred
  • Cargo shipgreen
  • Passenger / cruiseblue
  • Tug / towingteal
  • Fishing vesselgold
  • Sailboat / yachtpurple

Zones and the route line

Official Florida FWC manatee and boating zones, plus what boaters report. The route line takes the color of the water it crosses.

Open water Idle speed · No wake Slow speed · Minimum wake Max 20 to 35 mph No entry / no motors Reported slow

Other boaters confirm what they see or mark it gone. Each confirmation keeps a patrol report up another hour and other reports another day.

Routing

Routes that stay on the water

A car app follows roads. On the water there are no roads, only charts, tides and whatever your hull draws. Boatze traces every trip around land, shallows and no-entry zones, checks it, and learns from the trips boaters really make.

Boatze routeStraight lineIllustration · depths in feet
  1. Plan around what's in the way

    A search on NOAA charts (and OpenStreetMap shoreline where charts don't reach) steers around land, water too shallow for your draft, and no-entry zones, and prefers marked channels like the ICW.

  2. Count the zones honestly

    Slow and no-wake stretches are timed at the legal speed, so the arrival time is the one you'll really get.

  3. Check every leg

    The finished line is held against the charts leg by leg. Anything that touches land or a shoal is traced again and spliced in.

  4. Smooth the turns

    Zig-zags become clean shortcuts, taken only over water that's known to be clear.

  5. Arrive on the pin

    The last stretch goes into the marina basin or canal and onto the dock, ramp or beach you picked.

Your boat

Routed for what your hull draws

Set your vessel once. A jet ski can cut across the flats; a deep keel keeps to the channels.

1.3 ftJet ski, skiff
2 ftMost center consoles
4 ftCruisers
8 ftBig yachts, sail
Tide

Planned for the lowest water of your trip

Boatze looks up NOAA tide predictions over the whole trip window. A low tide makes the shallow bands cost more; a high tide never talks the route into skinny water. Safe first.

Learns from boaters

Proven water

Trips shared with "Help the activity map" on teach Boatze which water boats like yours really run, at which tide. Those cells become preferred lanes for everyone, anonymously.

Fixes itself

"Wrong route here"

Report a bad spot and the planner routes around it from then on. When three different boaters leave the line at the same place, Boatze learns that too.

Grows every day

A water map that checks itself

In the background, Boatze keeps adding water points along the coast, rechecks old segments against the latest charts and straightens the long runs. Nightly test trips catch any regression.

More on board

Everything else you'd want at the helm

Voice

Natural voices that talk you through it

Turn by turn, zone by zone, in a natural voice (Heart or Michael), with alerts that keep working with the screen locked on the native app.

"Police ahead." → "Slow down. Police can see you."

Alerts

Slow zones that speak up

Over speed inside a no-wake, manatee or turtle zone? Your phone says so and vibrates. Choose which report types alert you and how.

Conditions

Wind, tides, radar and the deep

Marine forecast, wind, tides and currents from NOAA stations, nearby buoys, water temperature and weather radar. The depth under your boat, at low tide, right under the speed.

Safety

Big ships and patrol bases

Ships on AIS with a close-approach alarm, and an alarm when you come into view of a marine patrol base.

Community

Spots worth the trip

Sandbars, islands, anchorages, snorkel and fishing spots shared with photos. Ranks from Deckhand to Admiral: experienced boaters' votes count more.

Friends

Friends on the water

Add friends with a code or QR, share your live position with them only, and record and share your favorite routes.

Trips

Pick up where you left off

Saved places and trips, stops along the way, and a trip that comes back with Resume if the app closes mid-run.

Privacy

Busy water, not who's on it

The activity map shows where boaters are this weekend. Positions are rounded to about 250 meters and an area only shows once two or more people have been there.

Boatze app icon

Get Boatze

Boatze is free for iPhone and Android. It's in testing now and launching on the App Store and Google Play soon.

Questions, a partnership, or want in on the beta? Write to [email protected].

Boatze helps you stay aware. It doesn't drive the boat.

Reports come from other boaters and can be wrong or out of date. Boatze is not an official nautical chart and doesn't replace a proper lookout, local knowledge, your depth sounder, or the rules of the road. Always follow posted speed and no-wake limits, whether or not anyone reported a patrol.

Charts and depth: NOAA nautical charts, NOAA tides and currents (CO-OPS), NDBC buoys, NWS forecasts, CoastWatch; GEBCO bathymetry.

Shoreline outside chart coverage: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).

Zones: Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC).

Map and places: Google Maps. Weather: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Radar: Iowa Environmental Mesonet.

Ships: AIS data from AISStream.io. Voices: Kokoro (Apache-2.0).