SeaTracker chart — Route, Discover, Voyage

The SeaTracker tab is the nautical chart at the heart of AnchorQueen. The

chart never goes away — when you switch tabs and come back, your zoom and

position are exactly where you left them.

The bottom of the chart has a pill bar with three sub-modes:

Route — Discover — Voyage.

Discover

The default mode. The chart is yours to wander.

GPS HUD in the top-left shows your live speed, heading, and gauge.

Legend panels on the left and right toggle layers — buoys, seamarks,

harbours, anchorages, dangers, wrecks, light sectors, AIS vessels, marine

life, dive sites, fishing watch, ocean data, Wikipedia articles, and your

own captain's marks.

The Region Button Bar at the top-center minimizes panels you do not

need.

A crosshair at the center can be toggled on; with it on, the chart

shows the depth under the crosshair as you pan.

The Course Predictor draws your projected position six minutes ahead

as a dashed line — handy for crossing traffic.

Long-press to drop a captain's mark or measure a distance with the

ruler.

Use Discover to learn an area, scout an anchorage, or browse points of

interest.

Live instrument readout

If you have connected an NMEA instrument source (a Wi-Fi gateway or a

Bluetooth pod — see [Settings → Anchor Watch →

Instruments](settings.html#anchor-watch)), the GPS HUD grows a live instrument

section. It appears only while a source is connected; on a built-in-GPS device

the HUD is unchanged.

A status line shows the link state — LIVE (green), LINK… /

RETRY (amber), or NO SIGNAL (red) — the transport (TCP / UDP / BLE),

and how long ago the last data arrived. The age keeps counting up if the feed

goes quiet, so a frozen "12s ago" is your cue the gateway stopped sending.

Value tiles read out depth (colour-coded green → amber → red as the

water shoals), wind (apparent or true speed with its angle), and — when

you tap the card to expand it — heading, speed through water, and

sea temperature. Only the values your instruments actually send appear.

Expanding the card also reveals trend sparklines for depth and wind that

scroll as new readings arrive, so you can see the seabed shoaling or the

breeze building at a glance.

Satellite & Hybrid Base Map

You can overlay high-resolution satellite imagery directly under your vector nautical chart layers to get a complete photographic and metric view of coastal waters.

To enable this:

Open the Chart Layers sheet from the bottom-right corner.

Under the Maps tab, choose the Satellite or Hybrid base map style.

Toggle the Depth Contours and Water Depths options under the Depth & Bathymetry group.

This overlays high-precision soundings and depth hazard lines directly over real-world coastal structures, making it extremely easy to plan entrance channels to unfamiliar marinas (such as the Hurricane Hole Marina in Stock Island, Florida).

Route

Route mode replaces the HUD with the Route Panel at the bottom.

Drop your second point and the route plans itself — there is no separate "create" or "OK" step. The moment a start (A) and an end (B) exist, the app auto-plans your passage around shallows and land barriers using our high-performance Hybrid A*-APF (Artificial Potential Field) Path-Finding Engine. This holds however you place the points: tapping the chart, long-pressing, or using the ADD button.

Drag the Route Panel up or down by its top handle to resize it. It snaps between three heights — a slim peek, a half sheet, and full — and one continuous drag goes all the way to full; you no longer have to drag twice.

A depth scrubber previews the seabed depth along the proposed route — drag it to inspect any segment.

Save, edit, or delete the route from the panel.

A floating R button at the corner minimizes the Route Panel without losing the route.

With the crosshair on, a small ADD / UNDO / DEL capsule appears in the right-edge control column (below the zoom buttons): ADD drops a waypoint at the crosshair (the second ADD auto-plans the route), UNDO removes the last one, DEL removes the nearest. Drag a waypoint directly on the chart to move it.

While you are planning or editing a route the chart stays where you put it — it will not snap to your boat's current position. Use the follow button if you do want the camera to track your vessel.

Hybrid A*-APF & Relaxation Cascade

The routing engine operates off the main thread to ensure absolute UI responsiveness, resolving paths in three logical stages:

Hybrid A* Search: Explores the spatial grid of the active region, finding the shortest path that respects your vessel's draft constraints and safety margins.

APF (Artificial Potential Field) Smoothing: Relaxes the grid-locked coordinates using obstacle-repulsion vectors. Land masses and shallows exert a positive potential (pushing the route away), while the destination exerts a negative potential (pulling the route in), resulting in clean, natural-curving passages.

Depth-Aware Relaxation Cascade: To solve the common "shallow harbor lock" dilemma (where a route cannot be planned because the starting dock or destination slip is in thin water), the engine runs a 3-level cascade:

* Strict Mode: Enforces full draft + safety clearance along the entire route.

* Shallow Mode: If Strict fails, the planner relaxes clearance rules near the endpoints while warning you of potential draft exposure.

* Best-Effort Mode: Relaxes clearance limits entirely near docks to guarantee that a continuous route is generated, rather than aborting with a routing error.

Dock to Dock

At the top of the Route Panel a two-way switch picks how you build the

route:

Free-form — the classic mode. Tap or long-press the chart to drop as

many anchors as you like; the app routes between each pair.

Dock to Dock — a guided A → B flow for the common "from this

harbour to that harbour" passage.

In Dock to Dock the panel shows two slots:

Departure dock (A) — tap the search icon and find your start harbour

by name. You can also tap the location icon to use your current

position, or the ferry icon to drop in the nearest harbour.

Destination dock (B) — stays locked ("Select departure first") until

A is set. The moment you choose a departure, the destination picker

opens automatically so you can search straight for where you are going.

The picker lists harbours & marinas first, with other places below, and

shows the distance from your current view. Once both docks are set the app

auto-routes between them around the shallows, just like Free-form.

Choosing either dock flies the chart to that harbour so you can

confirm the pick — departure (A) recenters the view just like

destination (B).

Tap the swap arrows on the connector between A and B to reverse

departure and destination — the route re-plans instantly.

Captain's Library

The Capt's Routes entry in the side menu opens the Captain's Library —

one searchable place to manage everything you have saved or collected:

Routes — your saved navigation routes. Tap one to open its detail

editor; swipe to delete. Long-press for the full action menu: View on

Map, Start Navigation, Duplicate, Reverse Direction,

Export GPX, and Passage Plan (PDF) — the printable A4 passage

plan, straight from the list, no detail sheet required.

Waypoints — standalone saved waypoints. Tap to edit name, symbol,

and anchorage dwell time; the scope button flies the chart to it.

Marks — your Captain's Marks. Tap to open the mark on the chart,

swipe to delete.

Passages — recorded voyage tracks with their collected data

(distance, duration, track points). Tap one for the full passage log

with stats and the ETA calculator.

A search box, sort menu, and live result count sit above the list. The

⋯ Advanced menu adds Import GPX and Manage Folders.

In landscape the library opens in the right details panel, so you can

manage routes while the chart stays in view; in portrait it opens as a

sheet.

Voyage

Voyage is active navigation. A single press-and-hold turns a spot on the

chart into a planned passage you then choose to start. Until you've sailed

a few voyages, an on-chart hint reminds you of the gesture.

Press and hold the chart where you want to go. A ring fills around

your finger; hold until it completes.

A "Planning route…" pill shows live progress while the app routes

from your current position (A) to that point (B) around shallows and

land. Tap the pill's ✕ to abandon the plan. If something prevents a

route — no GPS fix, a destination on land, a point too close to the

boat — the pill says so right there.

The Route ready card appears, naming the start and destination with

the distance and estimated time, and the planned path draws on the

chart as a dashed preview line — pan and zoom freely to inspect it.

Tap Start to begin — active navigation and passage recording

(your track, waypoint arrivals, and stats) start, the depth and weather

graphs fill in, and nearby chart objects drop at both ends. Tap

Dismiss to discard the planned route; nothing is started or saved.

Because you confirm with Start, a stray long-press never launches a

voyage on its own. Both endpoints are named after their nearest place. If

the boat has moved meaningfully while the card sat waiting, tapping

Start quietly re-plans from where you actually are before navigation

begins, so the route always starts at the bow — not where it was a few

minutes ago.

Already navigating? A press-and-hold while a voyage is running doesn't

start a new one — it proposes inserting a waypoint at that spot and

reroutes from your current position through it, pending your confirmation.

Active Navigation HUD

While navigating, one card sits at the top of the chart with four

tap-to-switch sections:

Guidance — the next turn plus distance and ETA to your destination.

Helm — large bearing · distance · speed-over-ground readouts with

a cross-track error bar.

Route — cross-track error (port/starboard), waypoint ETA, distance

remaining, and your position in the route.

Charts — the route Depth, Wind, Waves, and Tide graphs. Tap the

type buttons to switch which graph is shown. Wind draws gust as a

fainter dashed line over the wind line, with wind-direction arrows. Each

graph shows live forecast data along the route, waypoint marks, and a

distance scale. A white dot tracks your current position; drag the

graph to scrub a white dot along the route on the chart — it snaps back

to your live position after a moment. Tide shows the predicted

harbour tide height along your route, drawn around a mean-sea-level line

(the curve dips below the line at low water); where tide predictions

aren't available for an area the graph shows a gap rather than a guess.

Use the ‹ › arrows in the HUD header to step to the previous or next

waypoint; a short banner confirms the new target. The minimize button

(⤡) in the HUD header collapses the whole card to a small NAV · WP

chip; tap the chip to bring it back. The place-name badge tucks in directly

beneath the HUD so the rest of the chart stays clear.

The command window at the bottom (depth scrubber + playback controls)

has three sizes — tap its stage button to cycle full → compact →

minimized and back, freeing chart space when you don't need it.

Stopping & rerouting

NAV → STOP. The round NAV button on the right rail turns red and

reads STOP while you navigate. Tapping it asks you to confirm

before ending guidance, so a stray tap can't drop your route.

Better route. If a shorter or safer route appears underway, a banner

slides in showing the time and distance you would save. Tap Accept

reroute to switch or Keep current — it also dismisses itself after a

few seconds if you do nothing.

Finding a place

Tap the search icon in the top bar to open the search panel. It has two

tabs:

Map Search — find any place on the water.

Features — jump to an app screen or setting by name.

What Map Search looks through

One search box queries everything at once and groups the results by where

they came from, your own data first:

Your own data and live AIS appear instantly as you type. The three

online groups join a moment later — they start once you've typed three

letters and the app waits for a short pause in your typing before reaching

out, so it isn't firing off a request on every keystroke. Online results

are cached, so repeating a recent search returns instantly and still

works when you later go offline.

Reading a result

Each row shows the name, a short subtitle (vessel details, route length,

harbour facilities, and so on), and — when the app knows your position — the

distance in nautical miles. A small dashed-square icon means the place

has a known boundary, so flying to it frames the whole area rather than a

single point.

Tap a result (or its → button) to fly the chart there and drop a pin at

the spot, labelled with its name so the location stays marked after the

camera settles. Tap the pin to clear it. Tapping a route result reveals

that route and frames it end to end; tapping a Wikipedia result also opens

its article panel.

Recent searches

When the box is empty the panel shows your Recent searches. Each row

carries a small badge showing who ran it:

👤 Captain — a search you ran yourself.

✦ Jules — a place Jules looked up for you in chat. When you ask Jules

to find somewhere, she searches the very same sources listed above, so a

marina she finds lands here ready to tap.

Tap the ✦ Jules chip above the list to show only the places Jules found.

Clear History wipes the recent list and the offline cache.

> All online sources are not for navigation and may be unavailable

> without a connection — your charts, marks, routes, and the bundled harbour

and seamark data always work offline.

Choosing the chart style

The chart style and depth palette are global — pick them once in

Settings → Appearance. Defaults are tuned for

day-time clarity at anchor.

Chart Layers panel

The Chart Layers sheet is where every overlay is switched on or off. It is

organized into five tabs across the top so you jump straight to what you want

instead of scrolling one long list:

Maps — the base-map style (Nautica Day/Night and third-party providers),

the depth-palette theme, the Depth & Bathymetry group (Depth Contours

and Depth Polygons are on by default so a fresh install opens to a legible

bathymetry chart; the heavier Water Depths / EMODnet fill stays off until you

switch it on, and changing the chart theme re-shows the contours and polygons

if you had hidden them), and

the vector base-map sub-layers (roads, buildings, labels, POIs, boundaries).

Start here to set how the chart looks.

Charts — navigation-grade chart content: the online nautical overlays

(seamarks, borders, maritime zones, traffic schemes, customs, raster

charts) and the offline S-57 ENC stack you unlock by installing a region

(soundings, channels, hazards, seabed).

Live — anything pulled from a network service for the area on screen:

seamarks, harbour database, weather, and the exploration layers

(marine life, dive sites, fishing activity, ocean data).

AIS — vessel traffic from two independent sources, side by side: the

AIS API feed (aisstream.io / VesselAPI) with provider and connection

status, and the Fleet (Remote Sync) group — captains sharing live

position through a SafeAnchor remote channel, with a brief showing the

channel name and how many vessels are synced. The feed always starts each

launch on the default aisstream.io provider; VesselAPI is used only as

an automatic failover (if aisstream.io stays unreachable) or when you pick

it yourself, and that choice lasts for the session only — the next launch

returns to aisstream.io. When you pan or zoom, the ships already on screen

stay put while the feed re-subscribes to the new area in the background —

they refresh in place rather than blinking off and back on.

Public Beacons (off by default) — live positions of other AnchorQueen

captains broadcasting on the public beacon near where you're looking. They

show on the chart with an amber ring (so you can tell them apart from

your own flotilla, which is teal, and from raw AIS, which has no ring) and

update live while you're zoomed in. A brief shows how many are in view. It

starts off because keeping the live feed open uses data — turn it on when

you want to see who's anchored around a busy bay.

Navigation — your on-device data (waypoint lines, recorded tracks, snap

line, anchor history) plus the appearance of the anchor-watch rings,

own-ship lines, and per-mode crosshair colours.

The bolt menu in the top-left corner has Show All Layers and

Hide All Seamarks shortcuts, reachable from any tab.

S-52 Chart Rendering & Local Vector Tiles

At its core, AnchorQueen uses a customized MapLibre GL Vector Compilation Engine designed to provide a highly interactive, 60fps chart experience entirely offline.

* S-52 Day & Night Charts: Conforming to IHO (International Hydrographic Organization) Presentation Library standards, the app translates S-57 ENC feature attributes (depth contours, light sectors, buoys, restricted areas) dynamically using custom styling stylesheets (Nautica Day and Nautica Night).

* Offline Vector MBTiles: Raw bathymetry, land outlines, and marine boundaries are compiled using optimized mathematical simplifications (tippecanoe) into highly compressed, local MBTiles packages (adminland.mbtiles, maritimezones.mbtiles, admin_places.mbtiles). This reduces resident storage from gigabytes of raw GeoJSON down to a few hundred megabytes, preventing out-of-memory crashes on mobile devices.

* Bundled SDF Glyphs: A fully offline Signed Distance Field (SDF) font package covers Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, and Turkish character sets, enabling real-time font rendering at any tilt and zoom angle.

* Keel Sounding Lookups: Tapping the crosshair triggers a local spatial Kd-Tree lookup to query soundings and physical hazards under the cursor. This operation runs off the main thread to prevent map stuttering during fast pans.

Recording a track

Open the Tracking sheet from the chart's action menu to start recording

a track. Tracks are saved as GPX files you can keep, share, or replay later

from Capt's Notebook.

Offline tiles

Open the Cache sheet from the chart's action menu to download a tile

pack for the area you are sailing. With a region installed from the

Store, the area becomes fully offline-capable.

If something goes wrong

The chart will not load offline — make sure you have either cached tiles

or installed the matching region. See Store.

Auto-route returns no path — your start or end is in water too shallow

for your draft; nudge the point into deeper water and try again.

The ghost vessel goes ashore — re-run Voyage after re-setting the

endpoints in deeper water.