Helm BoatingHelm Boating is a marine navigation app for United States waters, on iPhone and iPad.
NOAA charts, routes that respect your draft, charted depth with the predicted tide added, tides, currents, weather, AIS and a logbook — all working offline once your charts are downloaded.
Free to download. Free trial included.
Most chart apps show a single sounding and leave the judgement to you. Helm reads the depth from the chart, adds the predicted tide where it can, and tells you whether your boat clears it.
Your draft is part of the chart, not an afterthought.
Enter your draft once. Helm plans around water that is too thin for you and shows the shallowest point on the leg before you commit. The departure planner shows when the passage is calmest, so you leave on the right tide instead of the convenient one.
NOAA CO-OPS predictions against the MLLW datum. Current arrows rotate as you scrub through the day.
Animated wind, wave and current overlays, plus a multi-day strip with gusts, air and water temperature.
Set a radius and Helm wakes you if you drag, with or without signal.
See nearby vessels on the same chart you are navigating with.
Press Go on a route and the trip is recorded, so you can bring it back up on the chart and find the same spot later.
Switch to imagery when you want the real shoreline, or a dark palette after sunset.
Coverage comes in 161 downloadable packs. Take the water you actually run and leave the rest. Once a pack is on the device, charts, depth where the chart carries it, routing in the coastal and Great Lakes packs that carry it, tides and the anchor alarm all keep working with no cell service — which is the point offshore and on most lakes.
Yes. Download the chart packs for your area before you leave and the app keeps working offline — charts, depth where the chart carries it, routing in the coastal and Great Lakes packs that carry it, tides and the anchor alarm.
No. Coastal, intracoastal, rivers and inland lakes are all covered. The rivers come from US Army Corps of Engineers charts and carry depth. The state lake packs draw lake shorelines without depth, except Minnesota, where state contour lines are drawn on the lakes.
Most render a chart and leave the depth judgement to you. Helm reads the charted depth against your draft, adds the predicted tide where a NOAA station is close enough, says so when the chart has no soundings, and plans routes around water your boat cannot cross.
Yes, natively — a real iPad layout rather than a stretched phone screen.
Yes. Save spots, read the depth contours around them and return to the same place later from your recorded trips.
Helm is built by Loop Mobile FZCO, a software company registered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The same company name appears on the App Store listing.