Inland water in Helm comes from three kinds of source. The intracoastal is on NOAA charts and the inland rivers are on US Army Corps of Engineers charts, and both have depth read against the draft of your own boat. The state lake packs draw reservoirs and lakes by shoreline and name from USGS data, and Minnesota adds state contour lines on its lakes.
Depth in Helm comes from the chart. Here is what each inland source brings.
| Source | What it covers inland |
|---|---|
| NOAA ENC | The coast, the intracoastal and the Great Lakes, with depth areas, soundings and aids to navigation. |
| USACE Inland ENC | The inland commercial rivers, with depth areas, contours, lights, bridges and locks. |
| USGS National Hydrography Dataset | Lake and reservoir shorelines and names in the 48 state lake packs. |
| Minnesota DNR lake bathymetry | Depth contour lines drawn on Minnesota lakes. |
| NOAA CO-OPS tide prediction | The predicted tide from a station within 25 nautical miles, added to the charted depth on tidal water. |
The depth card tells you what kind of figure you are reading: a charted sounding, a depth band from the chart, or water the chart has no soundings for, and reads it against your draft.
Enter your draft once and it stays on the chart. Where the chart carries depth, on the coast, the Great Lakes and the rivers, Helm shades the water your boat cannot cross. On a river, that shading is what puts the shoal on the screen while you still have room to turn. On the coast and on Lakes Michigan, Erie and Ontario, Helm also plans the route around it.
A river with a bar on the inside of a bend. The Army Corps chart carries the depth areas there, and with your draft entered the water you cannot cross shades before you commit to the inside of the bend. The chart is only as recent as its last survey, so a bar that moved over the spring may not be on it.
Smart routing, which plans the water route around what your draft cannot cross, runs on the coastal packs and on Lakes Michigan, Erie and Ontario. On any chart, you can lay out a route point by point.
The measure tool gives you distance and bearing along any line you draw, and a depth profile with the shallowest point marked where Helm has routing data for the water.
Helm has 161 downloadable chart packs. Once the pack covering your water is on the device, the chart, the measure tool and the anchor alarm all work with no cell service, along with depth shading and routing wherever the pack carries them. You download the packs for the water you actually run, at home on wifi.
Set an anchor radius and Helm wakes you if you drag. It runs on GPS, so a narrow cove is exactly where it does its job. When the wind clocks around at two in the morning and the boat swings across its scope, you find out from the alarm.
Depth, speed over ground and course over ground sit on one strip. AIS puts live vessel traffic on the chart with position, vessel type and movement status, so a tow under way around the next bend reads differently from a barge lying still, and the area you are looking at refreshes about every ten seconds. Satellite and night chart styles both work inland, and satellite is the one to use along an unfamiliar shoreline. Trips you run with Go on a route are recorded to the logbook, so you can bring one back up on the chart afterward.
Save a spot when you find fish. On a river or in Minnesota the depth contours around it are on the chart. Once your devices are signed in to the same account, saved spots, routes and recorded trips sync between them, so the spot you marked from the phone is on the iPad next season.
Helm animates wind, wave and current overlays on the chart, with a multi-day strip of three hour columns for wind, gusts, air temperature and rain, plus water temperature. On a big reservoir in July the useful question is what the wind does at four o'clock, and that is a column you read before you leave the dock.
On tidal water, the tide comes from NOAA CO-OPS against MLLW and the current arrows turn with the time you scrub to, so you can pick the hour you leave the dock and the hour you come back through the inlet.
Helm has a CarPlay interface that puts the chart on the vehicle's built in screen. On the tow to an unfamiliar lake, the water and the ramp you are heading for are on the dashboard.
Helm has an offline lake pack for each of the 48 contiguous states, with lake shorelines and names from the USGS National Hydrography Dataset, and the chart works with no signal once the pack is downloaded. Minnesota adds Minnesota DNR contour lines on its lakes, and the Great Lakes and the rivers have charted depth.
An outline, in most states. The state lake packs draw lakes by shoreline and name from the USGS National Hydrography Dataset, and Minnesota adds Minnesota DNR contour lines on its lakes. The Great Lakes are on NOAA charts and the rivers on US Army Corps of Engineers charts, and both carry depth.
Yes. Download the chart pack for your area first and the chart, the measure tool and the anchor alarm keep working with no signal, along with depth and routing wherever the pack carries them. There are 161 packs.
Yes. The intracoastal is on NOAA charts and the inland commercial rivers are on the US Army Corps of Engineers Inland ENC, with the NOAA CO-OPS predicted tide added on tidal water where a station is close enough. Inland lakes come from USGS shoreline data, with Minnesota DNR contour lines on Minnesota's lakes.
Yes. Set a radius and it wakes you if you drag. It runs on GPS, so it works in a cove with no service.
Yes, natively on iPhone and iPad. Sign in to the same account on both and routes, saved spots and recorded trips sync between them, so a run planned on the iPad is on the phone at the ramp.
Each of the 48 contiguous states has its own inland pack, and each one now has a page of its own with the largest lakes it carries and how many charted water bodies are in it. The full table is on the lake charts by state page.
Free to download. Free trial included.
Helm Boating