10 Best Sailing Apps Every Sailor Needs in 2026
You don't need thirty apps cluttering your phone. You need one great app for each job on the water — charts, weather, anchorages, an anchor alarm, and a few more for when your sailing gets ambitious. Here's the essential toolkit, organised by the job each app does.
One App Per Job, Not One App for Everything
The best-equipped sailors we know aren't the ones with the most apps — they're the ones who've figured out which app to open for which decision. Where am I? Open the chart app. Should I leave tomorrow? Open the weather app. Where do I sleep tonight? Open the anchorage guide. Will my anchor hold? Open the anchor alarm.
Below are ten apps, one for each of the jobs that come up on almost every trip. You won't need all ten from day one — a coastal day-sailor might live happily on the first five, while an offshore cruiser will want the lot. Add them as your sailing grows.
01 • Nautical charts & navigation
Navionics Boating
The chart app most sailors reach for first. Detailed vector charts, depth contours, marine points of interest, and community-edited depth data. It's the digital equivalent of the paper charts in your nav station — the app you use to answer "where am I and how deep is it here?"
Visit Navionics Boating02 • Wind & weather forecasting
Windy
The gold standard for reading the weather at a glance. Layered wind, gust, wave and rain maps from multiple forecast models (ECMWF, GFS, ICON), so you can compare models before you commit to a passage. If you only add one weather app, make it this one.
Visit Windy03 • Offshore weather routing
PredictWind
When Windy tells you what the weather is, PredictWind tells you when to leave and which route to take. Departure planning, optimal routing across multiple models, and GRIB downloads over satellite — the tool serious passage-makers and offshore cruisers depend on.
Visit PredictWind04 • Anchorages & mooring guide
Navily
A crowd-sourced guide to anchorages and marinas, hugely popular in the Mediterranean. Read reviews from other sailors, see holding and shelter notes, check photos, and book a marina berth or mooring buoy in advance. The best way to decide where to spend the night before you get there.
Visit Navily05 • Anchor alarm & overnight watch
Safety Anchor Alarm
Our AppOnce you've picked your anchorage and dropped the hook, this is the app that lets you actually sleep. It monitors your boat's GPS position in the background and sounds a loud alarm if you drift outside your safe radius — so a dragging anchor wakes you before it becomes an emergency. Free to download with a lock-screen widget, night mode and an anchor-points library.
Learn more about Safety Anchor Alarm06 • Tides & currents
Imray Tides Planner
Essential the moment you leave the tideless Med and sail Atlantic, Channel or big-range waters. Tidal heights, times of high and low water, and tidal-stream information so you plan your departures with the current, not against it — and don't find yourself aground on a falling tide.
Visit Imray Tides Planner07 • AIS & ship tracking
MarineTraffic
See the commercial traffic around you — ship names, headings, speeds and types — on a live map. Great for identifying that big shape on the horizon, understanding a busy shipping lane, or letting friends and family follow your own vessel's track from ashore.
Visit MarineTraffic08 • Automatic route planning
savvy navvy
Think "Google Maps for boats." Enter where you want to go and it plans a route using wind, tide and depth data, steering you around hazards. A friendly complement to a full chart app for quickly sketching out a passage or a day's hop between anchorages.
Visit savvy navvy09 • Logbook & sailing community
Argo
Part navigation, part social network for boaters. Automatically logs your trips and stats, lets you discover spots other sailors love, and keeps a running record of your season on the water. The app that turns your sailing into a diary worth looking back on.
Visit Argo10 • Float plan & emergency tracking
RYA SafeTrx
A free safety net. Log a passage plan, share a live track with a shore contact, and trigger an alert if you don't check in — in many regions it's linked directly to coastguard rescue services. Five minutes of setup before you cast off that could matter enormously if things go wrong.
Visit RYA SafeTrxThe Four You Can't Sail Without
If ten apps feels like a lot, start here. These four cover the questions that come up on every single trip, and between them they'll keep the vast majority of coastal sailors safe and confident:
- A chart app (Navionics) so you always know where you are and what's beneath you.
- A weather app (Windy) so you never get caught out by wind you could have seen coming.
- An anchorage guide (Navily) so you arrive somewhere you actually want to spend the night.
- An anchor alarm (Safety Anchor Alarm) so you can sleep once you're there.
That last one is the difference between lying awake listening to the snubber creak and actually resting. A good anchor alarm watches your position all night and only wakes you if the boat moves outside the safe circle you set — the digital equivalent of a crew member on permanent anchor watch. If you want to understand how it works, read our guide to telling if your anchor is dragging and our comparison of the best anchor alarm apps.
How to Not Drown in Apps
A phone full of half-used sailing apps is worse than useless — in a hurry you won't remember which one does what. A few habits keep the toolkit sharp:
- Download data in the marina. Charts, weather GRIBs and map tiles should all be pulled down while you still have signal and power, not when you're relying on them.
- Keep the phone charged and dry. Every app on this list is useless on a dead or drowned phone. A 12V USB charger at the nav station and a waterproof case are cheap insurance.
- Learn one app per job properly rather than half-learning three. Depth in the tools you trust beats breadth you'll never open.
- Treat apps as backup offshore, not gospel. They complement your boat's instruments and your seamanship; they don't replace either.
Frequently Asked Questions
What apps do I actually need for sailing?
Are free sailing apps good enough?
Do sailing apps work offline without signal?
Should I rely on phone apps instead of dedicated marine electronics?
The anchor alarm for your toolkit
Free to download. Core alarm features included. Sleep soundly knowing your boat is watched all night.
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