A float plan someone ashore can actually use
Most float plans say where you are going. The useful ones also say when to start worrying, and exactly what to do then.
In this piece
A float plan, or sail plan, is a short note you leave with one person ashore before you go: the boat, who is aboard, where you are going, when you expect to arrive and how to reach you. If you do not turn up, it is what that person reads to the coastguard, and it saves the first hour of a search from being spent on questions nobody ashore can answer.
The part most float plans miss is the last line: a worry time, and what to do when it passes. Without it, the person ashore is left alone at ten at night, wondering whether it is too early to make a fuss. With it, the decision was made in daylight, by you, and all they have to do is follow the instructions. There is a template you can copy further down.
What to put in a float plan
The boat
Everything a lifeboat crew or a helicopter would use to pick your boat out from the others, and everything a coastguard officer would use to match you to an alert. Name, type and length. Hull colour, sail colour, sprayhood and canvas colour, and anything that stands out: a dark blue hull, tan sails, a radar arch, a wind generator. Your MMSI and call sign, so a DSC alert or an AIS target can be tied to you. The 15 character hex ID of your EPIRB and of any PLBs aboard, which is on the beacon’s label and tells the coastguard whose beacon has gone off. The liferaft, how many it holds and the colour of its canopy, and the dinghy and its outboard, because either may be what the searchers end up looking for. Attach a recent photo of the boat under way; it does half of this paragraph for you.
If you launched from a slipway, add the car and trailer: make, colour, number plate and where they are parked. A car still in the car park after dark is often the first thing anyone notices.
The people
The names of everyone aboard and the total number, a mobile number for each, and anything medical a rescuer should know: diabetes, a heart condition, regular medication, a bad back that rules out a ladder. Add a next of kin for each person if it is not the one holding the plan.
The passage
Where you leave from and when, the route and any stops, where you are going and your ETA. Then the bolt-holes: the harbours or bays you would run for if the weather turns, because a boat that has sensibly ducked into one of them is the first place to look. If you have written a passage plan, the float plan is its one page summary for people who do not read charts.
How to reach you
Every mobile number aboard, whether the boat has a DSC VHF, the number of a satellite phone or messenger if you carry one, and the link to a tracking page if you have one. Say where on the route the mobile signal runs out, so nobody panics when your phone goes quiet for four hours across a stretch you knew had no coverage.
The worry time, and what to do when it passes
The worry time is the moment the person ashore stops waiting and starts acting. Set it at your ETA plus a margin for ordinary delays: a slower beat than you planned, a late start, a stop for a swim. For a day sail in home waters we use about two hours, so an ETA of 18:30 gets a worry time of 20:30. Overnight passages need more, depending on the distance and how much the weather could slow you. On a long passage with a satellite messenger, tie it to a daily check-in instead of a single ETA, and say what a missed one means: one missed message, try to reach us; a second, call the coastguard.
Then write down what the person ashore should do, in order, so they can follow it at 20:30 without having to decide anything.
- Try to reach the boat. Call and text every mobile on the plan, and message the satellite messenger if there is one. Give it fifteen minutes.
- Check the obvious. Call the marina or harbour office at the destination, or a friend there, and ask whether the boat is in. Look at the tracking page if there is one.
- Call the coastguard. If there is still nothing, call the coastguard or the maritime rescue coordination centre (MRCC) for the waters the boat was sailing in. Say the boat is overdue and read them the float plan. Do not wait until morning to see.
- Stay by the phone. The coastguard will call back with questions, and the boat may call too.
Tell the person holding the plan, in so many words, that calling the coastguard at the worry time is not making a fuss. A coastguard can stand a search down in a minute when the boat turns up. They cannot get back an hour lost because somebody was embarrassed to ring.
Where to find the coastguard’s number
Write it on the plan. It is the line most people leave blank, and it is the one that matters at 20:30. You will find it on the national coastguard’s website, in the almanac or pilot book for the area, and at the marina office, which will know it. In many countries the general emergency number will also put a caller through to the coastguard if they ask for it; check whether that applies where you sail, and if it does, put that on the plan as well. If your route crosses into another country’s waters, add the rescue centre for that side too.
Who to leave it with
One person. Not a family group chat, where everybody assumes somebody else has it in hand. Choose someone who will be awake and near their phone at the worry time, who is not sailing with you, and who will actually make the call. Go through the plan with them before you leave, so that words like MRCC and MMSI are not new at the moment they matter. Five minutes on the phone is enough.
In the United States, the Coast Guard’s boating safety website links to a float plan form you can download, and it says to leave the plan with a reliable person: a friend, a neighbour or a family member. The same advice holds wherever you sail.
Close the plan when you arrive
A very common failure happens at the other end. The boat arrives, the crew go ashore for dinner, and nobody tells the person holding the plan. At the worry time they do exactly what you asked, and a search starts for a boat that is tied up in the harbour. Make the arrival message the first thing you do once the lines are on.
And if the plan changes on the way, a different harbour or a night at anchor you had not intended, send a new ETA and a new worry time. An out-of-date plan sends the searchers to the wrong place.
A float plan template
Copy this into a note or an email, fill it in and send it to your shore contact. The boat section only needs doing once; keep a filled-in copy and change the passage each time.
FLOAT PLAN THE BOAT Name: Type and length: Hull colour: Sails and sprayhood: Stands out because: MMSI: Call sign: EPIRB hex ID: PLB hex IDs: Liferaft (persons, colour): Dinghy and outboard: Car and trailer, where parked: ON BOARD Skipper: Mobile: Crew, mobiles, medical notes: Total on board: THE PASSAGE Leaving: Date and time: Route and stops: Bolt-holes if the weather turns: Arriving: ETA: No mobile signal between: HOW TO REACH US Mobiles: VHF with DSC: yes / no Satellite messenger or phone: Tracking page: WORRY TIME: Date and time: IF YOU HAVE NOT HEARD FROM US BY THEN 1. Call and text all the mobiles, message the satellite messenger. 2. Call the destination harbour or marina on: 3. Call the coastguard (MRCC) on: and read them this page. PLAN CLOSED (we have arrived):
If you sail with SafeBoat, pairing your shore contact’s phone with yours adds a live layer on top of the written plan.
The pushes need a data connection on the phone aboard, so this works along the coast and stops where the signal stops. Treat it as a way for the person ashore to see that you are fine, and keep the written plan, with its worry time and the coastguard’s number, as the thing they act on. Offshore, the beacons and the radio do the alerting; the piece on sailing alone goes through what to carry.
Questions people ask
What is the difference between a float plan and a passage plan?
A passage plan is for the crew: tides, hazards, waypoints, timings, where to go if it turns nasty. A float plan is for the person ashore. It holds just enough of the passage plan for someone else to raise the alarm, and for the searchers to know what they are looking for.
Is a float plan worth it for a day sail?
Yes, and a short one takes two minutes: the boat, who is aboard, where you are going, back by when, the worry time and the coastguard’s number. Day sails are when people skip it, and a day sail goes wrong in the same ways as a long passage: an engine that will not start, a rope round the prop, somebody hurt. Fill in the boat half of the template tonight, and every day sail after that is a two minute text.