Plan it, then sail it

Passage Plan Builder

The full APEM cycle as a graded performance: appraise the sources, draw the route, work the gates, build the route card, nominate the refuges — then sail the day your plan produces, consequences included. Same boat, different tides: each variant has its own lesson to teach.

Start here · your first plan

Petrel: a first passage — Westhaven to Midhaven

A short first plan: 14 nm along the coast to the all-tide harbour at Midhaven. One sill, one tidal gate, four numbers and one decision — the whole planning cycle, small enough to finish in one sitting.

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The worked passage

Petrel: Westhaven to Salt Sound

Plan the passage the worked example sails: 35 nm along the coast, round a headland with a race, and across Salt Channel — against a sill, a tidal gate and a forecast.

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Variant · the evening tide

Petrel: the evening tide

The same passage on the evening tide — HW Westhaven 1830, the streams shifted to match. The arithmetic mirrors the morning plan almost line for line, and doing it is how you find the one thing that doesn't.

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Variant · neaps

Petrel: the same passage on neaps

The same boat, route and forecast a week later, on neap tides. Less range means weaker streams and a kinder headland — and a sill window half as wide. Work it through and find out which constraint binds today.

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Variant · a worse forecast

Petrel: the forecast turns

The morning tide, unchanged — and a forecast of SW 5–6 gusting 7, sea moderate to rough, squalls. Slower boat, longer-lived race, a crew member out of their depth. Work it honestly and one of the answers is not to go.

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Variant · the engine dies

Petrel: the engine dies mid-channel

The worked passage, sailed as planned — until the engine stops halfway across Salt Channel. No gate ahead, daylight to spare and the sails drawing. What the plan quietly assumed, you now have to work out.

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