On The Hook

On The Hook grades anchorages by how sheltered they will be, so you can decide where to spend the night. Pick a bay and the app compares the wind forecast against the shape of the surrounding shoreline — how far wind can travel over open water before it reaches you — and turns that into a plain answer: Excellent, Good, Marginal or Exposed. It also tells you which direction you are sheltered from and which direction leaves you open. Shelter grades • Nearby anchorages graded from the hourly wind forecast • Grades update as the forecast changes • Shows the compass direction you are most sheltered from, and most exposed to • Anchorages imported automatically from OpenStreetMap as you move • Add, rename and move your own spots Forecast and conditions • Hourly wind, gusts and direction from the National Weather Service, with Open-Meteo as a fallback • The NWS recreational forecast for your area, in its own words • Live observations from the nearest NDBC buoys • Marine warnings and advisories, with notifications • Sunrise, sunset, civil twilight, moon illumination and next full moon Chart and map • NOAA chart layer over a topographic or satellite base map • Tap any chart object to see what it is • Your position and heading • Night mode that dims the chart instead of inverting it Anchor watch • Enter rode out and bow height; the app works out your swing circle • Alarm if you drag outside it, running in the background with the screen off • Detects when you have dropped the hook, so you don't have to remember to arm the alarm • Survives a reboot Offline • Download map, chart and anchorage data for an area before you leave • Everything downloaded keeps working with no signal at all Also included • Track recording, exportable as GPX • Man-overboard waypoint, with the position in degrees and decimal minutes so you can read it out over the radio • VHF channel reference • Boat profile — length, beam, draft and people aboard • Feet or metric throughout Your data stays on your phone There is no account and no sign-in. Your positions, tracks and anchorages are stored on your device and are deleted when you uninstall. Coordinates go to the weather services only to fetch a forecast for where you are, and are not stored. *** Not for navigation *** On The Hook is a planning aid, not a navigation system. The chart layer is re-rendered chart data — it is not an official electronic navigational chart and does not meet chart carriage requirements. Shelter grades come from a forecast and a shoreline. They know nothing about holding ground, depth, tide, current, swell, wakes, traffic or local rules, and a forecast can be wrong. Navigate with official, up-to-date charts. The skipper remains responsible for the vessel and everyone aboard. Location use Your location is needed to grade the water around you and to run the anchor alarm. Background location is used only to keep the anchor watch running while the app is closed.