2026 Captain’s Edition
Coastal Passage & Float Plan PDF
Sources, Legs, Your Own Limits & the Copy Left Ashore
- 26 Pages / 186 Register Lines A4 and US Letter included.
- 735 Live Fields Interactive and 100% offline.
- 6 Navigational Models C1 through C6.
- Instant Digital Access Download links the moment you pay.
A limit agreed in the cockpit at breakfast is a decision. The same limit considered at midnight in a rising sea is a negotiation.
This is the one document in the series that is filled in before the event rather than after it, and the only one a copy of which stays with somebody ashore. It records two things: every source behind your plan — with when it was issued and what it actually said — and the limits you set for yourself while the decision was still cheap.
What you receive
A seven-part sheet, and one page that leaves the boat
- A 16-line vessel description and a 10-person crew page — the float plan proper, written for somebody who has never seen her and may one day have to look for her
- A 20-line source register recording every forecast, tide table, pilot and chart correction, with its issue time and what it said in your own words
- 12 legs with ground track and heading both, plus eight tidal gates and clearances
- 12 limits you set yourself before departure, each with a column for where the figure came from
- 10 bolt-holes and an 8-call communication schedule — with the column that makes a float plan work: what your shore contact does if you do not call
- A 16-entry watch log, 6 navigational models, and a detachable 18-line shore copy
Why there are no limits printed in it
No wind speed, no sea state, no visibility minimum, no distance off and no under-keel margin appears anywhere in these 26 pages. A printed limit would be read as permission, and no document can know your boat, your crew, your coast, or the state any of them are in this morning.
Part IV is a page where you write your own — agreed with the crew, dated, and with a column recording where each figure came from. A limit with a source behind it survives a difficult afternoon; one without does not.
The column that makes a float plan work
A communication schedule with no agreed action is a courtesy call. The last column of Part V is what your shore contact should do if you do not make contact — the hour at which they stop waiting, and who they telephone. The commonest failure of a float plan is not a missing plan; it is a safe arrival nobody reported.
The source register turns a plan into a decision you can defend
A forecast consulted at 0600 for a 1400 departure is eight hours old, and whether that matters is a judgement you can only make if the time is written down. Three passages later, the same column tells you whether your local forecast runs optimistic — which is worth knowing before it matters.
Six models, all of them arithmetic
Leg time, course to steer across a tidal stream, latest departure for a gate, clearance over a charted depth using your margin, endurance under power on your measured burn rate, and — completed afterwards — how optimistic your planning speed turned out to be. Most skippers plan optimistically for years without ever finding out by how much.
Who it is for
- Skippers making their first coastal passages beyond familiar water
- Crews who want the go/no-go conversation to happen at the pontoon rather than at sea
- Anyone whose family ashore currently has no idea what to do if the phone stays silent
- Instructors and club members who want a consistent sheet across a fleet
Technical specification
| Product ID | AML-PASS-2026-01 |
| Extent | 26 pages · 7 parts · 6 navigational models |
| Register lines | 186 across vessel, crew, sources, legs, limits, refuges and watch log |
| Interactivity | 735 live PDF form fields — 32 tick boxes and 703 entry fields |
| Formats included | A4 and US Letter, both fillable and print-ready, 26 pages each |
| Vessels | Sail or power, any coast — no region-specific data |
| Reusable | Part I is filled once; every later passage takes about ten minutes |
| Offline | No app, no account, no connection required once downloaded |
What it is not
This document teaches no navigation, no collision avoidance and no seamanship. It is not a rule of the road, it is not a substitute for training, and it does not relieve the person in charge of the vessel of a judgement that is theirs alone.
Models C1 to C5 are arithmetic and geometry performed on figures you supply from your own charts, tide tables and engine. They are not a determination that any passage is safe to make.
Instant download. Your links appear on screen the moment payment clears, and arrive by email within a minute. They do not expire.
2026 Captain's Edition · Revision 1.0 · AML-PASS-2026-01. Apex Marine Labs designs the organisational process behind good seamanship. Our documents record and organise; they do not replace training, a qualified instructor, or the judgement of the person in charge of the vessel.