Following a buddy's tracks
It's safer to follow in a buddy's wake. When a boat you know shares its passages with you, you can see exactly where it went and how much water it had, coloured by depth.
Follow a boat
- Ask the other skipper for their follow link or code. They find it under Buddies → Share your boat.
- Open the link, or enter the code under Buddies → Boats you follow.
- They approve your request. Nobody can follow your boat without your approval, and there is no directory of boats: you can only follow a boat whose skipper gives you their code.
See their passages
- Tap Buddy passages on the left of the map (the sail icon). You'll see their recent passages, each with the least depth they logged and the boat's draft.
- Tap a passage to draw it on the map, coloured from red (under 2 m) to dark blue (15 m and more), with the shallowest point marked.
- Soundings from in What am I looking at? filters the whole map to boats I follow or boats like mine (similar draft and hull type).
Depths are reduced to the lowest tide (LAT), so add the tide height for when you'll be there, then allow for your own draft and a margin. A buddy's track is a cross-check, not a navigation aid: they may have passed at a different tide, and a coral head can sit just beside a safe track.
(The video uses a demo account; the boat is shown as "SV Buddy".)
← All help articles · Still stuck? Open Help in the app, or email mail@sonarbuddy.com.