Leave a float plan
Where you are going, when you will be back, and what to do if you are not. It becomes a link you send to one person ashore — they need no account to read it.
This is a note to a person, not a filing. The Coast Guard does not accept float plans and has no copy of this one. If the boat is overdue, somebody has to make the call — and that somebody is whoever is reading this.
That is not a weakness of the feature — it is what a float plan has always been. The whole mechanism is that one specific person knows they are the one who has to notice, and knows exactly when to start.
Creating a plan needs an account, because a plan belongs to somebody and only that somebody can cancel it or close it. Reading one does not — whoever you send the link to opens it and reads it, with nothing to sign up for.
What is stored, and for how long
- What is stored: the boat, the crew count, any names you type, where you are going, your times, and the forecast at the moment you created the plan.
- What is never stored: your position. This is a plan, not a tracker — nothing here knows where the boat is.
- Who can see it: anybody holding the link. That is the point of it. Do not post the link publicly.
- How long: the link dies automatically a day after your return time, and no later than 14 days out. Cancelling a plan kills the link immediately and erases the crew names, the contact, your notes and the boat description from the database. Only the boat name and the timestamps are kept, so you can still tell which plan you cancelled.
Shoreline Scout does not monitor float plans, does not send them anywhere, and is not a rescue service. Dispatch numbers shown on a plan are the ones the services publish themselves.