Frequently Asked Questions
How GoNoGo Weather works.
Effective July 7, 2026 · Version 2026-07-07
What does a GO / CAUTION / NO-GO read mean?
It’s a quick read on whether current and forecast conditions fall inside the limits you set. GO means conditions are within your thresholds, CAUTION means one or more factors are marginal, and NO-GO means at least one factor exceeds your limit. It is decision support, not permission or an instruction. The final call is always yours.
How is the read actually computed?
We compare each live condition (wind, waves, swell, current, visibility, and so on) to the threshold you set for it. The overall read is the worst single factor: one NO-GO factor makes the whole call NO-GO, because the most dangerous condition is the one that matters. For a route or trip, we check waypoints along the way and return the worst leg.
Where does the weather data come from?
NOAA first, and everything else labeled. Every call starts with the government feed: the National Weather Service and NOAA for marine zone and point forecasts and active marine warnings, NDBC buoys for live observed conditions, and NOAA CO-OPS for tide and tidal-current predictions. There are no crowd-sourced or user-reported conditions behind a GoNoGo Weather read, ever.
Where NOAA does not measure, we add a marine model and say so on the number. That is the swell-versus-chop split, sea direction and period, fog risk, and the hour-by-hour sweep behind “leave by.” It is labeled modeled wherever it appears, and NOAA always outranks it: a modeled figure never moves a call the National Weather Service has already made.
Every briefing cites the exact products it was built from, with the office that issued them and the time they were issued, so you can open the same product we read and check us against it.
How accurate is it, and how current is the data?
The feeds are the official ones, and they update on their own schedules. A buoy reports roughly hourly, a coastal waters forecast is reissued a few times a day.GoNoGo Weatherreads them fresh when you ask and tells you how old each reading is: every observed number carries the station it came from, how far away it is, and when it was taken. If a station has stopped reporting we say so rather than showing you its last words as though they were current, and if we cannot reach a feed the affected factor reads “not available” instead of quietly passing.
What we cannot do is see the water. Conditions move faster than any forecast, so the read is a decision aid and the captain is responsible for the vessel.
Is this a substitute for an official forecast or briefing?
No. GoNoGo Weather is a fast personal gut-check, not a replacement for NWS/NOAA forecasts and marine warnings, an FAA/Flight Service weather briefing, NOTAMs, or your own training and judgment. See our Terms for the full safety notice.
What areas do you cover? Is it US-only?
Conditions coverage is the United States: coastal waters, the Great Lakes, Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico and the USVI, all from US government sources (NWS/NOAA/NDBC/CO-OPS). Place lookup reaches further, so you can route to and name places in the Bahamas, Bermuda, the BVI and Turks & Caicos, but the further you get from US waters the thinner the marine forecast behind the read becomes. Outside those areas, expect gaps.
How do my personal limits work?
You set thresholds for the factors that would actually change your day: sustained wind, sea height, and the chance of rain you are willing to run in. Every briefing ends by printing those numbers back to you, and a limit you never set says so rather than being quietly filled in. Gusts and wave period are reported but are not limits — a gust is called out when it reaches past your wind line, and a short, steep period is described inside the sea state where it belongs. The read is measured against your numbers, so it reflects your equipment, experience, and risk tolerance rather than a generic preset. You can start from a preset and adjust from there.
What does it cost, and is there a free trial?
Right now GoNoGo is in early access and completely free, with no credit card required: sign up and every feature is unlocked. When paid plans launch there will still be a free tier, forever, with no card: your home port read against your boat's own limits, the wind chart, the turn-for-home line and the 7 AM daily briefing email. Captain is $39 a year (or $7.99 a month) and adds unlimited spots, route briefings, float plans and tidal currents. See pricing.
How do you know about local hazards like bars, shoals and passes?
By hand, one row at a time, and every row has to be traceable. The table holds crab-pot concentrations, shoaling outside marked channels, commercial traffic and ferry lanes, entrance bars that break, and passes with a dangerous tidal stream. Where being wrong means a grounding or breaking seas — bars, shoaling and currents — the row cites its source down to the volume and paragraph of the US Coast Pilot, NOAA’s own sailing directions, so you can look it up and disagree with the evidence rather than with us. Nine real hazards were deleted from that table rather than shipped uncited. Coverage is honest about itself: where we are thin, the briefing says so instead of implying a clean route.
The forecast for Saturday keeps changing. Would I know?
Yes, and this is one of the few places any app will tell you. The seven-day row is a photograph of one model run, so beside it we print what the run from yesterday said about the same day when that has moved enough to matter to your boat: “Tuesday’s wind read 12 kt in yesterday’s forecast. It now reads 21.” It only speaks when the change crosses one of your own lines and is bigger than the forecast’s own noise, so it stays quiet on the ordinary drift every forecast has.
Does it handle tides and currents?
Yes. GoNoGo reads NOAA CO-OPS tide predictions for water level at any moment plus the next high and low, and tidal current predictions for set and drift, so you know whether the current will be with you or against you and when slack water arrives. On a route, current is also folded into the arrival times, which is why our ETAs hold up.
How do I cancel, and can I get a refund?
Cancel anytime from your account: cancellation stops future renewals and your access continues through the end of the current paid period. If something isn’t right, email support@gonogowx.com and we’ll make it right.
What is the conditions map, and why is it colored differently from other apps?
Because the color is the answer, not the data. Other apps show you wind speed and leave the interpretation to you. Our map tints the water against your boat’s own limits: green is inside them, amber is close, red is beyond. The same 18 kt afternoon is green on a 53 ft flybridge and red on a 21 ft center console. Drag the slider under the map to run the whole picture forward 48 hours and find your window. It shows wind and seas only, and says so, so read the briefing above it for lightning, fog and marine warnings.
Can I just tell it where I'm going instead of filling in a form?
Yes. On Plan a cruise, type something like “Leaving Annapolis Saturday morning for Cape May” and it fills in the route and departure time for you to check. Place lookup covers about 98,000 maritime places, plus towns, marinas and zip codes, and “Use where I am” is available on both the departure and destination fields. Nothing is submitted automatically: you always review the route before the briefing is built.
Can I send a briefing to my crew or to someone ashore?
Yes. A departure briefing can be sent as a text through your phone’s share sheet, emailed to up to five people with a note, copied, or printed. The float plan shares separately, because it goes to whoever stays ashore rather than to the crew. Emails go out with your name on them.
Can I use it offline?
Not really: GoNoGo Weather fetches live conditions each time you check, so it needs a connection. You can add it to your home screen for one-tap access, but it still pulls fresh data when you open it.
What do you do with my data and location?
We use your location to fetch conditions for that spot and your profile to personalize reads. We don’t sell your data or use advertising trackers. See our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy.