Keeldragger Sailing
SoCal

Charts, mariner's information and first-hand guidance for Catalina, the Channel Islands and the Southern California Bight.

KD Charts are Keeldragger's own charts, drawn from NOAA's chart data and kept offline, and now in 3D: the islands in relief, with the chart on the water. Beside them, the guidance written by sailors who have sailed and anchored here, and the mariner's information that goes with it: NOAA's Coast Pilot, the zones and their rules, Coast Guard notices, and the weather against your own limits.

PlanningUnder wayAt anchor
Download on the App Store Free for iPhone, iPad, Mac & Apple Watch
On the App Store now
Open the Web App Any browser, no install
Plan the passage from anywhere

iPhone and iPad (iOS 17 or later) · Mac (macOS 14 or later) · Apple Watch companion (watchOS 10 or later) · the web edition in any browser

The app on iPhone in 3D over Avalon: the town and the Casino in relief under satellite imagery, KD Charts depths in the bay, and a demo boat
KD Charts · 3D Preview

KD Charts, in 3D.

Zoom in and the chart rises into the land it describes: the islands and the coast in relief under satellite imagery, with Keeldragger's own chart on the water, its soundings, lights and the guide's waypoints exactly where the flat chart puts them. See the walls of the cove, the valley behind the beach and the reef off the point before you get there. Two fingers tilt and turn; one tap goes back to the flat chart.

The Mac app in 3D over Avalon: the town, the Casino and Lovers Cove in relief, with KD Charts soundings, anchorages and the Avalon Harbor waypoint on the water
Avalon in 3D on the Mac: the Casino, the town and Lovers Cove, with KD Charts in the bay
  • Keeldragger's own chartsDrawn from NOAA's electronic navigational chart (ENC) data and redrawn as NOAA publishes updates, with the islands' own topography ashore. A tap on a rock, a light or a charted area says what it is.
  • The islands in reliefCatalina, the Channel Islands and the coast under satellite imagery, with landmarks from Avalon's Casino to Ensenada's waterfront.
  • Offline when you need itThe 3D view streams what you look at. For no signal, download its terrain, landmark models and imagery in Chart Downloads, as you do the charts.
  • A preview, and labelled one3D arrives in version 1.1 as a Preview. Like every chart in the app, it is reference and planning material, not for navigation.
The iPhone app in 3D over Two Harbors, looking across the Isthmus to Cat Harbor, with the guide's waypoints at Isthmus Cove, Cherry Cove and Harbor Reef
Two Harbors, with Cat Harbor beyond the Isthmus
KD Charts on iPhone at Santa Cruz Island's east end, with island topography and the guide's anchorages from Potato Harbor to Smugglers Cove
KD Charts with island topography: Santa Cruz's east end
First-hand guide

Written by sailors who have sailed and anchored here.

Every published waypoint in the guide is first-hand: written by a sailor who has sailed to that cove, anchored or picked up a mooring there, and come home to write it down. The approach, the holding, the depths, the moorings, who to call on the radio, and which swell makes it miserable, across the Channel Islands, Catalina and the Southern California Bight. Each page credits the sailor who wrote it.

The Mac app with Scorpion Anchorage's guide page beside Santa Cruz Island's east end in 3D: summary, comfort forecast, exposure rose and guidance
Scorpion Anchorage's page beside the 3D chart: summary, comfort forecast, exposure and guidance
Exposure

Which swell finds the cove

Each anchorage's openings to swell and wind, drawn as a rose, and a comfort forecast that reads the NWS swell against them, night by night.

From other boats

Conditions, with their age

Send a photo or a conditions report from any waypoint. Reports from other boats show how old they are and go when they expire, unverified until Keeldragger checks them.

Your margin notes

Yours stay yours

Add your own notes, photos and waypoints on top. The guide updates over the air and never overwrites them.

Mariner's information

The official word, on the chart.

Charts tell you what is there. The rest of the official word is a tap away, in its source's own words.

  • From Coast PilotNOAA's U.S. Coast Pilot 7 on 43 waypoints, entrance cautions for the harbors whose entrances shoal or break, on the chart and on planned legs, and "Read the rule" on every charted area that cites a regulation.
  • Zones and their rulesMilitary & security zones, 61 areas from Navy danger zones to Coast Guard security zones, each with its rule; marine protected areas; and La Jolla's swim and 5-knot areas.
  • Notices to MarinersCoast Guard District 11's Local and Broadcast Notices, filtered to your route, with hazard areas drawn on the chart.
  • Weather against your limitsNWS marine forecasts in their own words, every departure window coloured by your own wind and sea limits.
The iPhone tap card off San Miguel Island: depth, range and bearing, the Navy danger area with From Coast Pilot, Read the rule, and the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary
A tap off San Miguel Island: the danger area, and its rule

For planning, under way and at anchor.

One reference for the whole trip, from the kitchen table to the hook down.

Planning

Look at the cove in 3D, read the page a sailor wrote about it, and watch the weather develop against your limits. Draw the route: every leg's bearing, distance and time, and what it crosses, from the shipping lanes to a zone or an after-dark arrival. Print the cards packet before you drive to the boat.

Under way

Charts, cards, cached notices and harbor maps, all aboard with no signal. Your position, course and speed run on the phone's own GPS; with your boat's gateway, AIS and a collision watch join them, and the log keeps itself.

At anchor

The comfort forecast reads tonight's swell against the cove's real openings, and the anchor alarm keeps an extra eye on your swing. Armed alarms keep running with the screen locked, and Shore Watch follows you ashore.

The skipper decides.

SoCal renders no verdicts. There's no green light to sail and no red light to stay — because that call belongs to you, and it always will. What the app does is put the information in front of you: the forecast in the words NWS wrote, the buoys reporting what the water is actually doing, the Coast Guard notices that touch your route, and the shipping lanes you're about to cross.

Pick a destination and the app quietly checks the route. If a gale warning or a rocket-launch safety zone sits across your track — or the straight line runs over an island, or the arrival works out to after dark at your own cruise speed — it stands in front of you before you commit. Once, clearly, and then it hands the decision back.

Every passage card is borrowed experience from boats that made these crossings before you. Read it at the dock, carry it offline, and make the call like the skipper you are.

The web edition: the same chart, from any browser.

Plan the passage from the kitchen table, the office, or a phone with no room for another app. app.socal.keeldragger.com runs the same charts, forecasts, notices and analyzers as the app — nothing to install.

Plan anywhere

Routes, plans, the printed page

Draw a route over KD Charts, get every leg's bearing, distance, time and arrival light, the shipping-lane crossings and the depth under your draft, and print the passage plan — the same arithmetic the app does, tested against it.

The picture

Weather, notices, the marine layer

Live NWS advisories shaded on the chart, the wind, seas and current fields as a moving picture three days out, buoys, tides, whales, and the GOES marine layer with three hours of history — refreshed while the tab stays open.

Your boat

Reads the phone, syncs the rest

Signed into iCloud, it reads the waypoints, routes, cards and log your phone keeps. With a free Keeldragger account, routes, waypoints, cards, the log and photos travel both ways between the browser and the apps, end-to-end encrypted.

What stays aboard

Where the app is the app

A browser has no GPS worth trusting under way, no line to your boat's instruments or AIS, and no anchor watch — so the web edition plans and reviews, and the app aboard keeps the watch. The two are built from the same source, one ahead of the other by days at most.

Open the Web App app.socal.keeldragger.com
Free, no install, no account needed to start

The reference shelf for these waters.

Built for the Southern California Bight — all eight Channel Islands, Catalina, and the mainland coast from Point Conception to San Diego.

Charts

KD Charts, fully offline

Keeldragger's own charts, drawn from NOAA's electronic navigational chart (ENC) data and redrawn as NOAA publishes updates: soundings deep enough to pick your spot in a crowded cove, and a tap on a rock, light or caution area says what it is. Download once at the dock; mid-channel there is no signal, and the chart doesn't care. The NOAA chart (May 2024 baseline) is still there, and satellite imagery is a tap away.

Routes

Routes, point by point

Tap legs onto the chart or type the positions — 33 26.598 N will do. Every leg shows its bearing, distance and time at your cruise speed, and the app warns once about shipping lanes, land or charted shallows along the way. Follow it leg by leg; one red Stop ends it. GPX in and out, a printable passage plan, and on the Mac, Plan opens routes, areas and waypoints in a sidebar beside the chart.

Weather

The forecast, against your limits

NWS marine forecasts and live buoy reports for the waters you're actually crossing. Set your own wind and sea limits and the departure matrix highlights every forecast period that exceeds them — in red, in the forecast's own words.

Animated Weather

The forecast as a moving picture

Wind, seas, or surface current as a living field over the chart — colour, particles, and crest lines from NOAA's own GFS, GFS-Wave, and RTOFS models. Scrub three days into the future; the model and its age are named right beside the slider, and a tap reads the number under your finger.

Notices to Mariners

The paperwork, in one place

Weekly Local Notices and live Broadcast Notices from Coast Guard District 11, filtered to what's near your route. Active hazard zones — live fire, rocket launches, safety areas — draw themselves on the chart and expire with the broadcast.

Today's Crossing

Your passage on one page

Pick a destination and get a live briefing — chart snapshot with your route, advisories on the track, the forecast, and a shipping-lane warning when your course crosses one. Print it with the cards as one packet for the nav station.

Passage Cards

Quick cards for the moments that matter

Picking up a fore-and-aft mooring, crossing the LA/Long Beach lanes, and the harbor contacts and VHF channels that matter once you're there — each card carrying your own boat's details. Avalon's live mooring availability with your boat's size column highlighted, and the official harbor maps cached for offline reading.

Anchorages

A cruising guide written at anchor

Every published waypoint is first-hand — approach notes, holding, depth, moorings, exposure, photos — written by a sailor who anchored there. Add your own notes, photos, and waypoints on top; the guide updates over the air and never overwrites your margin notes. Sunrise, sunset, and tonight's moon are computed aboard, offline.

Whales

Whale season, on the chart

Recent sightings from Whale Safe, each naming who reported it; Whale Safe's Whale Presence Rating for Southern California; and the IMO Area to be Avoided ("Whales - IMO Area to be Avoided" on the chart) around the northern Channel Islands and Santa Barbara Island, which ships of 300 gross tons and over are asked to avoid. It doesn't bind your boat, but the whales are there for you too.

My Areas

Your own lines on the chart

Draw a polygon, drop a circle, or paste coordinates straight from a Local Notice. A watched area is flagged on every route leg that enters it, and crossing its edge under way goes into the log. The web edition draws and edits them too.

On watch, under way and at anchor.

What the app does once the lines are off — on the phone at the helm, the iPad at the nav station, and your wrist.

Alarms

Anchor and collision alarms on watch with you

Drop the pin and set the circle — the rode helper suggests a radius from the scope you actually paid out — and the alarm sounds if the boat leaves it. A CPA collision watch solves every AIS target continuously, and wind, depth and feed-loss alarms cover the williwaw night. Each alarm has its own tone, and Speak alarms says the number over it. Armed alarms keep running with the screen locked.

MOB

Man overboard, one tap

The red MOB button on the chart bar marks the spot the instant it's touched. The screen becomes the three numbers that matter — bearing, distance and elapsed time — and with Speak alarms on, the voice calls out bearing and distance every fifteen seconds.

Shore Watch

The watch follows you ashore

Leave the boat's iPad or phone aboard with alarms armed and a connection alive, and row in with your phone. A drag, a tripped alarm or a new advisory reaches your pocket through your own iCloud, and the board shows the boat's position, wind, depth and battery.

AIS & Instruments

Your boat's data, on deck

With an NMEA Wi-Fi gateway aboard — a PredictWind DataHub, a Yacht Devices YDNR-02, or similar — the chart shows the AIS targets your boat receives, with names, range and CPA, and an instrument display puts wind, depth and speed beside the chart. The app only listens to the gateway. GPS position, course and speed work on every boat, gateway or not.

Ship's Log

A log that keeps itself

Passages open when you get under way and close when you arrive or anchor, with watch entries every half hour, events as they happen, and a minute-by-minute instrument record. Every passage prints as a PDF with its track on a map, and the season binds into a volume.

Follow Me

Share your boat, or follow one

Switch on Share My Boat and, while a passage is open, anyone signed in to a free Keeldragger account can sail beside you live — your position, instruments and the AIS you receive. Opt-in, with your consent each time you switch it on. Or follow a boat that is sharing: her instruments and the traffic around her, as if you were aboard. While you share or follow, the other sharing boats and the AIS they hear show on your chart as the fleet — a little behind real time. It never sets off the collision alarm; your own VHF always wins.

Buddy Boats & Messages

Your friends on the water

Keep your buddy boats in Favorites, and the app knocks once when one comes within range — and says how it knows: your AIS, her Follow Me, or AIS another sharing boat heard. Message a buddy, a boat that is sharing, or a group, with your position attached when you want it; set a check-in and your buddies hear if you miss it. Report and block are a tap away. Not for emergencies: that's VHF 16.

Apple Watch

The alarms on your wrist

The companion app shows every armed watch, with Mute and Acknowledge when one sounds, plus wind, depth and the bearing, distance and ETA to your waypoint — with the phone in a pocket or below.

Night Mode

Red on black after dark

The whole app turns red on black, with the chart dimmed, so a glance at the screen doesn't cost your night vision. Automatic from dusk to dawn on iPhone and iPad, worked out from where the boat is.

On the phone at the helm. On the Mac at the chart table. In the browser from anywhere.

The same cards, notes, routes and vessel record on every device, kept in step through your own iCloud or an optional Keeldragger account with end-to-end encryption — and the web edition reads your boat either way, so the route you draw on a laptop at home is waiting on the phone at the dock. The screenshots show the NOAA chart, and AIS from the app's built-in simulator, labelled as such.

NOAA chart of the crossing from San Pedro to Catalina with a course line to Isthmus Cove, simulated AIS targets, and waypoints
Course line to Isthmus Cove, with AIS from the built-in simulator
Chart with a Small Craft Advisory shaded amber over the outer waters, and simulated AIS targets
Advisories shaded on the chart — this SCA was live; the AIS is simulated
Satellite close-up of Cat Harbor showing the mooring rows and anchorage
Cat Harbor from above — every mooring, before you commit
Chart with the instrument display and AIS targets, both from the app's built-in simulator
Instruments and AIS, here from the simulator — aboard, from your boat's gateway
Animated wind forecast over the chart of the Catalina channel, with the Wind/Seas/Current selector and forecast slider
The wind field, alive — scrub three days ahead
Anchor watch circle drawn around the boat in Catalina Harbor, at a simulated GPS position
The anchor alarm — your swing circle, watched
Daylight panel with sunrise, sunset, first and last light in local and UTC, and tonight's moon phase
Daylight & moon — computed aboard, no signal needed
Mooring card with live Avalon availability table and harbor maps
Avalon availability, live — your size column boxed
Today's Crossing briefing with chart snapshot and advisories
Today's Crossing — the passage on one page
Quick Cards list: Today's Crossing, Picking Up a Mooring at Catalina, Crossing the Shipping Lanes, Harbor Contacts and Channels, and the AIS contacts card
Passage cards — editable, printable, yours

Your data is your data.

No account needed

Everything works without signing up. Your log, waypoints, routes, photos and vessel record are stored on your devices, and photos you add are stripped of location metadata.

iCloud by default

If your device is signed in to iCloud, the app syncs through your own private iCloud database, which Keeldragger can't see. Turn it off in Settings › Account & Sync.

An optional account, end-to-end encrypted

A free Keeldragger account adds sync with the web edition and other devices. Your content is encrypted on your device with a passphrase that never leaves it: Keeldragger sees your email address and the files' names, sizes and dates, never what's in them.

Follow Me is opt-in, and visible

Share My Boat is off until you turn it on. While a passage is open it sends your position, boat details, instruments and the AIS you receive to Keeldragger, anyone signed in to a Keeldragger account can watch you live, and shared passages are kept 400 days unless you delete them.

Messages are private, not sealed

Messages, photos and positions you send go only to the people in the conversation, but they are not end-to-end encrypted: Keeldragger can read them, and does so only to deliver them and to act on a report. Deleting your account deletes every message you sent.

No tracking. No ads.

No analytics, no advertising, no third-party SDKs, and no data is ever sold. Location is used in the background only while an alarm is armed, a passage is logging, or you're sharing your boat. The websites count page loads: which page, when, and which site linked to it, with no IP address or device details, kept for two days. The apps' chart and data downloads are not logged.

The details, including how long everything is kept and how to delete it: read the privacy policy.

How this app was made. This software was developed with AI-assisted coding tools, then tested and corrected by hand. The data is real. Forecasts, buoy readings, notices to mariners, charts, bathymetry, tides and imagery come from NOAA, the National Weather Service, the Coast Guard, USGS and NASA, and where a source is not a government agency, such as Whale Safe sightings, UCLA's kelp survey, the harbors' own mooring tables and maps, or MarineCadastre's traffic counts, it is named on screen. What the app does with that data is what a navigator does with it: selects it, crops and resamples it, draws it, and does arithmetic on it, such as times and distances, the state of the tide between the published highs and lows, a comfort score, the depth under your draft. Every quote is in the source's own words, every computed number is labelled as computed, and nothing is invented, guessed or embellished. And every waypoint is first-hand: written and edited by hand by a sailor with local knowledge who has actually visited that place, anchored there, landed there. None of it is machine-generated or scraped from a gazetteer. First-hand still is not a survey — moorings move and permits change — so read it as a good sailor's notes and confirm what matters with your own eyes.
Not for navigation. Keeldragger Sailing SoCal is reference and planning material. Its charts — KD Charts, drawn by Keeldragger from NOAA ENC® data, and the NOAA chart — are not official and not certified for navigation, its forecasts are the government's own and can be wrong, and its guidance is a starting point — not local knowledge, not a lookout, and not seamanship. Navigate by official charts and publications, proper instruments, and your own eyes. The captain or master remains solely responsible for the vessel, the crew, and safe passage, and the developer assumes no liability for the app's use or its output.