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SEP 30
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New: Can My Boat Do the Loop?, sharing a place, and a map in your briefing

A new tool answers the first question every Looper asks. You can now send a place to another Loop Captain user, and your morning briefing opens a map of the day's leg. Plus three fixes.

Can My Boat Do the Loop? for a boat with a 19 ft air draft: 7 not available, 8 tight, 19 fits, 14 with no limit on file. The whole Loop on the map, the rivers and the Gulf in green, the Hudson in amber, the Champlain Canal and the western Erie in red, the coasts and Canadian water in blue where no limit is on file.
A 19 ft air draft: green fits, amber is tight, red is not available.

Can My Boat Do the Loop?

The Canada / US option cards for a 19 ft air draft: Canadian Route (via Oswego) and Canada (via Kingston & Trent-Severn) Tight — the lowest fixed bridge on the Trent-Severn is 20 ft; Canada (via Champlain / Montreal) and Canada (via Champlain / Montreal / Rideau) Not available for your boat — the Champlain Canal's lowest fixed bridge is 17 ft; US Route (via Western Erie) Not available — 15.6 ft; US Route (via Welland) and Canada (via Thousand Islands & Toronto) Fits. Below: Chicago Sanitary Canal Not available, 17 ft; the Cal-Sag Channel Tight, 19 ft.
Each option names the bridge that sets its limit.

Tools → Can My Boat Do the Loop?. Put in your air draft, draft, length, beam and range — signed in, it fills them from your boat profile; signed out, it needs no account. The map paints every route option by whether your boat fits, and each option card says why: with a 19 ft air draft, the Champlain Canal (17 ft) is "Not available for your boat" and the Trent-Severn (20 ft) is Tight. A limit we don't have on file says "Not checked" — never a guess.

Share a place with another captain

My Trip on a phone, the next destination card: Kaskaskia Lock Wall, river route, about 73 nm from Alton Marina; Change destination, and Share destination ringed in amber; under it, When to leave: By weather and By locks & bridges.

Your next destination ("Share destination" on My Trip), your last stop ("Share this stop"), a stop in your log, or any marina on the map: tap it, pick someone you've shared with before or type the email they use for Loop Captain, and add a note if you like ("leaving 7am"). It lands at the top of their My Trip — "Henry Katz shared their next destination" — with "Set as my next destination" and "Log as my stop". Nothing changes on their trip until they press one.

A map in your morning briefing

The top of a morning briefing email: Alton Marina, day 130, Katz and Dogz. A map of the day's leg from Alton Marina past St. Louis to Kaskaskia Lock Wall, mile markers 10, 30 and 50 on the line, dots for marinas, fuel, anchorages, locks and bridges, with a key. Under it, View today's route on the map, then When to leave: By weather — wind & waves along the leg for each departure time; By locks & bridges — when you reach each lock and bridge.
The map of the day's leg at the top of the briefing; tap it for the leg page.

The briefing email now carries a map of the day's leg: the route line, mile markers in your units, a numbered dot for every stop along the way. Tap it and a leg page opens — street or satellite view, the same numbers as the briefing's table, each stop's details, no login needed. Under it, "When to leave": By weather opens the Leg Departure Planner, By locks & bridges the Lock & Bridge Planner; the same pair sits on My Trip whenever you have a next destination. Bridges are judged at your boat's lowered air draft when you've set one.

Also fixed

My Trip's next destination leg map in dark mode on a phone: slate land, roads and town names readable, the leg from Alton Marina past St. Louis to Kaskaskia Lock Wall.
Dark mode, now readable.
  • Dark mode: maps were near black. Land, water, roads and names now stand apart.
  • iPhone: My Trip's bottom bar stays at the bottom when you scroll.
  • Route builder: changing one fork — through Chicago instead of the Cal-Sag, say — keeps the rest of your Loop instead of making you pick every fork again.
By Henry September 30, 2026 Permalink ⎘