A float plan is a written note of where you are going on the water, who is with you, and when someone should start worrying. It is left with a person ashore — not filed with any agency — and its only job is to answer the questions a rescuer will ask if you do not come back on time.
That is the whole idea. It is not paperwork, and it takes about two minutes.
Why the "when to worry" part matters most
Search and rescue begins when someone reports you overdue. If nobody ashore knows when you were due, that clock never starts. A float plan that says where you went but not when you are expected back is doing half the job.
Give the person ashore two times: when you expect to return, and the time at which they should call for help if they have not heard from you. Make the second one later than the first by a margin you are comfortable with — engine trouble, a slow tide and a flat phone battery are all more common than emergencies — but make it a definite time, not "later".
What to put in one
The fields below are the ones our emergency guidance tells a caller to have ready, which is a good test of what a float plan is for: everything on this list is something a rescuer will ask.
The boat
- Make, length and colour, and the registration number
- Engine type, and how much fuel you left with
- What it looks like from the air, if that is different from the above — hull colour and canopy colour do most of the work here
The people
- How many are aboard
- Any injuries, medical conditions, or access needs that would change a rescue
The trip
- Where you launched, and where you intend to go
- Your intended route, and any stops
- Departure time, expected return time, and the "call for help by" time
What you have with you
- Communications: VHF radio, mobile phone, satellite messenger
- Life jackets, flares, and any beacon (EPIRB or PLB) with its registration
- Anything else that would keep you alive while waiting
Who to give it to
Someone who will be reachable and who will actually act. A partner, a neighbour, the marina office. Not a group chat, and not somebody who will be asleep with their phone off at the hour you told them to worry.
Tell them plainly what to do if the time passes: call the Coast Guard, and give them the plan. They do not need to know boating; they need to be able to read your note aloud to someone who does.
Closing it
Tell them when you are back. This is the step people skip, and it is the one that causes an unnecessary search — an expensive, occasionally dangerous operation launched for someone sitting in a car park. Closing a float plan takes one message.
If something does go wrong
For grave or imminent danger, call MAYDAY on VHF-FM Channel 16, or 911 where you have mobile coverage. Channel 16 is the international distress and calling frequency and is monitored by the Coast Guard and by other vessels near you, which is why it beats a phone call in most places a boat actually is.
Our emergency page has the MAYDAY script, a worked example, and the towing numbers for the case where nobody is in danger and you just need a tow.
Filing one in FishingMobile
The Float Plan feature keeps them, sends them to the contacts you nominate, and knows when you are overdue. You can file one here — it needs a free account, because a float plan is only useful if there is somewhere to store it and someone to notify.
You can also just write one on paper and leave it on the kitchen table. That works too, and it is much better than nothing.
Before you go
Check the conditions for your launch point and departure time — wind, waves, visibility and any advisory — on the trip planner. It gives a go or no-go call rather than a wall of numbers.