What Your Boat’s Draft Changes When You Navigate to a Fishing Spot With Wavve Boating

In Wavve Boating, the draft you enter, meaning the vertical distance from the top of the water to the bottom of the boat, decides which water the chart shades red as potentially too shallow for your boat. The shallow-water alerts adjust to that same number, and AutoRouting uses it in every route it builds to a fishing spot. You enter it once, and the app works from it for the whole trip.

Put a flats skiff and a deeper center console in the same bay, and less of the bay is shaded red for the skiff than for the center console. For an angler working a flat, that difference shapes how close to the shallow edge you plan to fish, and on a bright day you can still read the shading from the console, since the map is designed to stay clear in sunlight. The shading also tracks the day’s water, because Dynamic Depths adjusts charted depth for the water level or tide from a nearby station where one is available, or a level you set by hand where there is none. In tidal water you can also see the day’s high and low tides, which helps when you plan a flat around the low.

Those same two boats crossing the same flat are also warned at different depths, because the shallow-water alerts in the phone app work from the draft each skipper entered.

When you head for a spot, AutoRouting builds a course between two points while considering obstacles, channels and water depths, and every AutoRoute Mode, whether Prefer Channels, Most Direct or Balanced, works from your boat’s draft. An AutoRoute also shows its estimated travel time and the available weather and water-level conditions. On the water you can follow the route turn by turn and check it against current conditions and your own judgment as you go, and for the run home you can swap the start and end. Routes are calculated on Wavve’s servers, so build and save the run before you leave cell service. On water with no chart data, AutoRouting is not available, though GPS still shows your position.

If you enter less than your boat’s real draft, water too shallow for your hull may not be shaded red, and the shallow-water warnings will be working from the wrong number. If you fish from more than one boat, update the draft each time you change hulls.