Can you use AI to make a decent passage plan at sea? Would you? – Lu Heikell

Lu Heikell casts her expert eye over an AI generated passage plan and find it leaves quite a lot to be desired

From time to time, we get asked for advice on cruising routes from those looking to explore a new area. We are generally happy to oblige, as it usually isn’t too time-consuming. It could be just a simple, ‘Shall I go north or south of Sicily?’ or, ‘Can you recommend a place to leave the boat in northern Greece?’

Our correspondents usually display a broad knowledge of the area, and have an outline of a plan and only need a few pointers. One time, we had a skipper looking for details on which ports he could get into, and more importantly, where he could refuel on a trip through the Aegean on his 250-foot motor yacht. The answer: not many!

Occasionally though, it can be rather more open-ended, something more like, ‘I’m taking my new yacht from Gibraltar to Greece – can you just outline a route and the must-see places to go, within my three-week timescale, in July?’

I totally appreciate that some sailors are extremely time-poor and are more than happy to rely on others – be it us or someone else, or perhaps a social media group – to effectively plan their cruise for them. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this, of course, and sharing ideas and knowledge with fellow sailors is an age-old pastime that continues online and in person to this day.

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Anyway, imagine if this sailor reads up on the places on their list, plans their ‘must-see’ tours and off they go, happy that their passage plan is complete. But what happens when a turn in the weather exposes their next anchorage to the new wind? Or if a breakdown means they need to head somewhere where it can be fixed? Or if a harbour is simply full?

Okay, it’s no biggy if everything else is going smoothly, but events have a habit of compounding, and a broader knowledge of a sailing area and its weather patterns always helps when plans go awry.

For me it gets even more interesting when I know something of the history of the area and its peoples, culture, and, of course, its cuisine. Even if it is only a brief visit. There are a whole heap of other questions that we take into consideration when helping with passage plans, not least, what is the age and competence of the crew? Is it family? Children or non-sailors? And what are their expectations and preferences? You might be surprised how often this hasn’t been considered.

Recently, we had a new experience. Someone sent us their AI-generated passage plan for a cruise through the Mediterranean and asked us to critique it. Now, while I am aware that we all now use AI to a certain extent, and the search engine on my computer offers me AI-generated answers to my queries (some quite bizarre), even so, I do not have a wide working knowledge of AI.

I was very curious to see what the artificial-passage-planner had drawn up for our friend.

It was a bit of a revelation. Sure, I had little knowledge of the criteria made for the request, but the output was ‘interesting’ to say the least. For a relatively time-critical passage, the auto-nav had routes swerving obvious stops, before doubling back (sometimes more than 80 miles) and leaving an unnecessarily long passage where places for stopovers were limited.

I guess in some ways I was cheered – not quite out of a job yet! But on the other hand, newbies to an area may take this stuff as gospel and follow it slavishly. Of course, in this case, we shared our opinion with the guy, and suggested he had a read-up before coming back to us with any questions.

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