A LITTLE CURIOSITY. A LITTLE SALT WATER.
Because “what if we leave later?”
deserved a better answer.
I’m Wilk, a controls engineer and a boater in New Jersey. I like understanding how things work—and sometimes that turns into a website.
Built for the fun of figuring it out.
This started with a question I had for my own boat trips: how much does our departure time change the passage? A tide table can tell you what happens at a station. I wanted to see what happens when we actually get there.
So I started putting the pieces together: NOAA predictions, a course, boat speed, and a moving arrival time. Then came the New Jersey inside passage, based on an actual recorded trip—with its slow sections and bridge waits, because boats rarely spend an entire day at their advertised cruising speed.
I make these projects because I enjoy the combination of engineering, boating and a question that refuses to leave me alone. There is no grand business plan behind this one. Mostly, I wanted something useful for myself, and thought other curious boaters might enjoy playing with it too.
A way to explore the timing.
The current planner asks how changing current affects time underway. The inside tide planner asks how much tide is predicted when the boat reaches the shallow places I care about. They make it easier to try a different departure, change speed, or add a longer bridge wait and see what moves.
The predictions come from NOAA; the presentation, route timing and estimates are this project’s work, developed with help from AI tools. The detailed Help page explains the assumptions, the two new nearby-station tide proxies and how to read the results.
This is a personal planning experiment. It does not verify a navigable route, water depth, bridge clearance or actual conditions. I use proper navigation tools for those jobs.
MORE THINGS MADE OUT OF CURIOSITY
The BitterRadish collection.
These passage planners belong to my growing collection of little projects: things I wanted to understand, make, or simply have some fun with. The BitterRadish home page is still taking shape, but that’s where the collection will live.
Visit bitterradish.com ↗The main site may not be ready yet. The planners here are already available.