Trip departure planning — the next 72 hours
Departure Windows finds the best times to leave the dock over the next 72 hours by scoring each hourly slot against four criteria.
Each hourly slot in the next 72 h is scored 0–4. A 'window' is a contiguous run of max-scoring hours. theONE shows the top 3 windows by start time (earlier first within the same score).
A criterion you don't see wasn't met — or wasn't answered. The four points are daylight, calm wind, friendly tide, and no marine alert. The marine-alert point is only awarded when NOAA was actually asked and actually answered. If the alerts request failed, or you're outside NOAA coverage where there is no marine-alert product at all, that point is withheld rather than given away. With no signal the windows use the forecast and the tide table kept on this device, when there are ones (see Weather details); a kept forecast never earns the marine-alert point. A missing marine-alert checkmark can therefore mean "we couldn't check". The tide point works the same way: with no tide data (no NOAA station within 100 miles, or NOAA did not answer and no tide table is kept on this device) it is withheld, and the screen says so under the heading.
Steps
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Open it
Mission Control → the Ready Now tile (it reads Vessel Check while a leg is underway) → See best departure windows, below the verdict rows. It has no door on Mission Control itself.
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The 4 criteria (1 point each)
Daylight: sunrise − 30 min through sunset + 30 min. Wind ≤ 15 kt: the NOAA forecast wind for the day. No marine alert: no active CAP alert at the vessel's location. Tide rising / near high: rising tide or within 60 min of high water.
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Top 3 windows
Up to three windows surface. Each row shows when the window opens, when it closes, the score, and which criteria passed vs. failed.
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Why a 3/4 window
A 3/4 window passes three criteria — you can read which one failed from the per-window reasons row. If nothing scores 4/4 in the 72-h horizon, the highest-scoring windows surface instead. With no tide data the best on offer is 3/4.
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How this differs from Ready Now
Ready Now is about the boat (fuel, issues, service). Departure Windows is about the conditions outside (weather, tide, daylight). Use both before a cruise.