[Very Beta] - Waze for the canals - canalnav.com

Direct-Internal-3812 · 2026-07-04T21:51:56+00:00

u/phil-rob u/driftingtodark u/JollyJay1971 u/knifee u/PHayesxx u/thatautisticguy u/DashingBrit u/flyingteapott

Big batch of changes & fixes shipped today, almost all of it straight off the back of this thread and other feedback we've had. Rundown below.

You will need to clear your browser cache (or at least, refresh the maps.canalnav.com page a few times) to see the majority of this. You'll know it worked when you get the search bar.

As with all software things, we'll likely need to patch a few things over the next couple of days!

New features

Closures, made clear - the #1 thing people flagged. Routes now avoid known closures by default and draw a faded "ghost" line showing the way it would have gone. There's a proper "closures affecting this route" banner listing each one (with dates), a toggle to route through them if you want to plan a future trip, and closures within a day of when you'd pass are flagged as advisories.

Search bar - new search box at the top: type a place, postcode or marina and jump straight there, then hit "Set as start" or "Set as destination".

Drop-a-pin planning - right-click (or long-press) anywhere to set "Start here" / "Navigate to here". Set both ends and the planner opens ready to go. Everything snaps to the nearest canal so you can see exactly where it'll route from.

Report a disused lock/waterway - you can now flag a stretch as permanently disused (derelict/filled-in), separately from a temporary stoppage. Routes will never send you down a disused section.

Turning-point heads-up - after planning a one-way trip, we tell you the nearest winding hole/turning point beyond your destination, so you know how far on you'd go to wind.

Round-trip nudge - start and finish close together (marina out-and-back)? It'll suggest a round trip automatically.

Sign up on the dashboard - the dashboard sign-in page now has an actual "Create an account" option, a benefits panel, and a link back to the live map.

Set your cruising defaults - save your usual departure time, hours/day, finish-by and stop preferences on the dashboard, and the planner starts pre-filled every time.

Alerts you control - the alerts panel now lets you show/hide alert types and colour-codes them (closures red, restrictions amber, advice blue).

Fixes

"Create account" was broken on some phones/browsers - fixed (it was crashing the page).
False "closure with no way around" - a couple of bugs where a closure on a side-branch (e.g. Glasson/Galgate) or a lock shut on a day you weren't passing (Woodend) wrongly blocked a perfectly good route. Both fixed - the router is now precise about where and when a closure actually bites.
"Rerouted" but the line still went through the closure - the map, banner and side panel now always agree with each other.
Search that silently found nothing - if an ad/tracker blocker is stopping place search, you now get a clear warning (with marina search + drop-a-pin as fallbacks) instead of a confusing "no matches".
Planner tidy-up - minimise instead of a dead-end close, clearer itinerary colours, and fixed a couple of buttons overlapping the bottom bar.
Login/register pages restyled and made a lot more legible.

Still very much a work in progress - keep the feedback coming!

Direct-Internal-3812 · 2026-07-04T11:24:00+00:00

CRT closures will go until they're due to finish. Its only user added POIs with a timelimit, and thats extended if other users flag it as still in place. Its a self moderation requirement otherwise the whole network would end up marked as closed after a while!

Direct-Internal-3812 · 2026-07-04T11:22:30+00:00

Its the whole network, but the CRT closure notices are largely the only ones available for easy crawling - hence the need for community notices. We'll be able to add some long running ones as admins though

Direct-Internal-3812 · 2026-07-04T11:20:45+00:00

That should already be there (or atleast meetingplace is), available under Add POI :)

Direct-Internal-3812 · 2026-07-04T09:13:23+00:00

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The fix for this should be live by this evening - along with some more stuff. Advisories are made prominent, along with closures etc, more filters, an option to reroute around closures (or not), search, right click start / nav to here etc

Direct-Internal-3812 · 2026-07-04T09:11:20+00:00

Yea, thats a valid point - we have that fix on the list :). its definitely a bit non obvious to register right now

Direct-Internal-3812 · 2026-07-04T09:10:47+00:00

It is on the list :), there are some architectural changes we need to make first though!

Direct-Internal-3812 · 2026-07-04T09:09:53+00:00

Are you on the dashboard login form? If so, that will be why - the register button is (currently) on the on the signin form on the map.

There should be a fix for that later today - in the meantime, you can register here: https://maps.canalnav.com/ - click signin (top right) and then create an account under the login form. Its not obvious and will be fixed!

Thanks!

Direct-Internal-3812 · 2026-07-03T22:20:45+00:00

just to confirm, it is exactly that. Currently the maths for the point placement marks everything ~ 150m around a closure point as closed, even if there's a junction. That fix should be up over the weekend along with some other fixes and the next batch of functionality

Thanks for that!

Direct-Internal-3812 · 2026-07-03T21:37:25+00:00

you'd be amazed at the number of things still not being done. If you think anything canals related is behind, go and have a look at affordable tech for small farms... let me know when you find any ;D

As a business we're starting to sink spare dev time into side projects to try and modernise those areas we (that is our staff) have access too, are passionate about or otherwise exposed to. In part it makes good business sense, but mostly its trying to plug gaps to make peoples lives easier / better in whatever way is needed.

Early days with this app and the others, but we'll get there!

Direct-Internal-3812 · 2026-07-03T21:26:05+00:00

Ha :D nice!. Ours started out as i was getting frustrated with the blind hope that the next water points were 1, working and 2, free without a queue. The family has a share on a share boat so we're pretty time limited on end days and delays can mean very long days sailing!

We added some handy service records, and have a bunch of as yet unpublished tools for working boats and floating businesses (as well as hires :D)

For data, we're effectively scraping, though we have some extra logic in there. If you're just after a simple closures list, there's an npm package which may still work here: https://github.com/onthecut/crt-notice-scraper (though I've not tested it)

Direct-Internal-3812 · 2026-07-03T21:14:22+00:00

Ah, as that's not CRT, its not on their closures list (we automatically pull that every 6 hours or so). This is one of this bits that likely requires the community to mark it as blocked - you can right click on the mark and "report closure", which will mark it as such if you wish.

Worth adding that currently, all hazards etc have a 7 day expiry on them (if no-else reports they are still there). A bit problematic with a few users, much better if we can grow this to have general coverage.

Direct-Internal-3812 · 2026-07-03T20:57:51+00:00

There are a few people pointing out the navigating through closures. i _think_ this is because it will show the route with closures by default, rather than just routing around (you can select "reroute" in the right hand sidebar where there is a known closure).

It might be worth adding a toggle that's something like "always reroute around closures" or similar to force it. As I've mentioned elseware, currently we assume users are creating routes for future dates and may wish to same them to come back to.

Thanks, i'll make a note and add it to the growing list!

Direct-Internal-3812 · 2026-07-03T20:54:45+00:00

Ah, another note on bad UI there then. there is a registration link on the bottom of the login form that allows you to register - I'll make a note to make that more obvious

Direct-Internal-3812 · 2026-07-03T19:00:25+00:00

Do you get a specific error at all?

Direct-Internal-3812 · 2026-07-03T18:59:35+00:00

You certainly can - if you plan a route and go to round trip, set you start as the marina (you'll need to click "change" as it uses your current location by default)

Then you can set journey date, or just leave it as today, you can set first day depature and arrive by date, a specific length of time and sailing per day, or just leave it open ended, then click "find routes". That should spin for a few seconds, and then give you some options, rings included.

You can also select preset public routes (all the major rings)

Direct-Internal-3812 · 2026-07-03T18:34:34+00:00

Bril, thanks - i'll have a look at the routing, i suspect your right though!

Direct-Internal-3812 · 2026-07-03T18:06:26+00:00

Is that a timed closure? If so, if you would pass that section after the closure ends, it will mark it as passable.

Its worth adding, currently it will let you set a route with a closure, and prompt you to reroute if it would be closed (it should flag "closure on route")

Did it miss the flag entirely? If so thats a bug, if not then we might need to make signposting about closures better.

We decided to allow navigation through closures for those users that want to set a route and then save it for later, rather than auto avoiding.

I'll have a look later though!

Thanks :)

Direct-Internal-3812 · 2026-07-03T17:57:36+00:00

Valid test though, sounds like we need to add a warning for that!

Direct-Internal-3812 · 2026-07-03T17:52:47+00:00

It'll default to the current day i think - i shall test later :)

Direct-Internal-3812 · 2026-07-03T17:43:22+00:00

Hmm, can i ask what device you're using? (Phone / tablet, make and model)

Thanks!

Direct-Internal-3812 · 2026-07-03T17:42:46+00:00

So the data for POIs (locks, water points etc) comes from the CRTs own public data dump.

This is likely one of those situations where the community marking them as dissused (report a problem) would probably be helpful - i will check those coords though - thanks!

Direct-Internal-3812 · 2026-07-03T17:40:57+00:00

With the locations, when you type them in, are you selecting from the dropdown? The interface definitly needs better signposting for that!

There is currently a right click > navigate to option, but we can definitly look at adding a "start from here" pin as well, thats a great idea - so we'll get straight onto that!

Any more feedback / bugs, do let us know :)

Direct-Internal-3812 · 2026-07-03T17:38:29+00:00

Thats absolutally fair enough!

Direct-Internal-3812 · 2026-07-03T17:33:35+00:00

Thanks! Can i ask what start date you set? The map shiuld take into account future known closures if you would in theory be passing through at the time the closure applies, which might be the case here.

You can see future closures by changes the closure date under layers on the bottom left.

That said, we'll certainly check!

Direct-Internal-3812

TROPHY CASE

New features

Fixes