Can an AI chatbot deliver a passage plan?

With the explosion of AI and recent articles in yachting magazines about the problems with Passage Planning using AI, I had to check out the results for myself. I chose ChatGPT and Grok 3.0 to conduct this experiment using the prompt below:

Is it possible to sail around the UK with a dog? We hope to sail at an average of 6 knots, and our dog Svea needs a break at least every 10 hours. We want to stay in marinas overnight so Svea can have a walk. The yacht is 10m in length and has a draft of 1.6m. The direction is anticlockwise, and we will travel through the Caledonian Canal.

Chat GPT was first to take on the challenge.

Yes, you can sail around the UK with a dog, traveling at about 6 knots (around 6 nautical miles per hour), and aiming to find a marina every 60 miles — but it will require careful planning. Do you want an outline?

Of course I wanted an outline, and within seconds a route sending us south in the wrong direction popped up. It took two further attempts to change the direction.

Got it — anti-clockwise starting from Shotley on 21th May 2025, going north first, then west across Scotland via the Caledonian Canal — much better for summer prevailing winds (southwesterlies).  Here’s high-level plan, aiming for 60 nautical miles per day (or less if sensible), marina or safe harbour stops, and considering a dog onboard.

Chat GPT then sent through a comprehensive passage plan and some top tips for sailors. Due to its size, the link below will take you to the answer.

Chat GTP Passage Plan

I was blown away to start with by this response, especially as Pete had spent almost a weekend painstakingly planning a very similar route. Chat GPT had taken 30 seconds to create a complete itinerary. There were some obvious glaring mistakes, especially with distances; however, I was impressed. Chat GPT then offered to create the following documents for me in a PDF, and this is when things started to go wrong:

Full day-by-day itinerary (with your distances, marina stopovers, and rest days)

Dog-friendly marina notes and some good walk locations for Svea

Engine hours planning

Diesel fill-up points

Full emergency contacts sheet (UK/NI/Caledonian Canal)

Beautiful printable maps (main route + Caledonian inset)

Plus a logbook section to fill in underway

ChatGPT informed me that it would take 90 minutes to complete this task. After 14 hours of waiting, I received a few links and a PDF covering a slightly fuller version of the original itinerary. Disappointed is an understatement. I have since discovered that when the US is at work, usage on ChatGPT increases, and those on the free software plan often have to wait for responses.

AI generated Svea

Grok 3.0 was the next chatbot to trial. Elon Musk, the founder of Grok, has made this chatbot a little bit feistier, so the answers didn't sound as robotic as ChatGPT's. The results were, again, very impressive.

Yes, it’s possible to sail around the UK with a dog on a yacht averaging 6 knots, sailing a maximum of 10 hours per day, and stopping at a marina every night, starting anticlockwise from Shotley Marina. However, this ambitious journey requires careful planning due to the constraints of speed, daily sailing time, marina availability, tidal conditions, weather, and regulations regarding pets. Below, I’ll break down the feasibility, challenges, and considerations for such a trip, addressing each aspect of your query.

The breakdown included pet regulations and considerations about tides and night sailing in addition to an overall plan. Grok, however, ignored the command to go through the Caledonian Canal and again did its own thing, choosing a route around the top of the British Isles. These hallucinations are quite common in chatbots, and they can be corrected easily if you know that the mistake has been made. Again, because of the size of the answer, I have put a link to Grok's Passage Plan below.

Grok 3 Passage Plan

Conclusion

AI has the potential to be a game changer. While my first serious attempt at using AI to produce a passage plan resulted in over-promising and under-delivering, both sets of results, though not perfect, were impressive. Both ChatGPT and Grok 3 have the capacity to remember previous conversations, so I hope that the results will improve as we circumnavigate Britain and the chatbots become more educated, learning from their mistakes.

While Pete will remain faithful to the good old chart and compass, I will continue to experiment with AI throughout the trip to see if I can teach the chatbots how to plan more accurately. While I am extremely excited about AI, I am also a little apprehensive about the possibilities that have just been placed in our hands.