Short version: Use their Waterkaarten app only if you don’t mind taking damage to your boat, because the map is full of serious, glaring errors.
Long version:
The ANWB handed over the release of the digital water map to this company—but it’s clear they’ve really bungled it. During an initial check, I found multiple mistakes of varying severity. The worst errors can leave you with major damage to your vessel, or force you to hire an expensive salvage operation.
It starts with a waterway in Friesland. According to the map, it’s more than 7 meters deep, which is already highly unlikely. But the locks are only 2 meters deep, so you might think you can safely pass there with, say, a 1.7-meter-draft boat. Wrong. If you do, you’ll get stuck for sure, and your boat will need to be lifted with a crane onto a deep-transport trailer. That waterway has recently been dredged to a depth of 1.5 meters, which is why the permitted draft is 1.3 meters. And that’s just one example—there are more places where the stated draft is wrong.
It also gets the height of bridges wrong. On the map, on a busy waterway in South Holland, there’s a bridge drawn with a clearance of 2.45 meters. In reality, it’s tight at about 2.35 meters. And they’ve listed incorrect bridge heights in more places as well. But I also found a waterway (where commercial shipping even comes through) where they don’t seem to know a bridge exists—despite it having been there since 2009!
Will The Mobile Company reimburse you if you suffer damage because of their mistakes? No—don’t count on it. They’ve almost certainly covered themselves.
And there are smaller errors too. For example, the Waterkaarten app is basically useless if you’re looking for a place to moor. Apparently, a structure like the lock or bridge gate is treated as a mooring option—or a spot where only commercial vessels are allowed. But they’ve also invented a variety of “mooring locations” where there’s absolutely nothing to be found—not nearby, and possibly not ever.
On top of that, in multiple places they don’t know (or don’t provide) operating hours, docking costs, the tourist tax—or anything else you might need.
Yes, you can submit improvements to them. That’s a clever idea: you pay for an app, and then you end up having to supply the information for free and/or correct the mistakes. And the risk? That’s entirely on you.
So this app serves no purpose at all. Even if it were free, I’d still recommend against it because of the major errors it contains.
