TowRiver is a navigation and trip-planning app for the Upper Mississippi and the Illinois Waterway — live lock traffic, tow tracking, bridge clearances, river conditions, and offline nautical charts.
Questions, bug reports, wrong or missing data (a marina, a bridge clearance, a lock), or feature ideas — email hello@towriver.app. You'll normally hear back within a couple of days.
Where does the live data come from? Lock and tow traffic comes from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (LPMS); river stages, flood categories, and forecasts from NOAA / the National Weather Service; charts from the USACE Inland ENC program. TowRiver adds its own processing on top.
Is the data safe to navigate by? No — TowRiver is a planning aid, not a navigation device. Data can be delayed, estimated, or wrong. Always rely on your own eyes, official charts, posted clearance boards, and the lock or bridge operator on VHF.
Subscriptions. During early access everything in TowRiver is free. Any future Pro subscription is handled entirely by Apple — manage or cancel it in your App Store account settings.
TowRiver is built and operated by a solo developer who actually boats this river — reports from the water are the most useful bug reports there are.