B737-800
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Situational Awareness; Human-Machine Interface
Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance
Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance; Air Traffic Control Issued Advisory / Alert; Flight Crew Became Reoriented; Flight Crew Returned To Clearance
Human Factors; Airspace Structure
ATC re-route by LGA Clearance Delivery. Original flight plan route was; LGA DCT WHITE J209 SBY DCT DIW ...   Revised clearance;  LGA 4 DEP RWY 31; RIGHT TURN HDG 359; RADAR VECTORS JFK; WAVIE; EMJAY; J174 SWL CEBEE WETRO DIX ... Normal departure and climb until ATC cleared us direct WAVIE. I selected WAVIE to 1L ...yup looks good; like that?  LNAV.  As we are rolling through a HDG 270; ATC informs us we are 'off course'  and re-clears us DCT WAVIE.  WAVIE is in 1L and LNAV is engaged pointing us further to the right.  ATC then gives us a 'heading 180 DCT WAVIE when able.'  It dawns on me to ask for the phonetic spelling of WAVIE .  ATC replies 'Whiskey Alpha Victor Echo Yankee...... WAVEY.'   I corrected the spelling of WAVIE in 1L; and it provided a heading of 150; LNAV engaged again and all is well.  I explain to ATC the WAVIE vs. WAVEY input error (on my part during the re-route on the ground) and received a bemused chuckle from ATC.  They didn't seem at all surprised by this; more like we were just one more flight crew who fell into that trap.  1) Mileage on PROG page was significantly more; so we checked all the points again; 3 times!!!  Paper to glass; glass to paper et al.  We thought the mileage discrepancy was due to route discontinuities on both the departure; and arrival ends.  2) We did not have a new flight plan so could not check heading and distance to next waypoint to see if it makes sense only the flight plan review. I am reading WAVIE; and my First Officer is hearing (and seeing WAVEY on the flight plan review) what's the problem?   3) Short of checking the spelling for each point; you would have to check the heading on the FMC to the next point to see if it makes sense; and we do not do that. One pilot reads the points off the ND for continuity; and the other pilot confirms them against the flight plan paper copy. You would need to do international procedures (like on the over water portion of the NAT) to catch this.
B737 Captain reports being issued a reroute from LGA via LGA4 heading 359 for vectors to JFW; WAVEY ... except WAVEY is spelled WAVIE and the error is not detected and a track deviation results.