Bad weather worth staying home for
HF radio was one option but The Bloke is a bit of a 'propeller-head' and things like, satellites, computer modelling, email at sea, remote tracking, 'what the Volvo 40 sailors use' etc... all lit up his buttons. A $10k price tag on HF radio plus the gradual downgrading of HF services by authorities in favour of satellite based communications, were also factors. The pros and cons are debated endlessly on sailing forums. If money were absolutely no obstacle we'd have both. Anyway, our original Predictwind Satellite Communicator was installed together with a Predictwind weather subscription at least a year before we left Perth. The Bloke wanted to feel confident and proficient with it in plenty of time.
The Bloke in his Happy Pose, drill in hand
To be honest, the Bureau of Meteorology launched MetEye at about the same time we were leaving WA and give excellent graphical coastal forecasts for wind and wave situations. We've looked more at that than Predictwind except for ahead of our Great Australian Bight and Bass Straight crossings. Now however, we need off-shore weather info and passage planning. Time to beef things up.
Despite owning our Satellite Communicator for only a couple of years, Predictwind began promoting an upgrade to an Iridium GO! system which also offered satellite phone capacity. Since we mostly still had coastal Telstra coverage for both phone and Internet we resisted their urging to upgrade and then became their problem 'legacy' client. Seriously though, why did we want to shell out another $2,000 when we'd already paid a similar amount only a couple of years before? It's key purpose which still worked, was providing our track for the map on our blog so our number 1 fan could watch our movements. Yes Mum, just for you!
Installed device in action
Roll on 2017 and now we intend crossing the Coral Sea to New Caledonia. Upgrading to the more advanced Iridium GO! became a no brainer and a priority. Weather plus Comms in a single bundle.- we were IN!
Having made the decision AND forked out the dough (yet again), the fun part began. Step 1 remove the old Communicator from the Targa plus uninstall the 'bits' on our instrument panel at the Nav table - easy enough -snip snip. Step 2 install the GO! Part A tear the boat to bits. Very experienced at that. Easy-peasy. Then pull a new aerial cable through. Not even slightly easy and the F#@k Box was on standby alongside the Electrical Tool Box.
The Communicator is a bit larger than the old one and also required a new cable
Luckily we were babysitting Lily and Tom and living ashore at the time which meant that the job was done in 4 hour sessions and we weren't actually trying to live among the resultant up-roar. It took 3 days.
Anyway, everything is now in place. We can request and receive weather forecasts twice per day as well as weather routing for our forthcoming ocean passage. The modeling is only updated twice daily so more frequent 'looking' is pointless. Training in the etiquette of satellite email is underway:- Plain text; no images or attachments; delete original message if using 'reply' function; keep it short etc. Some of these instructions are having limited penetration judging by what we've subsequently received. We have become very conditioned for faster and faster comms and this is one of those 'Back to the future' moments. It took 2 minutes and 3 attempts over a 15 minute period to receive 5 messages which unbelievably included a 'text only' completely non-essential property condition report from our property manager - bless her. Training will be ongoing!
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