For most of my sailing life, HF radio in the form of single side band or Ham radio was the primary way for offshore sailors to stay in touch with other boats, the Coast Guard, ships at sea and folks at home. And, for many cruisers on limited budgets, long range communications was simply not an option so family and friends had to wait until we found a phone somewhere for calling home, sometimes weeks or months after we’d made the last call. Of course, that has all changed with the advent of satellite communications. HF radios are still relevant since you can send and receive email via portals like SailMail and WinLInk and companies like Ocens can manage email, weather and other communications fairly inexpensively. But satphones and sat-devices are really changing things. I sailed across the Atlantic two summers ago and onboard we had an Inmarsat satellite system that gave us almost real time internet, plus phone and email. We also had an Iridium Go that we could use for email and texting and an Ocens Wi-Fi SideKick linked to the Inmarsat system. Add to that a Delorme InReach and we had multiple satellite redundancies,
The question is, if you were going to fit out a cruising boat from scratch with a communications system designed for offshore sailing and you are planning to explore remote areas not served by landlines or cell phones, what would be your ideal set up? Email me your thoughts and preferences at george@bwsailing.com.
