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Internet Access While Sailing? (Revisited)
El Genio Malvado writes "10 years ago the question was asked, What is the best way to get Internet while at sea? After reading the responses — and after a decade of technological advancement — is there a better, more reliable method? For someone with the ability to telecommute 100% of the time, then the idea of sailing around the world with a paycheck direct deposited must be getting more and more tempting. What does the community at large have for modern resources for constant streaming internet at sea?"
I'm actually in the same position. I am able to do all of my work online and my workplace doesn't have a problem with me traveling at the same time. It is really great when you can move to life in a different country for a few months and see various different places and people. It's amazing how much it relies stress too, so it's a win-win for both me and the company.
But if I went sailing around the world, how do you get everything else too? Food, drinks, health and hygiene stuff, what about getting sex and what do you do if you need emergency help?
However, it would be great way to start a day by waking up in the morning and take a swim in the sea in middle of nowhere.
You cant find wired services that have 100% up times.Good luck with the wireless pipe dream.
... you probably cannot afford it. If you had the money you would probably already know what your options are for that. After all, the kids who have been attempting solo sails around the world haven't exactly been coming from poverty...
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
If you have the money, look into BGAN terminals. Hughes and Thrane & Thrane are the two major manufacturers.
I'm too lazy to insert links, google is your friend.
In some countries the NMT system is still operational and is used by ships for it's excellent coverage (compared to GSM, that is). Don't have any links at the moment, but I know some ships that are using NMT to get an OK network connection when out on the sea. Other than that, I think I remember you can surf using VHF. Don't know about SSB, internet over SSB would be slow but with an awesome coverage. Last resort: Satellite.
Quantum hacker.
This was asked sooner than 10 years ago, and I'll repeat my answer to that thread.
You want BGAN. It's an INMARSAT service. Designed for marine use, but will not be cheap
http://www.inmarsat.com/Services/Land/BGAN/default.aspx
- Sig
But I remember when a Loran-C was high tech. Now people want to stream video from the middle of the Atlantic... Hey, back in the old day we didn't need porn we just brought women with us. Owning a sailboat and cruising the Caribbean went a long way towards getting those panties off!
But seriously, always have a good old almanac and sextant as a backup. Because if your generator gets fucked, you and your high tech toys are fucked. They never turn off the sun and stars, however ('cept in a storm of course - Murphy's law would have your generator fail in the middle of the hurricane anyway).
Personally I go sailing to get AWAY from the rest of the world, not to stay connected to it.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I'm not sure how expensive it is, but if you're sailing around the world, you probably have a different view of expenses than I do.
but now I kinda hate you already...
http://www.inmarsat.com/Services/Maritime/FleetBroadband/default.aspx
Anything is possible!
Just find a way to send a 56K signal over shortwave. (Modem-audio out to radio in, shouldn't be hard.) Have the receiver on land retransmit that signal through a telephone. Dial into a dial-up ISP of your choice, and enjoy the slow.
Get a diving suit and a pair of wire cutters...
Dive down to an underwater cable, cut it and splice yourself into the middle of it! High bandwidth internet access at sea.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
What does the community at large have for modern resources for constant streaming internet at sea?
You spent all that money on a sailboat and you're going out to sea for an adventure to ....stream content...sit on your ass and watch Youtube videos? To surf the web?!?
Email: How about go into port?
For voice (there are family emergencies ) there's satellite phones.
Entertainment out at sea and if you really have to have stuff, how about ust getting DVDs or Blu-Ray?
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
1. A lot of marina's seem to be starting offer wifi which covers the moorings. So you can at least get online when in port at reasonable speeds.
2. GSM coverage usually extends at least 10 miles offshore, if you're travelling parallel to the coast (and it depends where in the world you are) you might be able to use GSM networks. Getting hold of local sim cards is much cheaper than paying roaming fees.
3. Iridium phones can manage dial up internet access at 2400bps for around $1.50 per minute. Globalstar phones will give you 9600bps but (despite the name) coverage is far from global. Thuraya give you "unlimited" internet access for a mere $3550 per month and speeds into hundreds of kilobits per second. Other's have already mentioned Imarsat's BGAN. http://www.satphone.co.uk/index.shtml has good info on all of these.
4. Try and rig up something over amateur radio and use an AX25 to TCPIP gateway. Speeds will be slow (a few kilobits per second at best) and its likely to be unreliable. But it should be cheap/free.
I think once Starbucks has a store at every 2 miles on every continent they will have to eventually start populating the ocean. Give them a year or two. By then you should be able to float up to their starbucks buoy building and grab a latte and use their wifi.
Doesn't work everywhere, its slow but somewhat cheaper than BGAN and you only need a handheld satellite phone for it to work.
but still at $5 per MB I would be writing a script to compress my RSS feeds using PAQ8 so I can download them over TFTP and writing a custom binary protocol IM client to save bandwidth
Save the latest maps with undersea comm cables and just tap into them as needed.
The million dollar carbon fiber sailboats that compete in the Volvo Ocean Race in 2009 used three systems for voice, data, and fax communications. The one that I recall was Thrane & Thrane SAILOR 500 Fleet Broadband. They would shoot HD video with HD cameras and then upload clips via that system from the middle of the ocean. SAILOR 500 Fleet Broadband is a complete system with bandwidth up to 432kbps and allows phone calls to be placed at the same time. I believe the monthly service fee is upwards of $400 a month excluding equipment fees and installation. http://www.thrane.com/Maritime/Products/Satellite%20Communication/SAILOR%20FleetBroadband/SAILOR%20500%20FleetBroadband.aspx
Perhaps you could get a really good wifi antenna for your boat and then try to stay "just close enough" to a major cruise ship. The large boats usually have wireless internet available, and hacking (or paying for) their access would likely cost you quite a bit less than a provider who will get you online independently in the middle of the ocean.
Granted, it may be illegal, the cruise line probably won't care for it, it probably isn't very safe or smart, and it means giving up your independence to set your own route. But if internet access in the middle of the ocean is that important to you and your learjet pilot doesn't have a suggestion for you then it might be worth a shot.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
seems they are aiming directly at this kind of market.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
If you're willing to wait another 5 years, Iridium is in the process of replacing their constellation:
http://multivu.prnewswire.com/mnr/iridium/44300/
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
They must have some Internet access at sea. Not that they would want to share it, though.
Just curious, anyone know?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Why now you are taking one of the most fulfilling passtimes, sailing, and combining with the exact opposite, your job! Combining these two will only result in sailing becoming as tedious as your job and your job now controlling every single part of your life.
Methinks you should join the merchant marines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Merchant_Marine/
I tried to think of a good sig, and this wasn't it.
http://www.telstra.com.au/mobile/networks/coverage/outtosea.html
If your not going too far out to sea, Australia is fairly well covered.
In order for a service out to sea to work effectively, line of sight to the terrestrial base station is required. This is influenced by the height of the serving base station, land based obstructions such as trees and buildings, as well as the general topography of the land, which can block signals. Coverage will not be reliable over the horizon from a mobile base station even though it may be usable at times.
It's not cheap, but if you have a large yacht it shouldn't be an issue
http://www.intelsat.com/services/telecom/mobility/maritime-benefits.asp
If you are ANYWHERE near South Africa, New Zealand or Oz use a carrier pigeon it's faster than access here anyway and heaps cheaper. Plus you won't get nailed when going over your data cap!
Kinda offtopic but funny..
If any of you read throught the comments of the ask slashdot from 10 years ago you get this jewel
Satellite Links for anywhere (Score:3)
by dublin (31215)
on Wednesday May 31 2000, @08:31AM (#1036605)
A few years ago, I had the privelege to do one of the coolest consulting gigs of my career. The job was for a global oil company that ships more oil than anyone else, and was very concerned about minimizing environmental damage and having the right command and control structures in place instantly in the event of a spill.
They had every aspect of her trip covered, phone systems, internet (she blogged from sea). The only thing unaccounted for was a giant rogue wave that took down her mast, but that could have happened to anyone. They do mention the services that was used by the team.
Arrrr! there be WiFi pirates!
Hoist the Wifi Jolly roger! Ready the laptop's me maytes this one has load balancing uplinks!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Thanks for the laugh on this somber morning.
if you can download the entire Wikipedia anyway? wait...
I would try to have a combination of systems, SSB, WIFI for when at a marina or anchored in front of someones house broadcasting unsecured (we use this on the Chesapeake Bay a lot, just to get some emails off, not to stream or use much bandwidth. Then a Sat phone (iridium) would be good to have for low coverage areas and cell phone tethering or a data usb plan for around areas with coverage. There are so many people out there that are blogging everyday while out on their adventures, so there is the technology out there, it's a matter of what you can afford and what you need. I've thought about cruising and doing something similar in the future if possible, but to be logged on and working 8 hours would be a lot when on the boat.
Yeah and then they'll call DHS and say they're being followed by a pirate...
God: When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
I'm sure if you tracked down "Muffy" on the tennis court, he could help answer your question after wiping sweat from his brow with his cashmere sweater.
Barring that, just have your butler do your research for you. It's one of the many things you pay him for. Hell, maybe even your chef, your driver, or your masseuse could do it for you too. Every one of them has a better work ethic than you do.
Sailing is strictly for people with more money than brains. Don't think too hard about this, you might hurt yourself.
Iceberg.
Well, you could get your Amateur Radio license, then you could use Winlink 2000 to send and receive emails while at sea.
http://www.winlink.org/
Of course, I personally despise Winlink 2000, because of the robots that never listen to see if other stations are transmitting, before they transmit, but that's just my personal opinion.
No matter where you go... there you are.
Forget BGAN, they charge on actual throughput and can be pretty expensive to operate. What you actually need is a SeaTel or similar tracking antenna - this will constantly keep you connected to the satellite as you are mobile, an iDirect http://www.idirect.net/ 3000 series or X3 modem (depends on the provider you use) and a subscription with one of the many providers of such services. The initial setup costs could be a bit pricey, so just look at the hardware cost as an investment. Your best bet is a provider with the ability to actually offer service over multiple satellites covering most of the globe. It can get a bit complicated when switching satellites so choose a company which specializes in Maritime VSAT services, they will be able to advise you on how best to do this.
Much depends on where you are going to be, exactly what access you want, and how much you are willing to pay.
Long distance cruisers generally go for SSB-based email (either Sailmail or Winlink) because it's cheap and relatively reliable. Of course, "reliable" in this context means that depending on the HF propagation conditions you can probably get an email message out sometime that day. And you are limited to short, text-only messages. Still, these days you can update blogs, Facebook, etc. via email...
Other systems like Ocens are also available for email via Iridium.
After that, if you are offshore and away from GSM coverage, you start talking about real bucks. Inmarsat is the most common. Iridium, Inmarsat, Globalstar, etc. all pretty much have two things in common - they are slow compared to land-based systems and they bill by the bit.. a lot. Streaming video and surfing Spring Break Girls Gone Wild is probably not in the cards. Hell, even checking a webmail email account is not really feasible unless you are Carlos Slim and own a telephone company.
So, that's a long way of getting around to saying this: In the past 10 years, not a lot has changed. Inshore, close to cell coverage, you can do very well. Offshore, you are still pretty much stuck with the same old systems that were in place 10 years ago, only now they are more expensive. Oh, and in the case of Globalstar, they are also less reliable now.
Do you also have a cat named Ender?
Just hook up to one of the many fiberclass cables on the sea floor.
I use 3G for interwebs while sailing... in a lake in Oklahoma.
But th ship is also in the ocean, so maybe you can use the same solution the cruise ship uses.
In 1980 I went sailing. I had made heaps of money in - of all places - Belgium, where we wrote one of the first commercial packet switching networks in the world. It was cool. And no installed base, oh joy.
Anyway I bought a 30' Iroquois catamaran and set off. I sailed about 2 years, down to the Med, over the Atlantic, around the West Indies. Sometimes single-handed, mostly with 2-4 folk aboard. There may have been some drinking.
It was, without doubt, a high point of my life, despite the storms, loneliness, terrible food, sunburn. And did I mention the storms?
No GPS then - we had to use a sextant. I wrote some nice sight reduction programs for it on my HP 41C calculator - you just can't kill off habits, can you?
Communication - we didn't have no stinking communication! A VHF radio, range about 20miles, and otherwise we could listen to shortwave radio sometimes.
We could only send the odd postcard from ports, and look - without much hope nor any success - in the poste restante in the main post offices. Phone calls were very expensive and we did this rarely.
We didn't have comms - there was no internet (we were just inventing networks - inter-networks lay in the future) HF radios would have weighed more than the boat. Food, water more important.
(And in case you cared ... I ended up selling the boat in the Virgin Islands - it's still sailing in Florida apparently; moving to Australia, where I still am, happily in the sun, still writing the odd bit of code. And I still have the sextant in the garage - it's a lovely thing. The HP41c has not survived. Nor has HP, not really).
Pah - on-board communication, nah - listen to the waves. Enjoy the quiet. Watch the sky. See the moon rise, blood red, from the sea. Let your mind actually think, perchance dream.
"Cats like plain crisps"
is rather like whipping a dead horse. Yes, there are sources where you can get the service, but you are going to pay a small ransom and keep paying as you use it. That's the upshot of the deal.
The downside to it is that you are going to be set back to the good ole days of 56K dialup. No viewing of multimedia stuff, no gaming, save for turn based board games perhaps, and no huge email attachments, both outgoing and incoming.
Even with the new Iridium birds being fired into orbit, you will never, ever get faster than 256K, maybe 512K. And the ping times? Forget it. 1500ms will be as fast as you can get, even with the low-orbiting Iridium network.
SATCOM is a no-nonsense, no frills system. You want the speed, you pay the piper.
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
These guys announced some intentions regarding this subject just last week.
OT, but any sailors reading this will love it: cross platform GPL'd navigation software that is as good as any other you'd pay too much for. Reads all the common chart formats. Vibrant user/developer community.
http://www.opencpn.org/
No sailboat can keep up with a cruse ship. At least not the type of sailboat we're talking about here.
That was beautifully written.
Best. Idea. Ever. Now he can be a real pirate!
We had very reliable daily communication with home in the US.....via SSB ham radio. No Internet, obviously, or even computers or programmable calculators. In fact, no calculators at all. We did have a nice old Loran A that we used to get fixes at night. We always did a Noon meridian transit to verify our latitude and kept track of distance covered with the taffrail log. No problem finding Barbados dead-on after 28 days at sea. For the older hams who might remember, the rig was a Galaxy GT-550 and the antenna was a Hy-Gain triband vertical. We mostly used 15 meters.
Our electronics, freezer and refrigerator was powered by a 32 volt battery bank that was recharged via a 15KW diesel generator or the diesel propulsion engine. For entertainment, we had a Zenith Transoceanic radio for BBC, VOA, etc and we had a reel-to-reel tape deck stereo system that we could use when the generator was running as was usually the case at meal time since the main stove was electric.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
Simply adapt it so that you use bottles launched into the sea rather avians. Implementing it is nothing but an hardware problem, after all.
They seem to have it figuredout:
http://www.pegasus.com/log/pacific-cup-2010/facetime/
For someone with the ability to telecommute 100% of the time, then the idea of sailing around the world with a paycheck direct deposited
I can't believe anyone could do both of those things competently and simultaneously. I'm glad I'm not paying you, or sharing the oceans with you...
http://www.batswireless.com/
Depending on your pocket book, this might or might not be a solution for you. I don't know that much about the technology beyond they are integrating with wireless broadband equipment to provide live/automatic antenna aiming and signal tracking. I do know they are specifically working on the issue of keeping "offshore" endpoints connected to onshore antenna.
http://nomadness.com/
Dilbert RSS feed
A better question is this: If you were in international waters is it even a violation of copyright? What jurisdication's rules would be followed? What court could the plaintiffs sue you in? And, after reading this, who is going to go set up a new floating island in international waters with massive bandwidth and call it a "download destination" for a piratical getaway? "Come stay a week with us and torrent every movie and song ever written." BYOS (Bring Your Own Storage).
If memory serves me correctly, The Pirate Bay nearly did exactly that a few years back.
They didn't, obviously, end up doing it. I was under the impression that the core reason was a circular dependency. Without putting laws respecting basic copyright on the books, established nations would not acknowledge their sovereignty. Without such an acknowledgement, somebody could just sail out there and murder everyone without consequence.
Do we have a lawyer out there in the crowd who could weigh in on this?
If you are on a sailboat, I suggest you sail a few meters in front of an oil tanker. That way they don't see who is stealing their network.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
"Pah - on-board communication, nah - listen to the waves. Enjoy the quiet. Watch the sky. See the moon rise, blood red, from the sea. Let your mind actually think, perchance dream."
This is something more people need to do. Sailing is not for me, however. For me, it's hiking or skiing. Just going out for a couple of weeks of wandering far away, without electronics and such intruding, and navigating just by map and compass when necessary. Keeps the brain healthy.(It's actually something that bothers me.... how people are weakening their minds by relying more and more on shit like GPS etc, becoming more and more helpless without such gadgets that healthy humans don't really need)
Cruise ships are fast. They typically zip from port to port and then anchor while swapping people out every 3 nights. Sailboats are not fast.
Just stick your hard drive in a bottle and hopefully someone will pick it up
Aquaman shall send your message via dolphin chatter.
Nicely written and informative, but has no bearing whatsoever on the original question. The poster needs to be working while on the boat, which means "listening to the waves", while quite pleasant, will not help him meet his work responsibilities that are paying for this maritime expenses.
As has been mentioned previously in the thread, most people don't have the funds to stop working and sail full time. On the other hand, quite a lot of people have the funds necessary to sail full time if they can keep their jobs. (even more if they fully commit and sell their homes, cars, etc.. and move all of their possessions onto the boat) Therefore the constant and reliable communication with the home company is absolutely essential to the idea.
See those big golf balls on the tops of cruise ships? That's what they use. Probably larger than the presumptive boat in our story. And hella expensive.
But that does lead into a possible answer to our insane quest - Just buy an apartment on The World and let somebody else deal with the problem.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Just for your information, if you want to use the wireless internet on a cruise ship the "proper" way you have to be on the ship's manifest and register a unique login.. At least for the entire Royal Carribean/Celebrity/Azamara fleet, you'd have to register again every cruise. That is, unless you use the crew wi-fi, which only has coverage in the lower parts of the ship..
In any case, I doubt you'd have much luck with mooching the wireless signal from a cruise ship, unless you hacked it. Also, barring hacking, the price is still in the 40-70 cents/minute range and it's pretty slow.
When I was first in the Navy we were kind of in this boat (so to speak). GPS hadn't been invented yet, so you were left with Loran (which didn't have worldwide coverage), Omega (which practically never actually worked), or Transit (an earlier SATNAV system). Transit gave you a fix every few hours if it felt like it, but you could go for pretty long periods of time without one. I vividly remember getting ourselves from Pearl Harbor to American Samoa on nothing but the sextant. Very cool.
The internet was around, but no one had ever heard of it, and we certainly didn't have it. INMARSAT voice/fax comms started showing up on ships soon thereafter, but it was really expensive and we almost never used it.
Taking sun/star lines and reducing them is complicated and difficult to do correctly. You don't want to try to figure it out for the first time when you're at sea with a dead GPS. It takes practice.
One of the primary ways weather charts get sent to ships at sea is via satellite fax. Crazy, I know, but that's why.
The NIPRNET (sort of an oversimplification, but the same thing as the internet) is multiplexed with all sorts of other voice, data, teletype, POTS, etc, and sent over dedicated satellite links in the EHF/SHF/UHF bands. Bigger ships get it 24/7. Smaller ships only get it at certain times when they can get an antenna brought to bear on it. There's also some recreational access to the Internet via Inmarsat, but that's really limited.
I am currently living in Mexico aboard my sailboat and have been doing this for a few years. Very few sailors are on the "high seas" for very long periods at a time and you probably wouldn't be working from there, but the Maldives, hell yes. Usually, a passage from one port to another is 1-3 days, otherwise you are in a marina or anchored in a harbor or protected cove. Some of these are populated and have either wifi or GSM service, some are not. Currently, we end up using a mix of technologies based upon where we are. We are typically using wifi via our wifi antenna on the mast or our Telcel GSM card. We also have an SSB/HAM radio with a Pactor modem and can send text email and get weather data while at sea. When we head for the South Pacific in a few years, we will get a Sat phone, but that is more for emergencies than for data access unless the rates come way down and the speeds come way up. The Fleet Broadband systems and such are still too large and expensive for most boaters. I used one while bringing a large motor yacht down from CA to Mexico, we had a 1MB connection or you could pay ungodly amounts and get 2MB but again, the equipment is still too big for most boats. It also had some uptime issues and seemed to lose the satellites every time we made a drastic speed change. Bottom line is, many more people have Sat phones than did 10 years ago, but they still can't use them for surfing and it looks to be some time out before the equipment and pricing model makes sense for the average sized boat and cruiser's wallet.
The way most long-distance cruisers do it is to use low-bandwidth, text-only email over the SSB when in truly remote locations.
Once you arrive in a port or island of some kind, you can usually find a wifi signal to do any data uploads.
There is also a commercial activity and encryption ban on the amateur radio bands. So even if you do want to submit your manuscript to your publisher in clear text from somwhere between San Francisco and Honolulu, it is a no-no. You are likely to hear about it from some basement dweller in Oregon that interceted the transmission and took offence to someone flaunting the rules. Here is a nice little thread of some incensed Hams as an example: http://www.eham.net/articles/6667
Best to work on it on the boat and send occasional updates while en route and then once anchored and connected to the marina's wifi, upload your work. If that data flow model doesn't meet with your customers' expectations, then you will have to plan your passages accordingly.
If you want pay-per-byte-but-otherwise-unrestricted global coverage, then the commercial satellite options mentioned in previous replies are the way to go. Not too sure how much work-for-hire one can get done in transit in a smallish boat, though (on the high seas, even 50' can seem awfully small). And anchoring in the lagoon of some deserted atoll in the south pacific has its own set of distractions that can further detract from working... Still the worst day sailing is better than the best day working.
Fair winds. /J
This is in use, although ironically. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8248056.stm
Sailing requires work and attention if you don't want to die. Unfortunately for many, telecommuting == doing anything but work, which makes it so hard for us to get our employers to take telecommuting seriously. So no, sailing around the world while telecommuting probably would not work since you are either going to work or sail but not both. Unless your job was to sail around the world...
Just sailed back from Bermuda on a 40' boat with the Thrane & Thrane SAILOR system. The antenna was about the size of a basketball and mounted on the back rail. It...was...awesome
...Make it a habit to take a daily noon sighting and record your distance logger.
Noon sights are easy to understand, but they do not give a very precise fix. Recording the highest angle of the sun (local noon) gives you your latitude. The time at which it occurs gives you longitude, since local noon occurs at a different time at every different longitude. For a more reliable position line, you should probably shoot the sun when the angle is around 50 degrees or so above the horizon. This involves using some fancy calculations using spherical geometry (or looking the results of those calculations up in a sight reduction table. The basic idea isn't that difficult. Imagine you measure the angle of the sun to be 50 degrees and 30 minutes above the horizon at a particular time (GMT). At that time, the sun is directly overhead of a specific location on the Earth. Now draw a line upwards from that point. Trace a cone centered at that point whose edges are 50 degrees 30 minutes above the horizon. This traces a circle on the globe, centered at the location of the sun. You are somewhere on that circle.
The above circle might seem so large as to be useless, but here is the trick. Guess your location. It should be a fairly accurate guess, your best guess (assume no GPS). Now you have a guessed longitude and latitude. It is possible to plug that guessed longitude and latitude, along with the time of the sighting into some spherical geometry formulae. These formulae will give you both the direction of the sun's location from your guessed location, AND the angle that the sun would make to the horizon IF you were at your guessed location. Say the direction of the sun is 225 degrees (SW). Draw a line from your guessed position towards the sun, in the direction 225 degrees (SW). If you drew a line perpendicular to that line towards the sun and through your guessed position, that would be the portion of the circle talked about in the previous paragraph, IF you were at your guessed position. Say the calculations told you that at your guessed position, the angle of the sun to the horizon is not 50 degrees 30 minutes, but instead 50 degrees 32 minutes. You measured the altitude to be 50 degrees 30 min, but at your guessed position it would be 50 degrees 32 minutes. This means that the circle you are actually located on is FARTHER AWAY FROM THE CENTER OF THE CIRCLE than the one for your guessed position since your solar angle is 2 minutes SMALLER (remember, picture the cones that make the circle around the sun's position...as you go farther away from the center, the angle of the sun decreases...if you were at the location of the sun on the Earth, the angle would be 90 degrees). And since 2 minutes of latitude equals 2 nautical miles, all you need to do on your map is to draw another line perpendicular to the line you drew towards the sun, but 2 nautical miles farther from the sun. You are somewhere on that line (remember, that perpendicular line represents a small part of the circle traced out by the cone around the sun's location).
If you want a proper fix, you can read the sun and moon together if they are both visible. Or you can shoot the sun in the morning and the afternoon. Either way, you will get two position lines which will cross near to your actual location. Or you can shoot stars, if you can see the horizon. The tricky part for most people is the calculation of the sun's angle to the horizon at the guessed position, and the calculation of the direction of the sun from your guessed location. There are tables, called sight reduction tables that give you these angles, or you can program the formulae into a calculator, or you can use a navigational calculator. It is possible to use a sextant to find your position within 1 nautical mile, but in real conditions, most people would have trouble getting within 3 to 4 nm. That however is enough in the open ocean for proper navigation.
I personally enjoy using a sextant. There is something deeply satisfying in using a simple device like a sextant to locate oneself. And these methods will work even if your boat is struck by lightning, and all of your onboard electronics are fried.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Depending on where you plan to sail, you will need a couple of dish sets ( different LNBs maybe? ), and a couple of terminals so you can switch them up when you go from the americas to asia. You need self aiming dishes, probably with gyros, and accounts with providers like Hughs and Thaicom. The bad news is no one is going to put spot beams in the middle of nowhere, so you will most certainly be in fringe coverage when you get coverage at all.
Maybe this is s stupid plan.
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
That was actually a joke. Of course a cruise ship is much faster than any sailboat that someone on slashdot could likely afford. But the likelihood of a slashdot reader affording a very fast ship is about the same likelihood as a slashdot reader being able to afford reasonably fast internet access that works from the middle of the ocean.
It appears some readers (and readers with mod points) have a case of the Mondays today...
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
That comment wasn't aimed just at you even if you weren't joking
I assume that a lot of non sailors have no knowledge of a sailboat's max speed being limited to a formula using hull length at it's waterline.
Probably many readers have no idea how fast some large ships can move as well.
Anyway most sail boat owners are too broke to afford any decent Internet access at sea :)
Owning a boat is like tearing up $100 bills in a cold shower.
>> no bearing whatsoever on the original question.
You haven't been on /. long, have you ...?
Actually, a little history and perspective is a wonderful thing. It's sobering to recognise that the world wide web, invented a mere couple of decades back (Tim Berners-Lee, 1990), is the source of most of our incomes (slashdotters, at any rate) and much of our entertainment.
"Cats like plain crisps"
If the middle of the ocean doesnt count as roaming what does?
What bugs me is when a cruise ship leaves its cell turned on while in port, the phones of people nearby select it as the strongest cell for their service, and they're hit with an oceanic roaming charge while walking about in their own neighborhood. B-b
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
That's a lovely story, but it doesn't solve the OP's requirements to telecommute while out at sea.
The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat." Lily Tomlin
Disclaimer: I work for the company, but KVH (homepage and marine products) is pretty well-regarded in the industry.
Simple, a company called RigNet. They are able to keep you connected just about anywhere on the planet. A fast connection is pretty expensive, but it is reliable.
IP over message in a bottle
You'll have to work out all the packet losses.
loose: not fitting closely or tightly != lose: to suffer the deprivation of
iPhone
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
Yeah, right.
Cruise ships use a satellite link. Which is used both for Internet connection and cellular phones (assuming you are so rich or desperate that you don't mind the bill, which is really not cheap).
For the parent who suggests trying to "steal" a bit of bandwith from cruise ships using wifi... do you have an idea of how close you should be to the ship? (hint, hulls are made of steel... and wifi repeaters are set up in the main halls, casinos and other common areas, not outside the hull) so even if you were close enough to touch the hull with your hand I doubt you'll get much (in fact, wifi coverage is a problem even inside the ship itself).
And if you think that you can actually just "trail" a cruise ship with a sailboat you are either joking or have no idea of what you are talking about.
"It appears some readers (and readers with mod points) have a case of the Mondays today..."
Ok, what ever was said before, this comment should get you modded straight into hell.
It was funny in the film because it is not funny at all.
Ok, what ever was said before, this comment should get you modded straight into hell.
Too late. The original comment was moderated to -1 before I posted that as a response to egg on the humorless and the mod-bombers. They can't mod it any lower (although they can use this a fodder if they so choose).
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
In a sailboat, one can always heave to.
I will not bother to read this complete thread - I've already wasted enuf time perusing the first 100 or so "witty" answers from, presumably, landlubbers. /USB attachment and the software for a PC.
The sat-phone is of course a bit more expensive than the usual cell-phone.
So you may have gotten replies already similar to mine.
But we've sailed a 45' yacht several times from Lake Champlain ==> NYC ==> Caribbean and back, (No, not the inland waterway) as well as side trips to Bermuda with our Dell and Toshiba laptop with no damage whatsoever to them from salt. Obviously you do not take the laptop up on deck if the sea is rough.
My friend has a satellite phone- most of these come with serial port
The one we have used is good only for dialup speeds, but we have managed to exchange email on the open seas day and night.
As well we have hene managesto download UGRIB weather report for displaying on the laptops.
If you wish hi-speed however, no sure if it's available. Better to bring a big stack of torrented movie AVIs on DVD like we do!
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- aqk
F U
The ship I work on uses Globe Wireless;
"Globe Wireless offers a simple yet powerful communications solution to include our true multi-pipe communications, which combines the best of Inmarsat, Iridium, VSAT, and digital HF radio technologies."
We run containers from the US gulf and east coast to northern Europe. I know some of the car carriers are using Globe Wireless on the Japan runs.
If you have an HF marine radio, you can use it to make an internet connection for email. http://www.seamail.org/
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest