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Nothing on this website or in direct communications received from us, or in our articles in the media, should be construed to mean or imply that offshore voyaging is anything other than potentially hazardous. Dangers such as, but not limited to, extreme weather, cold, ice, lack of help or assistance, gear failure, grounding, and falling overboard could injure or kill you and wreck your boat. Decisions such as, but not limited to, heading offshore, where you go, and how you equip your boat, are yours and yours alone. The information on this web site is based on what has worked for the authors in the past, but that does not mean it will work for you, or that it is the best, or even a good way for you to do things.
For those of you who don’t read nerd, 400,000 bytes is about 390 kilobytes or .381 megabytes. And yes, I did look it up! (:
Great writeup John!
Regards,
Ronnie
Thanks, Ronnie, I should have added that.
Convinced! Thank you.
Dear John
Are you sure there aren’t enough periods and a big enough pause after
“—of course this is based on hearsay since I have never asked a stupid question…”
Best wishes to you and Phylis!
Charles Starke
s/v Dawnpiper
You think?
Great info, but I still think an iPad is the way to go. My laptop stays in it’s drybag offshore, as it’s too valuable to me work-wise to risk dropping it or getting it wet. Our iPad does everything, and I’m hoping to illustrate how it does that in an upcoming AAC article. But I am intrigued by the GO! itself, so would love to find out more about how that can interact with an iPad in the way that we use the iPad for weather & email on Isbjorn.
We cruise full-time and crossed the Atlantic in 2015. There is no navigation PC onboard, as we use our iPads. Our current charting programs in the Eastern Med are:
* MaxSea TimeZero (TZ) – “paper charts” (raster, official hydrographic office)
* Imray Navigator – “paper charts” (raster, Imray)
* Navionics HD – vector charts
For e-mail, default iPad Iridium GO! can only be used as a hobby, for the following reason: all e-mail you send will be sent from an Iridium GO! free-email account they give you. This e-mail account can only be accessed via satellite, not via land connections. This means that if you write someone and they reply, those messages are trapped in Iridium, unless you check your Iridium e-mail account… from your satellite e-mail connection. And if you cancel your account, any unread e-mail on the Iridium server is lost.
Workaround: use a third-party e-mail system that is able to send _your_own_ e-mail through the Iridium GO! We use Sailmail. Others use UUPlus. Some or all of these workarounds require a PC. Ugly, very ugly.
If your existing Redport can somehow connect to the GO!, then you are all set. After all, the GO! is just a satphone w/o mic, speaker, nor keypad. Of course, the GO! also does not have a physical communications port. Unlike other satcom phones, it can only talk to other devices via Wi-Fi.
Hi Fransisco,
Good point on how bad the Iridium email Apps are, and the point you bring up is just one of many problems.
As to UUPlus being ugly. Yes, maybe, but who cares since we can use our email program of choice, as I detail above.
Hi Andy,
If you want to know more about GO!, I have two in depth articles on just that. See the links above.
Many boats that sailed west from Bora Bora this season had their IPads OS freeze demanding an “update” to function. No internet at sea was a prob.
All had LT fallback.
Without additional information, it is difficult to speculate on what may have caused this.
I can tell you that iOS, like any other computing platform, does require the user to be mindful of certain administrative tasks. This is the recommended behaviour:
*** If coming from sea to a place with Wi-Fi, there are two alternate courses of action:
***ALTERNATIVE 1: Do not update anything. Under Settings > iTunes and App Stores > disable any and all automatic downloads. Furthermore, do not update anything automatically.
***ALTERNATIVE 2: Update everything. Update iOS under General > Software Update. Update all apps under App Store. Once you are up to date, “run”, “execute,” or “make use” (these are all synonyms) of each and every app you intend to use while at sea. This last step is critical.
It is doing half-way of alternative 1 and half-way of alternative 2 that gets people in trouble. By the way, I would suggest adopting the same rules with any other computing platform.
Cheers,
Hi Coco,
Thanks for highlighting this hazard. As Francisco points out there are solutions but it’s still best to be aware.
More on this here: https://www.morganscloud.com/2017/01/22/10-tips-for-safe-navigation-with-phones-and-tablets/
This makes for interesting reading – our Iridium phone has started playing up, and although we use mobile phone signal for most of our weather and internet connections, we still need some form of satellite system for remote areas. And it will be good to hear Andy’s arguments in favour of the iPad – one or our main options for the future, once we’ve got our hands around the various options.
Best wishes
Colin
Hi Colin,
I’m not necessarily arguing in favor of the iPad, but it’s what we use for email. So I’d like to know how the GO! works on an iPad. We use the 9555 handset that sends data through a REDPORT Optimizer wirelessly to the iPad. Works great, and has done for several years, but it’s clunky to setup. I like the idea of the GO! sending data directly to the iPad through it’s own onboard wifi – less to setup. But I’ve never used it.
In general, I like the iPad as my onboard computer precisely so I don’t need to us an actual computer onboard. More on that upcoming.
Hi Andy
in the field I worked in (marine life research) we were very early adopters of laptops aboard and I never lost one through wet or damp – but – I think I was very lucky. And I’ve been very impressed by iPads especially in waterproof cases, as they seem to bring so many advantages. With our installed sat phone (Iridium 9522 TP with a Red Box router) on the blink, this seems like a good time to review what we go for into the future, so this article and your future one are very pertinent to us right now – look forward to seeing it.
Best wishes
Colin
Hi Colin,
Yeah again, can’t talk high enough in favor of the iPad. What I like best about it in a waterproof case is that I can sit with it outside in the cockpit. I tend to write on my night watches when all is calm, and I can do that on the iPad while still sitting outside and paying attention to the boat. I don’t have an external keyboard (though that would be handy). But the portability/waterproof nature of it is it’s biggest advantage.
Regarding the GO!, I’d see that as an addition to a dedicated handset, to be used for fun stuff like sending blogs in, and for WX. The handset is still invaluable for real emergencies. Case in point, when I got appendicitis offshore last summer. Mis just picked up the Sat Phone and made a call to the USCG to get doctor advice and start the procedure of re-routing us into Newport for surgery. No need to setup anything or link the GO with an iPhone, and of course you can take it in a liferaft.
But, I am intrigued by maybe using the GO! for daily WX and blogs (with it’s data plan), then ALSO having the handset for emergencies and just have a minimum voice plan on it. I think over 5 years that might actually pay for itself, as the handset minutes, when used for data, are expensive. Need to find out if there’s an email client / GRIB app that will connect directly through the GO and not require the REDPORT.
Andy
Hi Andy,
You make a really good point about how much better option a handset is than a GO! in an emergency. I keep beating that drum, but it’s really good to have you provide a real world example of why this really matters.
Sure, you can make a call with a GO!, but there’s a pile to go wrong and a lot of steps to go through, not what we need in an emergency. I wrote about this issue in more detail in the above linked articles.
Hi Andy,
In terms of viewing GRIB files on the iPad, I believe PredictWind for iPad (and PC or Mac) can download GRIBs via the Iridium GO: https://www.predictwind.com/iridium-go/
I know Jamie and Behan on Totem (who I think you know) use PredictWind with the GO for their passage making weather so you might ping them on their experiences.