Here are the slides from last night’s seminar at the RPAYC:

Prepaid Mobile Broadband

Internet at sea has become an essential part of cruising. Some of us might like to get away from emails, but easily accessed weather information and the ability to keep in touch with friends and family sways most of us. On our boat, Te Moana,  we have a permanent Wireless Broadband installation, with which we’re very happy. However, not everyone is prepared to spend $1000+ or have a permanently installed system.

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[This is the online version of an article in the May 2011 issue of the Mainsheet, the monthly magazine of the Coastal cruising Club of Australia. This month it is a bit self-referential, but I thought I'd put it up here anyway - MC]

This month, we’ll take a look at skipr.net [1], a Website which some friends and I especially built for cruising sailors, their friends and family.

Skipr was originally conceived on a cruise to Hobart (on Belage, the yacht of CCCA member Peter Style) in 2006. A friend had helped me build a Google map which showed the boat’s position. Having Internet access on board made it practical to build a Web based service which let others know where you were and what was happening along the way.

Today, it has matured into a popular service for cruising sailors who like to keep in touch with family and friends. I’m keen to “fold” that experience back into the Coastal Cruising Club. For those who haven’t used it, here is a quick overview of how you can have your boat displayed on the site: [...]

[This is the online version of an article in the April 2011 issue of the Mainsheet, the monthly magazine of the Coastal Cruising Club of Australia]

I have recently been giving presentations about the use of the Internet at sea as well as Cruise Communications generally. Here are some of the questions which came up after those talks.

Q: Where should I install my Mobile Broadband Antenna?
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Here are the slides from yesterday’s seminar at the RPAYC on Cruise Communications. It was a follow up from an earlier presentation at the “First Friday” evening held by the club’s cruising group. It is part of a comprehensive series of seminars, held in preparation for the club’s 2011 cruise to the Coral Coast. The seminar notes can be downloaded here and the slide presentation is below.

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[This is the online version of an article in the March 2011 issue of the Mainsheet, the monthly magazine of the Coastal Cruising Club of Australia]

We all know the role the weather plays in a successful cruise or passage. While we appreciate the weather forecasts provided by local Volunteer Marine Rescue units and the general media, the Internet provides direct access to a rich set of weather information for both casual and “serious” sailing adventures.

Modern forecasts are derived from complex prediction models run on some of the world’s largest computers. It is an unbelievably complex problem to forecast the weather more than a few days ahead and we still manage to complain! But the end result is that today we have a wealth of information available to us via the Web. Whether looking for explanations of a weather phenomenon, today’s weather, a seven day forecast, the expected sea state or precipitation – it’s there for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

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Last night I enjoyed doing a presentation to the CCCA. Over the coming week, in preparation for the seminars at RPAYC, I’ll have a chance to explore some aspects in more details. The presentation and links to sites that were mentioned are below.

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Skipr.net is providing infrastructure and integration software for the 2011 Pittwater to Coffs Harbour race. The RPAYC is installing Yellow Brick Satellite tracking systems on all participating yachts.

The race starts on 2nd January 2011 and you can follow progress of the yachts on the Pittwater to Coffs website.

We’re rolling out some new features today.
Rather than needing a username (and to remember it), we’re now doing log-ins with your email address. One thing less to remember.

Default Boat Page

And we’ve re-designed the boat pages, to provide a more compact layout, and importantly to allow for a picture and description of your boat.

The last 10 position reports now appear to the left of the map and the date display control is now above the map. [...]

This weekend we launched a re-design of the skipr.net website.  We’ve overhauled its user interface and laid the foundations for a range of new features to help cruising sailors and everyone else  interested in the tracking the movement of recreational vessels. This post describes a few of the new features. [...]