Communication?

Question

Hi and Hello. I'm not a sailor but my fiance is. She's now working on a yacht and this is first time we been together she went to work. I have some questions I hope someone can help me. Is there any way I can track her yacht, like you can do with flights? Communication, she's able to send and recieve emails at first, while she was sailing up from Seattle to Alaska, we were able to exchange emails. On June 29th, she went back out to sea and I wrote her many emails but nothing back. Is there a reason for this? Such as you can get email connections in some areas and some areas you can't? What's best way to check her boat that it's ok? I am really new with this yacht/sailing thing. I found some tracking sites and I put in the yacht call sign and everything else but I always get back boat not found. Thanks for your time.

Answer 1

There may be a problem with the boats communications gear... did you try placing a satellite phone call, to see if you can get connected? (call your local phone comany and ask how)

Or perhaps the connection that worked before was via a cellphone connection, and now they're further out from the coast...

If you know the boat's name and approximate location, contact coastal radio and see if you can get a VHF link call set up.

Next trip, get more details...  or buy her a satellite phone...

Answer 2

I'm guessing she was using a Globalstar satellite phone for her email connectivity. Globalstar works okay on the west coast and Inside Passage, but only to about 200 miles offshore. If she's going to be sailing deep-sea, she should upgrade to Iridium. Single sideband radio is also a pretty good option, if speed and baud-rate aren't an issue.

If her yacht happens to be equipped with AIS she can be tracked quite easily from your computer; otherwise, you're probably going to have to wait for her to contact you.