Skymate

[josh]

Hi,

Just wondering if anyone has experience with using the sky mate system for weather and navigation and what they thought of it.
Thanks.

[Dreaming Yachtsman]

I have used SkyMate for weather occasionally, but not recently, when I don't have access to another source. It taps into the NOAA weather model so its accuracy is as good as any other source. You can get a variety of formats sent to you but I usually use a 3 day prediction, wind and wave only, to hold down the character count.

SkyMate is NOT a navigation program. It will send position reports that are as reliable as your GPS input to the unit. Without GPS input, it relies on Doppler analysis for is position estimation, sometimes with wide variation from reality. (One recent example: boat was in Culebra, just east of Puerto Rico, but the SkyMate position reported to our son showed us in Columbia.)

[Mystic38]

I used this on a passage from Newport to Grenada a few years ago.. There was never a feeling that the files would reliably download as it seems the request kept getting lost.. I think only 3 days out of the 12 to st martin we received the chart the day it was requested. needles to say, the owner cancelled the service. Others experiences are hopefully better, but there is no way I would entertain skymate on my own vessel after this.