DAY 3 Chesapeake Bay to BVI.

[Bullshooter]

Thanks NahBrown. Really enjoying the thread!

[mochifanta]

Great Blog. Enjoyed your passage remotely. I just did Hampton to Marsh also with Star Link and have seen the future for better or worse. :-)

[Nahbrown]

Originally Posted by merrydolphin

You’re 3 HUNDRED MILES off shore?! Are you CRAZY? Ha ha just kidding.

Thanks for the report.

Our favorite part of this trip for us was when we had paid our dues on easting and were able to head mostly south and haul butt with the trades near the beam.

We might have ventured further than 300 miles off shore after the first post

It all worked out for us however if I were to do this again I would go further east prior to heading south. We got the easy sail south of only 13 knots and gentle 10ft rolling swells. It was a calm, comfortable, beam reach sail south.

[jipcho]

Thanks for posting this interesting thread. I circumnavigated the globe from 2007-2017, and it brings back memories of the sailing life. It looks to me like you are using Navionics downloads. I used them almost exclusively for entering harbors and ports for which I didn't have detailed charts. They are great, and were easy to download. That's why I wonder why your skipper neglected to download the area which includes the island of Hispanola and the waters to it's north. I realize that you weren't intending to sail that way, but what if circumstances demanded a change in route? It would be nice to have all the depths, offshore dangers, and potential ports in the database. I once sailed to the US Virgin Islands (from New York), and we were forced south by the winds, and had to go through the dreaded Mona passage between Puerto Rico and Hispanola. Our catamaran was nearly capsized!

For communication and weather information, I used what was at the time the most widely used system. I had an SSB/HAM radio and a pactor modem which worked quite well. It was also free to send and receive (not including the cost of the equipment). This Star Link system doesn't sound great. You are saying both that it wasn't operational often times, and was fantastic when it worked. From what I understand it isn't free, but rather has a monthly charge. I doubt I would ever rely on something like that.

[bensolomon]

Congratulations on a passage well done!! Great posting, too!!

[mojosailing]

Thank you for the blog. Great trip and I’m excited to explore Starlink as an option, although I’m not inclined to stop using my Iridium Go! just yet.

[Nahbrown]

Originally Posted by jipcho

It looks to me like you are using Navionics downloads. ……… That's why I wonder why your skipper neglected to download the area which includes the island of Hispanola and the waters to it's north.

The owner of the boat had all the chart downloads on his Ipads but I didn’t. The screen shots are from my Ipad navionics and PredictWind. We sold our boat in July so I haven’t renewed any subscriptions. We had many contingency plans incase things went sideways though. The Bahamas, DR and Puerto Rico were discussed, thankfully we didn’t need to divert.

…… This Star Link system doesn't sound great. You are saying both that it wasn't operational often times, and was fantastic when it worked. From what I understand it isn't free, but rather has a monthly charge. I doubt I would ever rely on something like that.

Starlink is so new and the network isnt where it will be one day. The owner just added it with the expectation that it wouldn’t work more than 250 miles off shore. We were astonished that it kept working at all. To be frank if he had a better mounting position I think the service would have been uninterrupted the entire voyage.

His primary weather data and off shore coms was to be the Iridium go. Starlink was just leaps and bounds faster but neither is free. The owners live full time on this boat and consider the cost/benefit of $130 a month to video chat with kids, grandkids and all the other benefits of high speed internet in their home worth the money.