Longer term crusing and internet access to earn a crust

[nicappotamus 2]

The current virus concentrates the mind on how fragile our comfortable existence is and that we should have taken the chances when they arose (which we didn't pre kids)

Now mid 50's and thinking about getting away.........

We are accountants/tax type of people (both of us) and conceivably could carve out a client base that are happy to deal with us via email, skype and the work can be done remotely with a few laptops, some paper and a printer........

Has anyone acheived this - we would probably have to work maybe one day a week, maybe two, on average.; the key is decent wifi or mobile signal so we can work remotely. Keeping the wheels turning via email and phone is probably as important as the day sat actually earning the said crust.

We'd need a bigger boat (we sail a 32 footer) as we'll need more space for the office stuff.

I think we'd also be happy to curtail our "voyages" and the sailing periods to match the demands of earning so shorter sails around the UK, or northern european coastline would be fine trying to stay attached to the comms grid. Doing this will impact on our wealth when we are truly decrepit but I think a life well lived is better than one where you are able to sit decrepit on a larger hoard like an ageing dragon

Just wondered if anyone had experience of this and had an idea of wifi/mobile boosters to improve reception etc. Also posted in the liveaboard section

 

[AntarcticPilot]

It's worth bearing in mind that some wifi boosters work by increasing the transmitted power, and are illegal in many parts of the world, especially the EU. You can fall foul of the UK's catch 22 - it is legal to sell equipment that it is illegal to use! Others work by providing highly directional antennae and are of little use on a boat that may swing at anchor. I'd forget WiFi unless you plan on spending a lot of time in marinas - and marina provision is often not great.

Basically, look at maps of 3 and 4G mobile phone coverage. Ofcom provides coverage maps for the UK - see Ofcom. Bear in mind that this is for all networks; the individual network providers also have coverage maps. It can also be a bit optimistic!

 

[nicappotamus 2]

ta - I can imagine having several different providers just to get the best chance at wifi coverage.

I'm trying to get a feel for how much marina use we'll need - which will have an impact on budget, which has an impact on marina usage, which has (it's a bit circular)

 

[ryanroberts]

Just wondered if anyone had experience of this and had an idea of wifi/mobile boosters to improve reception etc. Also posted in the liveaboard section

Have done this inland for years, often working remote as a software dev. If you are even vaguely off piste then there's no substitute for 3/4G with a decent omni antenna (or two). Most of my work tooling is text based so can tolerate pretty marginal internet connectivity. Not sailed enough to have much of an idea about how viable this is on specific bits of the UK coast but have been often surprised about being able to get viable network connections on a phone a few miles off, never mind with a decent antenna setup on the masthead.

My pre Covid plan was to start maximising the remote in my remote working mooching around the southwest before finding a winter marina near cafes etc to vary working environment (I tend to get cabin fever just working from a boat in the same location). Also a shoreline is handy in winter unless you really like the sound of engines & gensets. Solar is not viable october-> march.

 

[dolabriform]

If you've got enough power generation ( Solar & wind ) & a decent 4G contract then marina use should be minimal.

For the bandwidth usage you are talking about, you won't need a super fast connection, especially if you move your software usage to the cloud with gSuite or Office 365.
What accountancy software do you use? Can you move that to the cloud.
Store all your docs in the cloud as well with Google Drive or the Microsoft equivalent and preview / edit using online tools.
All of these steps will minimise your bandwidth requirements and also mean that the data is in secure storage that is backed up and can be accessed from anywhere.

Once you have everything online and everything is accessed using a browser, investigate if it is possible for you to dump the PC and move to a Google Chromebook. No virus / malware issues and much lower power consumption.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

ta - I can imagine having several different providers just to get the best chance at wifi coverage.

I'm trying to get a feel for how much marina use we'll need - which will have an impact on budget, which has an impact on marina usage, which has (it's a bit circular)

Remember that marinas are sharing a fixed bandwidth link with as many users as there are in the marina. WiFi connection in a marina may well be worse than connection using 3 or 4G phone signals, depending on the number of other users. Further, the WiFi coverage in a marina is often a bit patchy; forests of aluminium masts don't do much for WiFi signals!

That said, there are many oddities in phone coverage - it can be better offshore than at anchor or in a marina! That was certainly the case at InverKip on the Clyde - the mobile coverage in the marina was awful due to the configuration of the topography and the location of phone masts, but once away from the land, the signal was fine!

 

[nicappotamus 2]

If you've got enough power generation ( Solar & wind ) & a decent 4G contract then marina use should be minimal.

For the bandwidth usage you are talking about, you won't need a super fast connection, especially if you move your software usage to the cloud with gSuite or Office 365.
What accountancy software do you use? Can you move that to the cloud.
Store all your docs in the cloud as well with Google Drive or the Microsoft equivalent and preview / edit using online tools.
All of these steps will minimise your bandwidth requirements and also mean that the data is in secure storage that is backed up and can be accessed from anywhere.

Once you have everything online and everything is accessed using a browser, investigate if it is possible for you to dump the PC and move to a Google Chromebook. No virus / malware issues and much lower power consumption.

Thanks - we are already cloudbased for the worky-stuff in terms of the industry specific software, g-suite for emails and the like as we have worked remotely for maybe three years as came out of the office based environment and sold the bulk of the practice 2-3 years ago when ill health of both of us meant that we had some pretty rapid changes to manage

so we are halfway there I think. We'd need to encourage or sift clients by suitability for internet based support but I think we could probably come away with some 30K a year - the biggest barriers in order are 1. current family ties 2. having the cojones to do it 3. ensuring reglar and consistent connectivity 4. organising clients so we have the right number

 

[dolabriform]

Thanks - we are already cloudbased for the worky-stuff in terms of the industry specific software, g-suite for emails and the like as we have worked remotely for maybe three years as came out of the office based environment and sold the bulk of the practice 2-3 years ago when ill health of both of us meant that we had some pretty rapid changes to manage

so we are halfway there I think. We'd need to encourage or sift clients by suitability for internet based support but I think we could probably come away with some 30K a year - the biggest barriers in order are 1. current family ties 2. having the cojones to do it 3. ensuring reglar and consistent connectivity 4. organising clients so we have the right number

That's great, your most of the way there already then

Do you actually need a printer? It's one of the questions I keep asking myself as I can see benefits beyond work such as printing out local pilot notes etc.

One thing that would be useful is a map of anchorages with good 4G coverage... then you could just go to one of those when you need to work.

 

[nicappotamus 2]

deffo to a printer - sometimes we have to post the odd letter as still some organisations think a wet signature has meaning (but very few of them thankfully). But it helps to have printed matter to tick and look at when doing something complicated.......and the hourly rates mean that printing makes sense as the marginal cost is peanuts compared with the lost time and efficiency of not being able to put a little red tick somewhere

 

[ryanroberts]

One thing that would be useful is a map of anchorages with good 4G coverage... then you could just go to one of those when you need to work.

Data not open unfortunately but you can get a rough idea visually, few people running it out at sea.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Others work by providing highly directional antennae and are of little use on a boat that may swing at anchor. I'd forget WiFi unless you plan on spending a lot of time in marinas - and marina provision is often not great.

I have an omnidirectional "Tube" wifi antenna from Alfa which is astonishingly good at picking up signals. On my mooring I can see two or three wifi networks with my laptop and at least thirty with the Alfa.

However, my experience is that marina wifi is uniformly terrible, not because of signal strength but because they just don't have the bandwidth to support the number of users. Most of the time I use a mifi with external (but in the cabin) antenna on the boat, which pretty reliably gives me 5 - 6 Mbps (it's an old 3G one) anytime I am near civilisation.

 

[dunedin]

You mention “Northern European coastline”. We recently did two seasons in southern Norway, Sweden and Denmark. With the exception of the North Sea crossing, I don’t recall ever having difficulty getting at least 3G data signal. Frankly rarely bothered to connect to any Wi-fi.
And the good think about accountancy etc the data files are very small - compared to graphics etc.

Scotland was a very different matter. Many places excellent, but a lot of rocky anchorages had no signal at all, not even for text messages. Had to hoist phone up mast to get weather forecast highlights texted from home.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

You mention “Northern European coastline”. We recently did two seasons in southern Norway, Sweden and Denmark. With the exception of the North Sea crossing, I don’t recall ever having difficulty getting at least 3G data signal. Frankly rarely bothered to connect to any Wi-fi.
And the good think about accountancy etc the data files are very small - compared to graphics etc.

Scotland was a very different matter. Many places excellent, but a lot of rocky anchorages had no signal at all, not even for text messages. Had to hoist phone up mast to get weather forecast highlights texted from home.

Yes; on the West of Scotland, many places don't even have a basic 2G connection - and that goes double for anchorages, which are often surrounded by rocks and islands that shield them from any possible signal. We once anchored at Bull Hole in the Sound of Iona and had to climb a small hill to allow our crew member to get in touch with his wife!

Always remember that the distribution of mobile phone masts follows population density closely!

 

[RupertW]

My wife has done this for many years and it gets easier each season. It will get far easier again with Zoom and other technologies becoming part of normal working life.

We are not full time cruisers and average about 3 months a year in bits and pieces up to 6 weeks long. She uses 4g on her mobile as a hotspot for her iPad or Mac usIng video and/or audio with a headset for calls and conferences. She has often done this while we are beating our way along a beautiful coast in bright sunshine. She will time her main writing and reading bits for the offshore passages and we work our sailing around it, and emails which take so much time happen as and when.

And when needed she flies back for a couple of days for a meeting and I get on with boat fixing. I’d hate to do it but each day she can bill will keep us going for a weeks cruising.

 

[LadyInBed]

Remember that marinas are sharing a fixed bandwidth link with as many users as there are in the marina. WiFi connection in a marina may well be worse than connection using 3 or 4G phone signals

My experience has been that marina WiFi is always worse than 3/4G.
Also I find that Mobile Wi-Fi (MiFi) devices are more flexible than a tethered phone, for one thing, you can position it away from you (like up the mast) to get a better signal without missing phone calls.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

My experience has been that marina WiFi is always worse than 3/4G.
Also I find that Mobile Wi-Fi (MiFi) devices are more flexible than a tethered phone, for one thing, you can position it away from you (like up the mast) to get a better signal without missing phone calls.

In general, you're probably right. But many marinas don't have good mobile phone signals. InverKip certainly hadn't when I was there, and it's indifferent at Titchmarsh where I am now, especially at low tide when the surrounding banks of the marina shield you from the mast. At high tide, it's fine and (as you say) often more reliable than the marina WiFi, but at low tide, the marina WiFi is usually better. Marinas distant from centres of population are unlikely to have good phone signals.

 

[jordanbasset]

My experience has been that marina WiFi is always worse than 3/4G.
Also I find that Mobile Wi-Fi (MiFi) devices are more flexible than a tethered phone, for one thing, you can position it away from you (like up the mast) to get a better signal without missing phone calls.

Agree, a few times I have put the mifi in a plastic bag and hoisted it up the mast when I have struggled to get a signal

 

[prv]

Yet another on the "don't bother with marina wifi" side of the scale. Or, I guess, maintain the capability just in case, but consider it a backup to 4G.

When I was working on a quayside in Norway a couple of years ago, my 4G connection was faster than my broadband back home.

That was on my ordinary phone, but for work we also have serious 4G routers with dual sim cards (so it can pick the network with best signal) and the option to unscrew the rubber-ducky antennas and connect a pair of large tubular fibreglass affairs. I've never needed them, but they're there in the pelicase and my colleagues tell me they boost the reception significantly and are very useful in Scotland. The router has four ethernet sockets on it, wifi on the LAN side, and all sorts of networking and VPN options. If I was fitting out a true floating office I might look into how much such things cost and do a proper install.

Pete

 

[JumbleDuck]

Always remember that the distribution of mobile phone masts follows population density closely!

In general that's true, but since EE got the ESN (Emergency Services Network) contract, good coverage has been springing up in all sorts of strange places as they improve their network to cover everywhere that the police, fire service or ambulances might want to go. For example, Ulva Ferry went from having nothing a few years ago to having rock-solid 10MBps the following year.

There was also for many years an extremely good signal round the wilds of Ardnamurchan, popularly suspected to be related to the BT chairman having a holiday home there.

 

[Kelpie]

Give it a couple of years and new satellite internet offerings might totally transform mobile internet.
Iridium's 77 satellite constellation is tried and tested and some packages are quite affordable, although the bandwidth is tiny.
Starlink already have about 360 satellites in place and are aiming for 1500 by the end of this year, when they will go 'live' with the service.