Sailing across the Atlantic on a sailing boat, under 40ft.

[capnsensible]

I'm fairly sure ssb has had its time. Don't often see it fitted these days. Iridium is great, I've rented for deliveries rather than buy. But on my last long trip, recommended by a couple of posters on here, Inreach did the job at a very civilised price.

 

[Bajansailor]

Icom SSB radios are the weapon of choice for all the long range fishing boats here - for some strange reason they do not seem to require any operator licenses, and while the boat itself is supposed to have a radio station license, I do not know of any that do, and the owners are very surprised when I tell them that they are supposed to have one.
The Authorities are not interested in following up on this - probably because they wouldn't know where to start, and how to enforce it.
And so HF has basically become the long range CB for these lads - they even use all the classic CB speak when communicating!

 

[Babylon]

Some years ago, I bought the whole SSB kit (used, but full functional - transceiver, copper grounding, AT and Pactor modem) with the intention of installing it on my previous boat.
Two years down the line, following boat downsizing and revised ambitions (mainly family and medical reasons) this kit is now no longer required.
I can not even give it away.
Everyone's going down the Spot, InReach and Iridium route.
Satcom has become somewhat more affordable and user friendly.

I'll take it off your hands...

 

[Koeketiene]

How sad but progress... I must try to find a way to update my video - I get the impression that lots of people circumnavigating still use SSB as out in the Pacific or even just the Red sea there is no other way I know of to keep in touch with or chat economically with other boats on these routes. A friend of mine worked out that there were always around 250 boats on the circumnavigation route spread out in places like Panama, Fiji, Thailand, Sri Lanca, Oman and the Red Sea - those were the days and SSB was king

You may well be right.
In the Pacific, SSB still has its uses today.
My mooring neighbour sails a Cigalle 16 and he returned from the Pacific in 2019.
He's got a SSB fitted.

However, the reality is that people cruising those waters are a very small minority when taking the European cruising community as a whole.
How many dream and how many actually go? I had to abandon my ROTW ambitions (family and health reasons).
OTOH, I do hope to cross the Atlantic in the not too distant future.
When that time comes, I will most likely take an Iridium Go.

 

[Koeketiene]

I'll take it off your hands...

Replied to your PM

 

[Sea Devil]

Ten years ago, sitting in English harbour, a group of us sat costing the various safety and comms kit. We worked out that a Sat Phone would have been a cheap(er) way of being not-quite master of all trades. It can do Mayday and other emergency calls, email and grib data transfer, locator for emergency positioning and... that's as far as my memory goes. Of course, eggs and one basket comes to mind!

One of the joys of my SSB was the social nets between cruisers.. In the Caribbean the Americans ran the safety and security net which was a bit OTT but useful, David Jones and Herb both ran excellent routing service which was particularly useful getting from Key West back to Antigua all mainly to windward. In the Galapagos waiting for the seasonal moment to depart for 3000 miles to the Marquises we formed the Pacific net and it was really useful checking in each morning... There was an excelent New Zealand weather net that was really helpful coming south from Fiji..Then again the Red Sea net was useful when I was attacked by pirates for the others on the net to get some guard Ships to cover the dodgy bit and I was proud to be a net controller after Djibouti.
So my question is - do long distance cruisers no longer have SSB and not use any of the above described nets?

Do the Nets just not exist - because for sure none of the Sat phone systems substitute for this... I would genuinely love to know -

I posted this before the posts above went live... The Caribbean was the first time I used my SSB after the atlantic and it was really useful - what are others doing who are in the Caribbean?

 

[Sea Devil]

Icom SSB radios are the weapon of choice for all the long range fishing boats here - for some strange reason they do not seem to require any operator licenses, and while the boat itself is supposed to have a radio station license, I do not know of any that do, and the owners are very surprised when I tell them that they are supposed to have one.
The Authorities are not interested in following up on this - probably because they wouldn't know where to start, and how to enforce it.
And so HF has basically become the long range CB for these lads - they even use all the classic CB speak when communicating!

I certainly did not have an operators licence or a set licence and in the USA neither is required I understand... good to know HF is alive and kicking in the Bahamas - by the way following your help I did get some quotes for my insurance some not requiring me to move out of hurricane zone... the cost for 35000US$ value were all around 1400$ - fully comp - does that seem reasonable by Caribbean standards - almost double UK rates Breste to Elbe?

 

[RobbieW]

One of the joys of my SSB was the social nets between cruisers.. In the Caribbean the Americans ran the safety and security net which was a bit OTT but useful, David Jones and Herb both ran excellent routing service which was particularly useful getting from Key West back to Antigua all mainly to windward. In the Galapagos waiting for the seasonal moment to depart for 3000 miles to the Marquises we formed the Pacific net and it was really useful checking in each morning... There was an excelent New Zealand weather net that was really helpful coming south from Fiji..Then again the Red Sea net was useful when I was attacked by pirates for the others on the net to get some guard Ships to cover the dodgy bit and I was proud to be a net controller after Djibouti.
So my question is - do long distance cruisers no longer have SSB and not use any of the above described nets?

Do the Nets just not exist - because for sure none of the Sat phone systems substitute for this... I would genuinely love to know -

I posted this before the posts above went live... The Caribbean was the first time I used my SSB after the atlantic and it was really useful - what are others doing who are in the Caribbean?

My impression is that the north americans are still quite keen on HF comms. It still seems a live set of discussions on Cruisers forum. The US has looser regulation than much of Europe and theres a stronger 'tradition' of HF use given the size of the continent and spread of peoples, same with Australia. The number of base stations for Winlink seems to diminish each year as stations go quiet - oh and Herb retired some years ago now, maybe 2010 or so?

Edit: I think that 'marine band' use has diminished a lot but 'ham band' is still there

 

[Tomaret]

One of the joys of my SSB was the social nets between cruisers.. In the Caribbean the Americans ran the safety and security net which was a bit OTT but useful, David Jones and Herb both ran excellent routing service which was particularly useful getting from Key West back to Antigua all mainly to windward. In the Galapagos waiting for the seasonal moment to depart for 3000 miles to the Marquises we formed the Pacific net and it was really useful checking in each morning... There was an excelent New Zealand weather net that was really helpful coming south from Fiji..Then again the Red Sea net was useful when I was attacked by pirates for the others on the net to get some guard Ships to cover the dodgy bit and I was proud to be a net controller after Djibouti.
So my question is - do long distance cruisers no longer have SSB and not use any of the above described nets?

Do the Nets just not exist - because for sure none of the Sat phone systems substitute for this... I would genuinely love to know -

I posted this before the posts above went live... The Caribbean was the first time I used my SSB after the atlantic and it was really useful - what are others doing who are in the Caribbean?

We were part of an SSB net moderated from somewhere on the Eastern seaboard of the US coming back from Antigua to Plymouth in 2019 and the net is still part of the experience for at least some ARC boats. The former was mostly about information sharing, the latter can be quite social.

 

[Roberto]

Aaah SSB vs Satphone, a bit like "which anchor"
FWIW I have both, 99% of my communications is done through radio (ham), about 90% is data (email and weatherfax) and 9% voice; the satphone is kept in the grab bag, I occasionally take it out for the odd call home, or to send an SMS with a position report if radio propagation is not cooperating.

 

[Sea Devil]

We were part of an SSB net moderated from somewhere on the Eastern seaboard of the US coming back from Antigua to Plymouth in 2019 and the net is still part of the experience for at least some ARC boats. The former was mostly about information sharing, the latter can be quite social.

That is good to hear. thank you... I had recommended and indeed was looking to install an Icom SSB for my forthcoming delivery of my boat to the Caribbean an SSB then began to hear it was was obsolete - I was shocked as it was a wonderful tool with a far wider range of uses than a Sat Phone and I was going to re-edit my video to change the statement but I think I will let it stand...

 

[geem]

That is good to hear. thank you... I had recommended and indeed was looking to install an Icom SSB for my forthcoming delivery of my boat to the Caribbean an SSB then began to hear it was was obsolete - I was shocked as it was a wonderful tool with a far wider range of uses than a Sat Phone and I was going to re-edit my video to change the statement but I think I will let it stand...

In my experience of the Caribbean, there are SSB nets but not many. We occasionally listen in to the OCC net. Although we are members we really dont participate in the net. Who had dinner on whose boat, etc, soon gets tedious.
Chris Parker runs an excellent Caribbean weather net that we do listen to most days. We have participated in a few Atlantic crossing nets but more for fun than anything else. For long trips we use our Garmin Inreach. Its economic to use and does everything we need when out of site of land for several days.

 

[Beelzebub]

I've sailed east to west twice, with the second trip being on a forty footer. Cape Verde islands to Antigua, 9 days. The rudder fell off the transom 600 miles from Antigua. If that hadn't happened, we were looking at 7 days.

(It was a trimaran, by the way)

Edit:- this is my 3000th post

 

[siwhi]

So my question is - do long distance cruisers no longer have SSB and not use any of the above described nets?

My impression is that the north americans are still quite keen on HF comms.

My experience below is based on 4 years cruising UK-Oz 2016-2020 with an SSB. Many boats still have SSBs, but they are fewer in number than before and increasingly limited to certain demographics - those of a 'certain age' and as RobbieW notes, they seem to be more common with North Americans (who generally seem to make conservative choices on destinations, boats choice, equipment choice, etc). So essentially it depends who you want to talk to!

We found, even in the Pacific, SSB gave quite limited value. Maybe half the boats cruising there had one (probably less), and half again of those used theirs regularly. I got talked into joining a few nets by neighbouring boats in a couple of anchorages we were in, but it was mainly vacuous chitchat amongst boats anchored close by - where to buy provisions, good dive spots, etc, all better discussed over a rum and coke in the cockpit. In any case a VHF would have sufficed for most of them. The 'established nets' eg passage weather nets were also mostly chat with a bit of news and could have been listened into using a standard shortwave radio without the expense or hassle of an SSB (obviously without participation). A normal cheapish shortwave radio also gives you access to weatherfax using something like the blackcat app on a phone.

So, if I were to go long distance cruising again I would put SSBs low down the priority list. A nice to have if the boat already has one, and a safety feature, but for me not worth thousands installing new. However an Iridium Go would be top of the list for several reasons. There are email groups established with cruising friends on the same passage or in the same general area exchanging info that way, and it's easier for weather info too. Sure, maybe you don't get the gossip in the same way on an email or text compared to SSB, but you keep in touch pretty well. Yellow Brick, Garmin Inreach or any other satellite voice or data / texting devices are broadly similar but the functionality varies. The other question is the safety / SAR aspect. You can also contact SAR services with satellite linked devices who would then be able to notify local ships in emergencies. They usually have a standard 'distress' button. So it's debatable whether they are more or less useful than an SSB in an offshore passage emergency.

 

[temptress]

Do your friends on the 31 have a blog? Would be interesting.

Just saw this -- I think they do have a blog -- it is in German and they don't update it too often. I'll see if I can find it. I'll be talking to them in a few days time.

 

[L_555]

I thought my Moody 36 was perfect - Angus Primrose knew how to design luxury boats - I lived in her around the world and although I have owned bigger boats I think she was the perfect compromise.. This is the video I made about Atlantic crossing

Excellent video- not sure I will ever be up to that level of sailing, but lots of useful tips nonetheless

 

[Sea Devil]

Excellent video- not sure I will ever be up to that level of sailing, but lots of useful tips nonetheless

It gets easier the more sailing you do... So pleased you liked the video
Michael