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Thread: Interested in a boat for 2018 TransPac

  1. #621
    Join Date
    May 2015
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    907

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    D-6

    There's a cut off low that's forecasted for next weekend. So far it's looking to be pushing out later on Saturday. ECMWF had it on the radar for several days already and now GFS shows it too. One to watch ...

  2. #622
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    May 2015
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    D-5

    At the risk of coming across as annoying I'll share that these past few days have been the least filled in a long time. Since I have not done this sort of trip before my experience must be taken with a grain of salt. Maybe I am missing something; I feel as prepared as I want to be. Well, no, I want to be more prepared but I chose to stop moving forward and instead focus on solidifying what I know.

    All that I see that's left to do will take place when a few last minute packages arrive (mainly a spare tablet) or when Thursday comes (loading it all and moving out to CYC). Friday and Saturday will be good too. But Thursday will be the busy day. In the mean time I'm watching boring animal documentaries, going for hikes, looking at the weather forecasts, eating, listening to music, looking out the window at the sky, taking walks around the neighborhood.

    So Thursday may go something like this:

    1. Wake up and have breakfast
    2. Maybe go for a hike while traffic clears
    3. Load up the car and drive to Sal's inflatables to pick up the life raft
    4. Carry on to BYC
    5. Load the light items in DE
    6. Put DE in the water
    7. Install the 100 W solar panel
    8. Load the heavy items
    9. Get the boat ready and cast off
    10. Sail to CYC
    11. Dock and get the boat through the last inspection
    12. Get a lift back to BYC
    13. Drive home

    Sailing to CYC will be against the tide in the afternoon. I'll need to keep an eye on the forecast; very light wind could be trouble and I may have to try to ride the morning ebb. My engine may make its absence felt ...

  3. #623
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
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    96

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    Philippe,

    That sounds better than my Thursday is looking with working until noon or 1 p.m. then a run up to Alameda to sail to CYC and then grab a ride back to Alameda to retrieve the car (thanks DaveH, you're a life saver).

    Meanwhile I have to figure out why it is taking so many attempts to download a grib from the IridiumGo using SailGrib on the tablet and also set up a saildocs subscription as a backup. Hope to have some time to work on that this evening. Anybody have any tips or insight? I'm all ears...

    At least the packing is almost done (although the boat is kind of disorganized).

    JohnS (who really wishes he could have managed to get this week off from work)

  4. #624
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
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    448

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    Quote Originally Posted by JohnS View Post

    Meanwhile I have to figure out why it is taking so many attempts to download a grib from the IridiumGo using SailGrib on the tablet and also set up a saildocs subscription as a backup. Hope to have some time to work on that this evening. Anybody have any tips or insight? I'm all ears...
    Are you using any compression/file management software over the Iridium conection? (e.g., SailMail, Ocens, etc.)

    Iridium connections are handed off from satellite to satellite as the satellites orbit by overhead, and it's not easy to maintain a constant computer connection through the hand-off. File management software keeps track of which file bits have been sent and in the event of failure/reconnection can continue the file transfer without restarting at the beginning (e.g., only send the file bits that need to be sent).

    In theory SailGrib does the file management for you (they say they are Iridium-approved), verify that it does. I didn't see anything specifc about this in the help docs; if the file is coming over Iridium GO Mail then this should be handled correctly.

    Verify the GO! has a good view of the sky (don't put it beneath a solar panel, for example), has a strong connection (count connection bars).

    Are you usingi the GO! built-in antenna or an external antenna?

    What is the file size of the grib you're asking the GO! to download? Can you obtain the same file using regular internet access (as in test without the GO! in the loop)?

    - rob/beetle

  5. #625
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    May 2015
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    This is how I do it ...

    In SailGrib use SailDocs as the source (all the way at the top) and Iridium email (all the way at the bottom). SailGrib will spool an email to the GO. Then, using the GO email app do send/receive, it's taking 2 minutes or so. Wait 5 minutes then send/receive again. You should have a response from SailDocs and the download may take a while. Then download, switch to SG and open the GRIB file.

  6. #626
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    Jan 2015
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    San Francisco Bay
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    Quote Originally Posted by jamottep View Post
    This is how I do it ...

    In SailGrib use SailDocs as the source (all the way at the top) and Iridium email (all the way at the bottom). SailGrib will spool an email to the GO. Then, using the GO email app do send/receive, it's taking 2 minutes or so. Wait 5 minutes then send/receive again. You should have a response from SailDocs and the download may take a while. Then download, switch to SG and open the GRIB file.
    This is how I do it, also. The external antenna is important.

  7. #627
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    Dec 2007
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    96

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    Thanks Rob, Philippe and Smoke,

    It sounds like I am using the same process Philippe described. Unfortunately, I have no external antenna. My testing thus far has been from my backyard with a decent sky view. My experience during my first test a few days ago was that the email request from SailGrib spooled just fine to Iridium mail. That's where things get difficult. The saildocs request email sends pretty well (but it's tiny). The receive required a number of attempts and some of them would make good progress before the attempt failed. On subsequent tries it would start at the beginning rather than picking up where the earlier file had stopped. That's what puzzled me. Trying again now. It sounds like I may regret not getting an external antenna but the boat is so small I can just reach up and put the thing on the cabin top. Yeah, that's gonna fix it. Too late to get an antenna now (sigh).

    Also seems I need to figure out how to get the grib email from saildocs delivered to SailGrib from the iridium mail app. More research and more working on this tomorrow.

  8. #628
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    Jan 2015
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    The same thing happens in my backyard where I have tried it without the external antenna. I can transmit short texts but not receive larger files such as gribs. Works fine on the boat in the marina with external antenna.

  9. #629
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
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    448

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    Quote Originally Posted by JohnS View Post
    The receive required a number of attempts and some of them would make good progress before the attempt failed. On subsequent tries it would start at the beginning rather than picking up where the earlier file had stopped.
    If that's the case then the file transfer software is not keeping track of bytes-sent, which means you to receive the entire file before the satellite connection is dropped. That's not something you can easily plan for and means you will need a good connection and a small file to receive the entire file before the satellite drops below the horizon.

    The Iridium Mail & Web App features page states: "Mid-file restart of download if connection is lost" and it appears that SailGrib is using Iridium Mail for the file transfer. If you're not seeing this behavior check with the SailGrib author to find out what is really going on as you should not be seeing a complete file re-send.

    https://www.iridium.com/products/iridium-mail-web-app/

    - rob/beetle

  10. #630
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    Jan 2015
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    San Francisco Bay
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    Can someone chime in with the largest typical file size they have downloaded with the Iridium Go!? I don't see file restarts either.

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