The Coho Ho Ho is a relatively new and small cruising rally that departs from Puget Sound usually on the last Sunday in August and ends a few weeks later for some in San Francisco and for others in San Diego.
Over the last 10 years, the fleet has averaged 12 boats per year, and the rally has been the opening act for the more popular and older Baja Ha-Ha rally in the fall from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico. From there, some finish their cruising lives and eventually sell their boats; others cross the Pacific or head for the Panama Canal and the Caribbean.
Rarely did anyone sail back north to Seattle. Lately, however, Bob Vizenor, one of the rally’s organizers, has noticed more of their fleet returning. Some of that is related to another thing Vizenor has noticed—sailors are younger and no longer a uniform band of pensioners or tech barons (like the Microsoft consultant in the 2016 rally who spent $20,000 on a KVH satellite system so he could work at sea).
And all of that, he reckons, is likely related to the now ubiquitous white rectangular dishes atop the rails and arches of boats embarking on the Ho Ho. Last year, about half of the fleet was equipped with a Starlink dish. This year, all nine participating boats have them.
“When Starlink came on the scene, all of a sudden remote work was forced on everybody,” Vizenor says. “The two just reinforced each other.”
In no small part enabled by Starlink, sailors are starting younger. Cruising lives have been extended. A distance rally, ocean crossing, or circumnavigation can now be a prelude to a sailing life, instead of an epilogue. Other factors are at play—the rise of social media, changes in work culture, delayed parenthood, and smaller families—but connectivity is a critical component to turning some of those one-way voyages into round trips. Vizenor calls it a “side effect” of Starlink.
The technology has now breached perhaps the world’s last internet-free domain, the open sea, for better and, a few say, for worse. All agree on one thing: With Starlink, there is no going back.
The Ho Ho is not the only rally saturated by Starlink. Only two years ago, the technology was just an “emerging interest” among cruisers in the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC), according to the World Cruising Club. In 2023, about a third of the sailors departing Gran Canaria had Starlink; a comparable number installed it when they arrived in the Caribbean, apparently convinced by the crossing of its value, says the WCC’s Rachel Hibberd. This year, the WCC expects 80 to 90% of ARC participants to have it. All of the club’s 2024 World ARC boats already carry it.
The shift to the dish was not gradual but seismic. The Brat Summer of 2024 was Starlink Summer for sailors. The equipment is getting cheaper—the company offered a $200 discount for the newest-generation standard kit this summer. Subscriptions are becoming more flexible. While perhaps not yet standard equipment like VHF, it is easy to imagine how Starlink will be soon, as the technology becomes more implanted in the psyche of sailors.
Nick Martin, the owner of True North Yachting in Annapolis, says he gets about six calls a week from boatowners interested in Starlink, and he installs about half that number each week.
“We’re buying Starlink (kits) like they’re going out of style,” Martin says.
Sailing to Work
Starlink enabled and was enabled by remote employment and the cultural ascension of the DIY sailing media, that cottage industry of video bloggers, YouTubers, Instagram influencers, and offshore podcasters who have changed the profile of sailing as a lifestyle, and perhaps unwittingly created a genre of amateur reality TV around sailboats, family content, exotic destinations, and high adventure.
But they are far from the only sailors now using Starlink for work. Owen Murphy is a marine electrical engineer whose career was radically altered by Starlink as he made plans to set off across the South Pacific. While he still occasionally ferries his tool bags from boat to boat, 95% of his work is done online.
“Soon after I had Starlink, I was remotely wiring boats in Colorado, Greece, and England from my ship salon anchored in a remote atoll in French Polynesia,” Murphy said via Starlink from the South Pacific.
Elizabeth Grewe cruises full-time with her husband, Scott, aboard a Contest 36 named Oyster. They sailed from Long Island Sound through the Caribbean, the Canal, Central America, and then to Southern Mexico, where they installed Starlink at the end of 2022. They spent the winter cruising into the Sea of Cortez and when the summer of 2023 arrived, “instead of going back to work, we just wanted to sail our damn boat,” says Grewe, who by then had a job as a digital admin for a high-end furniture company. With Starlink, they could do both.
They went on to Hawaii, cruised all the islands, set off for Alaska, then hopscotched down the Pacific Coast until they got to Los Angeles in late 2023, all without interruption to Elizabeth’s job demands.
“This spring, we delivered a boat to the Bahamas,” she says. “When I was off watch in the Gulf Stream, I was sending spreadsheets.”
Even offshore racers have benefited from constant connection, and not just in terms of safety and strategy. American sailor Cole Brauer led a master class in the marketing power of Starlink during her second-place run in the Global Solo Challenge (GSC), selling herself and her story, connecting with a huge audience—more than half a million Instagram followers near the end of the race this spring—and widening her exposure to potential consumers of the sport, all things critical to mounting a successful race campaign. Maybe as much as winning.
If offshore racing can be a spectator sport, it’ll have Starlink to thank—even if the basic ethos of offshore sailing runs counter to idea of connectivity.
“I think Starlink will be on almost every boat soon,” racer Ronnie Simpson said by email from a delivery in the Pacific, using, of course, Starlink. Simpson was firmly in third place in the GSC and had just rounded Cape Horn when he dismasted in the South Atlantic while trying to beat a storm as he pounded upwind into relentless and building seas. He immediately notified the listening world of his predicament as he decided his only option was rescue. The final and crucial relay to a nearby merchant vessel was frustratingly slow, but he was saved.
“Purists will argue that the romance of going to sea and disconnecting is gone, and they’re right about that in many ways, but in my experience very few of us choose to remain disconnected when given the option,” Simpson said. “Being able to text message or use WhatsApp is also very useful as it alleviates any confusion from garbled radio transmissions or different accents. Of course, you still need some type of redundancy to be safe, and you don’t want to truly depend on having it working.”
He raises a key point: Starlink does not yet have an internal battery and needs the boat or a large external battery as a power source. You cannot easily toss it into a ditchbag like you can a 406 EPIRB, personal beacon, and other satellite-based systems, like Iridium GO!, that are portable and have built-in power sources.
ARC sailors are required to have email and instant messaging capability. While Starlink is an easy way to satisfy this requirement, the WCC discourages relying on it as the only means of emergency communication. Experienced sailors still consider traditional technology and handheld satellite devices to be essential equipment.
In March 2023, the world saw its first high-profile, Starlink-enhanced rescue when a Kelly-Peterson 44 named Raindancer collided with a whale halfway between South America and French Polynesia with a crew of four. The vessel sank within 15 minutes, but the rescue was a textbook example of how preexisting technology complements Starlink in an emergency. The crew had two EPIRBs, two handheld satellite devices, three AIS beacons, and a handheld VHF. They used their traditional equipment to send messages to everyone from family on land to the Coast Guard to Raindancer’s buddy boat—which had Starlink and used it to quickly post a call for help on Facebook. That was picked up by several Starlink-equipped boats on the Pacific leg of the World ARC who used a WhatsApp group to coordinate a rescue. One of those boats was about 60 nautical miles away and reached the Raindancer crew in nine hours. No better advertisement for Starlink could have been crafted.
Finding a Balance
The concept of a low-orbit constellation of satellites, the technology that powers Starlink, was discussed as early as the 1980s and implemented by 2000. The next decade brought satellite communications technology into the hands of the general public through companies like Globalstar and Iridium, but it was expensive, unreliable, and of limited capability.
Those early companies launched dozens of satellites into low orbit. Starlink has launched thousands.
The first batch of 60 was launched in May 2019, when talk among sailors first began, legend-like, of an ocean-going, high-speed internet that seemed too fantastic to be real. The company now has at least 6,000 satellites in orbit with immediate plans for another 6,000—easier done if your parent company, SpaceX, is in the rocket-launching business. The New York Times and other outlets have reported Starlink may have as many as 42,000 satellites orbiting the Earth in the coming years. Since the lifespans of its low-orbit satellites are relatively short—about five years—launching new batches of satellites will likely be a continual process.
Starlink signed up its first 10,000 subscribers in February 2021. By the end of that year, the company had 140,000 customers. (It has added about three million subscribers since then.) That winter, Starlink was the talk of the evening potlucks at the Paradise Village Marina in Puerto Vallarta, where Vizenor and his wife spend winters.
By the next season (winter of 2022-2023), the number of subscribers had reached one million. And every time Vizenor passed by the marina dumpster, there were more discarded gray Starlink boxes in the garbage. He installed one on his Slocum 43 in October 2022. It almost immediately paid for itself when Vizenor lost his engine after leaving Banderas Bay. He anchored off a remote fishing village, fired up his Starlink, watched a YouTube video on how to bleed an engine, and got it started again.
Vizenor is 64, old enough to be sentimental about the pre-satellite days, when he could disappear into the wilds of Desolation Sound in British Columbia.
“It was nice to be totally disconnected, living in the moment, not being aware of global politics or the latest song on Spotify,” he says. “I’d put my phone in the nav station and that would be it for two weeks.”
Now he stays on the water longer while working part-time, thanks to Starlink, which he also installed on his summer boat up in Seattle, another Slocum 43.
He is also wistful about another ritual, compromised by if not completely lost to Starlink. Ho Ho cruisers prepare for the rally by attending seminars led by experienced alum. Typically they gather in a conference room at Fisheries Supply, a popular marine supply store by Seattle’s Lake Union. Everyone brings food and makes a party of it. For the past few years, the alums have joined by Starlink instead of in person, while anchored in the Caribbean or in Mexico.
“There was something about physically being in the same room sharing food that we made that I do miss a great deal,” Vizenor says. “On the other hand, we’re able to have a much larger community.”
Tradition seems to be the last bulwark against total capitulation to Starlink, held up by a sentimental minority that skews older. Alex Rocca, 59, an experienced cruiser, captain for hire, and sailing instructor, has resisted adding it to his Hunter Legend, Tupelo Honey, which has taken him from the Chesapeake to the Virgin Islands and Bahamas.
The sailing school he works for installed Starlink in its fleet of catamarans and monohulls that pivots between sister schools in Jamestown, Rhode Island, and the BVI. He has his reasons for holding out—“I guess I’m old school”—and in the meantime has handheld satellite devices that provide him with the essentials.
But when he has Starlink on someone else’s boat, well, “that’s a bonus,” Rocca says with a content smile. “It is a comfort during deliveries.”
Tom McCarten is 75 and installed Starlink on his boat in February, having used just about every other form of ocean communication, starting with Morse code, which he learned as a Boy Scout. He has a ham radio license, and when satellite phones came around, he got a Globalstar phone.
He still had it in 2012 when, at age 63 he left his home port of St. Augustine, Florida, in his Hunter 41 and sailed deep into the Caribbean, through the Panama Canal, and onward to Hawaii, making the crossing to Hilo alone in 54 days.
He cruised the islands before returning to the continent, landing in Victoria, British Columbia. From there, he cruised south to California and Mexico, back through the canal into the Caribbean, and home to Florida. His satellite phone was often useless as he crossed many dead zones of coverage that lasted weeks. He filled in the gaps with ham radio and received weather charts using high frequency radio facsimile. The charts took 20 to 30 minutes to download.
McCarten was impressively connected in the analog era, not coincidentally because he was a Navy radioman, studied electrical engineering in college, and worked in Alaska for three decades as a telecommunications technician. As a sailor, McCarten has always made the effort to stay connected and exercised the restraint to not do it in excess, which, let’s face it, wasn’t hard to do. With Starlink, his approach hasn’t really changed.
“I’m certainly not going to use it to watch TV all day,” he says. “When I want solitude, I just turn it off.”
He wants to continue to cruise long distance as long as his health allows, and Starlink might just extend the shrinking cruising years he has left.
“The safety aspect of it is so nice,” he says. “If there’s a medical emergency, I can call my doctor. Of course, I need a well stocked medical kit or it doesn’t do any good to talk to a physician. But even if I didn’t have Starlink, I’d still take the risks.”
Only a handful of years ago, everyone did. All technology, including Starlink, reduces the reliance on learned skills and can become a crutch.
“Sailors begin to rely on ‘expert’ weather prediction versus what they actually see on the ocean,” Rocca says, spelling out one risk.
What else we lose in our on-demand, algorithmically curated, world-in-the-cloud era is harder to measure. A song you didn’t know existed, or a person you were not looking for, the miscellaneous joy that arrives by accident. We call it serendipity.
“No matter what tech you have on your boat, there’s something about sharing your anchorage with one other boat or 100 boats that is magic,” says Elizabeth Grewe. “Nothing will ever replace the dinghy or kayak hello; we’ve met so many people that way.”
Though Starlink has been a magical means to an end that dreams are made of, the Grewes, both 37, acknowledge the slippery slope of connectivity at sea.
“Sailing was the last frontier,” Scott says, “but now, sure enough, you go through any anchorage in these popular ports, and everyone has got Starlink fired up. I don’t know how I feel about it. But I am guilty of it too.”
Still, his back-of-napkin checklist for accepting an offshore delivery job has three main boxes: Is the trip downwind? Does the boat have a liferaft? Does it have Starlink?
Elizabeth relies most on satellite technology but is also leery of its contribution to light pollution (trains of satellites are visible during launch), the environmental impact of rocket launches, and its power to distract from the whole point of being on the water.
“We live very closely connected to nature in a way that is so fulfilling, and it’s a driving force behind this lifestyle,” she says. “Having internet access has opened sailing to a new generation of people. It’s an amazing tool. There’s a time for it to be used and a time not to be used.”
The Grewes generally abstain from scrolling while on passage and endeavor to guzzle the nature around them when they are on watch.
“Balancing connectivity and soul searching out here on the water is constant work,” Owen Murphy says. “I still shut down the internet whenever I am sailing. That part of this life is sacred.”
Starlink 101- For the moment
Starlink is one of the easiest kinds of electronic equipment to install on a boat but will consume the most power, with many current models on par roughly with refrigeration (about 4-5 amps or 40-60 watts) if you run it constantly. For some, adding Starlink requires adding electrical capacity. Sailors who run Starlink intermittently and sparingly, however, might not notice much difference, as will those who have waited to purchase the newest Starlink Mini, which draws less juice.
Starlink’s subscription terms and parameters will likely continue to change along with its product line. Some of the information here might be slightly outdated by the time it’s published, so if you’re thinking of jumping on the Starwagon, it’ll pay to keep up on the newest subscription terminology and equipment options.
The Equipment: Most have the “standard” satellite antenna or dish, of which there are three generations. There is also a “high performance” dish, and as of July, a new “mini” dish, which is positioned to be the most popular going forward.
The newest standard dish–all the dishes more resemble trays–weighs 7 pounds and is 23 inches by 15 inches in size, a little larger than the Gen 2 dish, which was 20 by 12 inches and consumed less power. The high-performance dish is 20 by 22.6 inches. All run on AC power and come with a separate router.
The mini weighs only 2.5 pounds and is 10 by 12 inches, about the size of a small laptop. A router is built into the dish antenna, and it can be plugged into DC power and consumes about half the power of the Gen 3 standard dish, 25-40 watts versus 75-100 watts. The high-performance dish consumes about 110-150 watts.
The high-end dish is by far the most expensive at $2,500; it will work best offshore if moving at high speeds. The mini costs $599. As of September, the standard dish was discounted to $299 from $499.
The Plans: Starlink offers three categories of service: residential, roam, and boats. Each category has plans with different names that are hard to keep straight. “Residential” service comes with only one “standard” plan for $120 per month. Users report it works when moved to different locations provided they are relatively close together, and that you’re not using it while you’re actually moving.
The “roam” category contains two plans. Most cruisers opt for the “mobile regional” for $150 per month that allows unlimited mobile use in North America. While not intended for offshore use, it seems to work in coastal waters, within 5-10 miles of shore. For an additional $50, users get 50GB of “mini roam” data for those who need to stay connected while actively moving. Starlink calls this “in motion” use and it’s different than mobile, which just means more than one location. Most sailors report sailboats move slowly enough that mobile regional works fine while underway.
Starlink’s “mobile priority” plan is for use offshore and in motion. The minimum is 50GB for $250, which comes with unlimited use on land. One TB costs $1,000 and 5TB $5,000.
All plans can be used with all types of dishes, and subscribers can toggle from one plan to another with impunity. A common scenario is to start with the $120 plan if you’re going to be in one location for a while, then upgrade to the $150 plan once you start cruising. And when you intend to cross, add “mobile priority” data. The standard or mini will suit the needs of most. The high-performance dish is likely worth it only for a large power yacht cruising afar at high speeds. Starlink.com.
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November/December 2024
