2.000 miles on the sea: Yacht tracking on FleetMon

FleetMon’s fellow member Rob is currently on a 2.000 mile sailing trip, helping transfer the 45 foot yacht Marathon from Barcelona in Spain to Falmouth in England.

Sailing is about the best thing you could do during these sunny days of May, and the FleetMon team here is a little jealous, to be honest ;-)

Rob took one of our FleetMon Satellite Tracking transponders on board so we can follow their trip closely right here on FleetMon.com. Having started in Barcelona on April 20th, they passed Gibraltar Strait on May 3rd and then sailed up the Portuguese and Spanish west coast, with stopovers in Quarteira, Cascais and Bayona (near Vigo). Entering the Bay of Biscay they faced strong winds up to force ten and had to change course to head into A Coruña in Galicia, Spain.

Every hour during their past trip, the small FleetMon Satellite transponder reports their position to FleetMon, so the crew’s friends and family can take part in the adventure and are always kept up to date about the ship’s whereabouts, either here on FleetMon.com or with the free FleetMon Satellite Tracking app for Android and iOS phones.

Because the transponders send via their own satellite communication, the Marathon’s position is guaranteed to come in even when on high seas, and it does not matter whether they are close enough to an AIS receiver station. Well, the Marathon does not even have an AIS sender, so the FleetMon Satellite tracker was the most convenient (and cheapest) tracking solution anyway! It is just the size of a cigar box and is battery powered, hence does not need any cabling. In fact, it does not even need to be installed: Rob told us he just put it somewhere under deck and switched it on.

The last leg of the trip will lead them across the English Channel to Falmouth. Due to bad weather the Marathon crew don’t know when they can set sails again yet, but we’ll keep you posted!

Dear Crew, we wish you a save trip over to Falmouth, and may there always be enough water beneath your keel! Thanks for sharing your trip with us!

You can reach Rob by e-mail at rob(at)digital-seas.com. For questions on FleetMon Satellite Tracking and tracking your ship with FleetMon, feel free to contact support(at)fleetmon.com.

Please note: Rob send in some photos from the trip that normally cannot be published on FleetMon.com. These photos will be removed after the trip.

More about the MARATHON on FleetMon.com