Oh, rats! :sick:
Now I 've gone and bought an Iridium GO!, I 've just noticed that there is now a Yellowbrick for permanent installation:
https://www.ybtracking.com/products-yb3i
which might - just might - have been all I needed, if it turned out to be more reliable than the handheld YB I had.

[quote="simoncurrin" post=720]David,
I am relieved to hear that it was a hardware problem and not that the forecasts were complete rubbish! Did "Predict Wind" come close to what you experienced in the first few days? They warned that there was a paucity of data available to build the GRIBs in the area that you were sailing so presumably they were a bit hit and miss? Anyway it was fun watching you inch north on Google earth. Do let me know if you ever want any minimalist forecasts again.
Simon[/quote]

Simon,
I have to say that the forecasts didn 't bear much relation to the reality. Probably because of lack of data, as you say. I got winds that varied from NNE to ENE on a fairly regular pattern for the first five days, and I couldn 't tie that in with what you were sending me. I think for the future, all I 'd want to be told in these waters is that there was a hurricane bearing down on me. For the passage to Alaska next year, perhaps a better format would be "Low [millibars], position [lat,long], heading [direction].

This being a standard Tradewind passage, there was never going to be a major hiccup in the weather. I might have wanted somebody to cheer me up by telling me that I was nearly out of the Doldrums, but even that might not have shown up, if the data was scarce.
David.

David,
I am relieved to hear that it was a hardware problem and not that the forecasts were complete rubbish! Did "Predict Wind" come close to what you experienced in the first few days? They warned that there was a paucity of data available to build the GRIBs in the area that you were sailing so presumably they were a bit hit and miss? Anyway it was fun watching you inch north on Google earth. Do let me know if you ever want any minimalist forecasts again.
Simon

Just to confirm - this looks like a faulty unit (a battery problem and bluetooth problem), and we 've already agreed to swap it with the latest model of the unit just as soon as we have them in stock.

We do have plenty of people using the Bluetooth & app successfully with the YB3.

[quote="simoncurrin" post=698]David,
Fine I will stay below 50 characters and will keep an eye on the 4 and 5 day forecast and will let you know of major changes ahead. Have a good trip.
Simon[/quote]

Simon,
Sorry, that didn 't work out as planned. Five days out, I lost the Bluetooth connection with my iPad, and nothing would restore it. I was reduced to improvising a bit to send out cryptic messages to selected contacts.

The tracking worked as it should, and shows me as anchored in Hilo after a straightforward three week passage.

I 've been talking to Nick Farrell at YB, and all credit to the people there, they are trying to find out what the reason for the failure was. I have upgraded my iPad software from iOS 5 to 6 which has restored the Bluetooth connection, but I 'm mystified as to why it worked with iOS 5 for a time, and then quit. Also, the battery is losing charge much faster than it should, and we are trying to find out why that is.

Nick tells me that there is a plan to use the USB socket to connect to a laptop for messaging as well as to charge, and this in my view will be a much better and more reliable system than via Bluetooth to a tablet or phone.

I 'm convinced that this device is the way I want to go, for the minimal mid-ocean comms that I 'm seeking, but there seems to be a little more work to do before it will be 100% reliable.

A friend of mine recently lost his boat off Spitzbergen. He set off his EPIRB.
As a matter of interest, the first his wife heard of this was not a call from an MRCC, but from GEOS who spotted that the EPIRB was linked to a SPOT owner, even though he hadn 't pressed the SOS button on the SPOT.

Hi all,
I thought it would be useful to post this analysis of issues with the SPOT and similar devices.

http://www.practical-sailor.com/blog/-10824-1.html?s=FB11162012

Vice Commodore, OCC 

David,
Fine I will stay below 50 characters and will keep an eye on the 4 and 5 day forecast and will let you know of major changes ahead. Have a good trip.
Simon

Simon,
I 'll try for Hilo. I like it there. 6 knots is a bit optimistic! I 'll be on the wind until 10S, doing 4 to 5 knots in 10 knots of wind. I need to get a lot of easting in the bank.
Your example counted 51 characters, including spaces. Keep under 50, and we 'll be fine. All I really need is changes of wind direction over 10 degrees, but the thundery disturbances that come through, upsetting everything, may not register on a prediction program. Doesn 't matter, all I need to see is the big changes, that would necessitate a change of strategy. If the weather seems to be in steady state, the only reason for sending a message is for the purpose of comparing it against what I actually get. Anyway, let 's try a 48hr outlook for a start.
David.

Simon,
I 'll try for Hilo. I like it there. 6 knots is a bit optimistic! I 'll be on the wind until 10S, doing 4 to 5 knots in 10 knots of wind.
Your example counted 51 characters, including spaces. Keep under 50, and we 'll be fine. All I really need is changes of wind direction over 10 degrees, but the thundery disturbances that come through, upsetting everything, may not register on a prediction program. Doesn 't matter, all I need to see is the big changes, that would necessitate a change of strategy. If the weather seems to be in steady state, the only reason for sending a message is for the purpose of comparing it against what I actually get. Anyway, let 's try a 48hr outlook for a start.
David.