The quest for seamless communications on superyachts presents a unique challenge: providing powerful connectivity without compromising aesthetics.
Increasingly, owners, charterers, and guests expect uninterrupted internet access at sea, comparable to land-based services. The superyacht Marie, designed by André Hoek, exemplifies the balance between performance and appearance in modern vessels, offering high-quality service for guests while maintaining elegant lines.
Expectations for Superyacht Communications
For those aboard superyachts, including owners and guests, constant connectivity is essential. The demand for high-speed internet has become standard, impacting entertainment and communication.
However, for racing superyachts, large antennas risk affecting speed and aesthetics. The challenge lies in ensuring reliable connectivity without hindering performance or design.
Antenna Solutions in Maritime Environments
For those aboard superyachts, including owners and guests, constant connectivity is essential
Commercial vessels typically use large antennas to achieve stable connectivity, but racing yachts require minimal hardware that does not impede efficiency.
Ben Hextall, founder of OceanWeb, commented, "On these high-performance racing yachts with their carbon-fibre spars and Kevlar sails, owners don’t really want anything which could potentially interrupt the vessel’s lines or impair efficiency." The preference for compact antennas underscores the need for innovative solutions without sacrificing the vessel's sleek design.
Single-Antenna Implementation
OceanWeb addressed these challenges for the superyacht Marie by installing a single Intellian v100NX antenna. Positioned on the mast, this setup minimizes deck clutter while extending the antenna's effective range.
Although there is a slight trade-off in aerodynamic performance due to weight and windage, the single-antenna system was deemed optimal considering Marie’s status as a performance yacht.
Optimising Connectivity
Hextall explained the decision for using an Intellian v100NX antenna, noting, "The high-power BUC would help overcome signal attenuation by the sails and blockage by the mast, improve performance in adverse weather conditions and help acquire a satellite more quickly."
This choice aimed to enhance connectivity, particularly in challenging environments, ensuring uninterrupted communication where it is most needed.
Vital Role of Connectivity
Reliable connectivity is critical not just for guest satisfaction but also for the operational needs of captains handling significant daily responsibilities.
Hextall emphasized, "Captains can spend almost the entire day exchanging emails... the core of the bandwidth is used for essential tasks and transactions." This dependence on consistent communication infrastructure is crucial given the financial stakes involved in maritime operations.
Ensuring Sufficient Bandwidth at Sea
VSAT remains the primary method for guaranteeing adequate bandwidth at sea
VSAT remains the primary method for guaranteeing adequate bandwidth at sea, although coverage gaps exist. As Hextall noted, "We show our customers the satellite footprints...they will quite often change their routes, just to maintain high-speed VSAT connectivity." This flexibility in route planning highlights the importance attached to maintaining stable connectivity, even at higher costs.
By choosing multi-orbit, multi-band antennas like the Intellian v100NX, vessels are positioned to benefit from emerging NGSO networks.
Hextall is optimistic about future advancements, mentioning, "We hope that LEO networks will allow us to deliver twice the bandwidth... approximately the same cost." Such forward-thinking investments set the stage for a future of global, reliable, and cost-effective maritime communication.
The team at Intellian explore how the balance between powerful comms, high-quality service and the smallest possible antennas is vital to delivering essential, aesthetically pleasing, communications for superyachts.
Meeting superyacht expectations
Owners, charterers, and guests on superyachts have now come to expect internet access at sea
The André Hoek-designed superyacht Marie epitomises the best-of-both-worlds principle which underpins modern superyachts. As elegant as she is imposing, her sleek and sculpted lines betray a purposefulness that speaks volumes regarding her capabilities.
Hand-in-hand with those dynamic looks, the high-calibre materials which have gone into her construction and lavish interior fittings subtly but firmly emphasize the standard of comfort guests can anticipate, both on charter and the regatta circuit.
From the perspective of satellite communications service providers, therein lies the rub. Owners, charterers and guests on superyachts have now, as a matter of course, come to expect internet access at sea on a par with the service levels they enjoy on land. The guest experience is seriously diminished if the high-speed, high-quality bandwidth required for entertainment, communication and social media applications is lacking.
Balancing performance and aesthetics at sea
By the same token, commerce never sleeps; so dependable and stable connectivity which will support the exchange of time-sensitive business dialogues and enable the real-time oversight required for informed decision-making is essential for owners, crew and guests alike.
All of this is, of course, perfectly achievable, as demonstrated by commercial vessels which are routinely equipped with large antennas. Where racing superyachts are concerned, however, the risk of antennas compromising speed or stability and marring the vessel’s aesthetic appearance are primary considerations.
Race for seamless maritime internet
“On these high-performance racing yachts with their carbon-fibre spars and Kevlar sails, owners don’t really want anything which could potentially interrupt the vessel’s lines or impair efficiency,” says Ben Hextall, founder of maritime communications specialists OceanWeb.
“If you could invent an antenna that was eggcup-sized, that’s what they’d all go for. They’ve spent an enormous amount on their yachts, and they’re racing, so putting any antennas on at all is seen as a compromise. However, they need internet, so that compromise has to be made somewhere.”
Single-antenna solution
Mounting communications antennas on the mast minimizes deck clutter and extends effective horizon
It was precisely this issue that faced OceanWeb when it came to specifying an antenna system for Marie during the course of a major refit. Mounting communications antennas on the mast minimizes deck clutter and extends their effective horizon.
The potential trade-off is a reduction in aerodynamic performance owing to the antennas’ weight, windage and position in the sails’ airflow. Nevertheless, a solution needed to be found.
Marie’s captain, Chad Murray, had mentioned his dissatisfaction with the superyacht’s existing VSAT installation to Hextall, observing that the service was particularly poor in the Pacific and that a solution was needed to ensure optimum performance in fringe reception areas. Hextall initially suggested that mounting two one-metre antennas on the mizzen mast would be ideal, and mocked up some photographs accordingly which were sent to Murray for discussion with Marie’s owner.
However, when the latter expressed concerns about a dual-antenna setup in light of Marie’s status as a performance yacht, all parties agreed to proceed with a single-antenna solution.
Connectivity for challenging conditions
Hextall opted for an Intellian v100NX antenna with a 25W BUC. “When asked why,” he recalls, “I explained that the high-power BUC would help overcome signal attenuation by the sails and blockage by the mast, improve performance in adverse weather conditions and help acquire a satellite more quickly."
“We chose Intellian because we trust them, like their products and have had great service from them in the past,” continues Hextall. “In a previous project – fitting out Black Pearl – the boat had three rotating masts, which obviously creates a tricky scenario in terms of mounting an antenna. We arrived at a solution for that within three weeks. Intellian’s programmers in Korea actually wrote a bespoke piece of firmware for us, and we got the system working.”
Essential for business
Captains’ reliance upon connectivity for carrying out fundamental daily operations over and above catering for the online needs of their guests cannot be underestimated.
“Captains can spend almost the entire day exchanging emails to check that the marina and the guests are ready, as well as sorting out hotels, provisioning and so on. In fact, the core of the bandwidth is used for essential tasks and transactions – these yachts are multi-million-pound business concerns, so dependable connectivity is vital,” comments Hextall.
Essential for maritime connectivity
Hextall explains that VSAT is the only way to guarantee sufficient communications bandwidth at sea, but notes that some areas in the Pacific are still without coverage, particularly towards the tip of South America and en route to the Galapagos Islands. This situation regularly becomes a deciding factor in clients’ passage planning.
“When we show our customers the satellite footprints, they will quite often change their routes, just to maintain high-speed VSAT connectivity.”
The VSAT advantage
Hextall adds that many customers are also opting to use VSAT rather than shore-based services when vessels are docked, willing to pay the higher costs in return for always-on connectivity.
“All the cellular providers will offer a connection, sometimes up to 20Mbps, but none will guarantee quality of service,” he points out, “So we configure the usage according to priority. We might use VSAT for a vital software update, but stream a movie over 4G.”
Future-proofing connectivity
In conclusion, Hextall points to his choice of the multi-orbit, multi-band Intellian v100NX antenna as a logical strategy with the imminent advent of NGSO networks.
“We’re watching networks such as OneWeb and others with interest,” he says. “We hope that LEO networks will allow us to deliver twice the bandwidth to customers requiring large amounts of data for approximately the same cost, and the v100NX permits us to do that without changing hardware.”
Investing now in antenna systems that are LEO-ready allows customers to contemplate a time, just around the corner when the hitherto unthinkable concept of genuinely global, high-quality and cost-effective VSAT coverage becomes a reality.
