After its success in displaying position reports from Yachting World ARC Europe and Rally Portugal, worldcruising.net, the marine position reporting service developed by sailing event organisers World Cruising Club, is now open to general subscribers.
After its success in displaying position reports from Yachting World ARC Europe and Rally Portugal, worldcruising.net, the marine position reporting service developed by sailing event organisers World Cruising Club, is now open to general subscribers.
Thirty yachts participating in Yachting World ARC Europe 2000 started simultaneously from Antigua and St Augustine, Florida, on 11 May sailing across the Atlantic via Bermuda and the Azores. Their daily position reports have been displayed on www.worldcruising.net allowing friends, families and desktop followers to enjoy interactive mapping and position updates as they follow the fleet’s progress.
Most importantly the tracks of these yachts have been displayed using a host of different communications equipment including Inmarsat C, the new Inmarsat D satellite paging system, e-mail via SSB Radio and Inmarsat mini-M, highlighting the full working potential of worldcruising.net. Inmarsat C and D allow subscribers to have a completely automatic reporting system, greatly adding to peace of mind whilst cruising.
With registration to the worldcruising.net service free until the beginning of August, the ’30 (US$ 45) per quarter subscription results in *worldwide position reporting, 365 days per year for as little as 4 pence (US’6) per day, exclusive of polling costs.
As well as launching the actual position reporting site www.worldcruising.net, worldcruising.net have gone even further by working with both Netherlands satellite airtime providers Station 12, and the Japanese Radio Company (JRC) to offer a complete position reporting solution, as service providers of the Station 12 Inmarsat D Facility and suppliers of the JRC JUE610DFT D Terminal. Similar to a pager the JRC terminal transmits a position report at pre set intervals using its own integrated GPS, via the Inmarsat Satellite Network. Not only is the JRC JUE610DFT D extremely compact and lightweight, but it is also 100% automatic and when combined with airtime provided by Station 12, offers an extremely low cost position reporting service.
Already the benefits of the worldcruising.net Station 12 Inmarsat D Facility have been noticed, with the Royal Ocean Racing Club selecting worldcruising.net as the position reporting service for the forthcoming non-stop Round Britain and Ireland Race. All the yachts in the fleet will be sending daily automatic position reports using the JRC JUE610DT D Terminal, to the www.worldcruising.net website.
Subscription to the worldcruising.net service is open to anybody worldwide, either via their existing suitable communication equipment, or using the complete Station 12 Inmarsat D package from World Cruising Club. Sir Chay Blyth, Executive Chairman, Challenge Business commented at the launch of this new service that “worldcruising.net is a tremendously exciting development that will be an asset for ARC participants and will become the standard for yachts cruising away from home. We will also see the system in use for other events organised by the Challenge Business.”
Two hundred years ago Harrison’s chronometers made ocean voyaging far safer, now worldcruising.net will bring peace of mind to those ashore and afloat.