Work/Boat balance

[Shivies]

My name is Jeff. My wife is Lori. We live in Central Florida. The wife and I are life long boaters. I am following the up up up and out boat ownership pattern. My most recent up, which was 5 yrs ago, was from a 23' center console, single OB to a 28' twin OB weekender. We weekend cruise the west coast of Florida up from Tampa Bay to the Clearwater area and south down to Charlotte Harbor. We love sleeping on the boat. Our favorite anchorage is in the Anna Maria area of Tampa Bay. My last up is into a 32' to 48' well maintained trawler. We are actively working on converting our consulting business into remote operation so we can improve our work/ boat balance.
I want to learn from others who have gone mobile remote and identify and try to navigate around the pitfalls that inevitably exist.

 

[dhays]

Welcome!

 

[Comodave]

Welcome aboard.

 

[Moon]

Reliable internet is a must if you are going to "work from home." If you do not moor in a marina that has good wifi (most do not) then you want to consider Starlink. Make sure your marina permits business to be conducted onboard. Some do not. Make sure you do not run afoul of any city or county business licensing requirements. Most marinas allow you to receive mail at the marina's address. If not get a PO Box at a convenient location. Cell service close to shore is usually reliable. Unless you start cruising it should not be a problem.

 

[Ertyqway]

Following on Moon's comment above, if you are going to seriously Work From Boat, you need a real, high-bandwidth, redundant internet system. That means Starlink, plus a bunch of Peplink gear. There's a local PNW boater who has a great website documenting his experiences and experimentation with this stuff: Internet - SeaBits

At a minimum, I would probably go with a Peplink MAX HD1 Dome Pro with SIM Injector, Pepwave AP One AX Wireless Access Point, and a Starlink Flat High Performance phased array antenna. Get 5G data SIM cards from 3 or 4 different networks in the area you intend to cruise and put them in the SIM Injector. This will cover almost all contingencies and give you a fairly reliable mobile high-bandwidth solution.

 

[Captain DJ]

If you decide on Starlink, please let me know. I can send you a referral code (good for 30 days) that if used when ordering the system will get you a Free Month's service and me a free month also. A Win-Win-Win scenario. That offer is good for ALL T.F. members.
This was our first full cruising season with Starlink and it has been a real game changer. I use a Gen 2 model with router and no other gear and it works flawlessly, even underway in northern parts of British Columbia and PNW of USA.

Just let me know...

 

[Action]

Welcome.

 

[ksanders]

I still run my business, "working" a couple days a week.

It all comes down to your IT infrastructure.
I started by moving all services to the cloud. No more servers, no more phone system, no more nothing.

That makes no one "place" any more important than any other place.

 

[Sababa]

I had the full Seabits Peplink setup along with the Starlink flat high performance dish on my last boat but found that I never needed it for remote work. The best effort Starlink service with the FHP is has sufficient bandwidth and reliability to have multiple zoom calls going anywhere outside of a heavily populated area during peak streaming hours in the evening, and you can always flip on the priority service at $2/GB if you really need it. I didn’t bother with the Peplink when we moved up to our new boat in December, and I don’t miss it at all.

At one point this summer up in Canada, I (a lawyer) was on a zoom with clients, my wife (a judge) was on a zoom with her court, and my friend (a tech bro) had one going with some venture capitalists. When I explained what all was going down, my client said “oh, so it’s a POWER boat.”

 

[Rob at LTP]

Can't offer advice, but I like the term "Work/Boat Balance". I used to struggle with Work/Life Balance. Then i retired. Then I bought a boat. Now I struggle to find the right Boat/Life Balance.

 

[Ertyqway]

Having the Peplink wifi/5G system is the backup for when Starlink is throttled/congested and not running at full speed...which is a significant risk near any urban area. You have to share Starlink bandwidth with every other Starlink customer in your grid hex. Out in the boonies, that's not a problem. Near a city, it can reduce performance hugely during peak use.

Whether that concerns you or not would depend on how critical it is for your business that you always be connected, and how much. I don't work from boat full time, so it's not a big deal for me. If I always had to have a high bandwidth connection no matter what, I'd want 5G and long range wifi too.

 

[Sababa]

Having the Peplink wifi/5G system is the backup for when Starlink is throttled/congested and not running at full speed...which is a significant risk near any urban area. You have to share Starlink bandwidth with every other Starlink customer in your grid hex. Out in the boonies, that's not a problem. Near a city, it can reduce performance hugely during peak use.

Whether that concerns you or not would depend on how critical it is for your business that you always be connected, and how much. I don't work from boat full time, so it's not a big deal for me. If I always had to have a high bandwidth connection no matter what, I'd want 5G and long range wifi too.

Not the case any more. If you need priority bandwidth for your business in congested conditions, flip the priority switch and pay $2/GB. Still much cheaper at the end of the day than buying the Peplink stuff and having a redundant service plan. My wife and I have run two demanding legal careers from our boat for six weeks of each of the past two summers, including in populated areas that are fully subscribed for Starlink residential services. I speak from experience: there is no more reason to have two data connections on your boat these days than there is at your home or office.

 

[Shivies]

Wow! Great information. This is just what I was hoping for.

Thank you all for your contributions:
Moon
Ertyqway
Captain DJ
KSanders
Sababa
Rob at LTP

We are very excited about the possibilities and can't wait to get started putting this all together.

Shivies