Digital Ship and Inmarsat have worked together on this 2nd edition to the guide to internet access onboard ships at sea.

We want to demonstrate how useful information can be obtained from the internet by seafarers without spending large sums on communications costs.

There's plenty of useful information on the internet, but also a lot of information which is less useful - when you're downloading data over a satellite link you want to be sure that you aren't spending more than you need to be.

Examples of useful information to seafarers includes health information, weather, tide times, regulatory information, local and international news, reports about piracy attacks, how to communicate with a vessel traffic system and navigate your way into a new port, services where you can purchase personal items and items for the ship and ask them to be delivered to the agent at your next port and online banking services.

Go to the 100 sites for seafarers page to see our full list of sites more>>

But if you are going to provide your seafarers with online internet connections, you want to be sure that they aren't using it to download very expensive pornography, games and computer viruses which will run up large communications bills, maybe even destroy the computer in a far away place where it can't be fixed.

In our technical section, we explain how to set up shore based computers so you can monitor how they are being used from shore, block or only allow certain sites, and minimise the data transfer.

You'll find information about all of these on our technical info page more>>

WHY WEB BROWSING?

Web browsing is a flexible means of obtaining information, performing transactions and communicating. You don't need any software installed on your computer apart from a web browser, nothing can break. The only thing you have to watch is the communications cost.

SELECTION CRITERIA

The purpose of this guide is to review the sites which provide value to seafarers, both as a means of demonstrating the value of an internet connection onboard, such as with Inmarsat Fleet MPDS, and also as a means of helping the user navigate the internet to find sites which are both useful to seafarers and light to download.

The criteria are: the sites must provide useful information for seafarers who are at sea, which justifies the cost of the satellite communications. Only English language sites were considered. Sites covering both ship operations and seafarer personal issues were covered.
There is an enormous amount of useful information on the internet, including weather information, regulations, tides and mariner calculators, which is free of charge; seafarers can also purchase items and ask them to be delivered to the agent at the net port of call, handle banking or find out what to do in specific situations.