as well as a subscription plan.
(Receivers, commonly called
black boxes, are available
from all of the major marine-
electronics manufacturers;
see manufacturers’ websites
for pricing information.)
SiriusXM Marine users can
choose between three difer-
ent levels of service: Marine
Inland, Marine Coastal or
Marine Ofshore. Bluewater
sailors will want the Marine
Ofshore plan. However, globe-
girdlers need to understand
that SiriusXM Marine’s cov-
erage footprint is not global;
it is limited to the continental
U.S. and international waters
extending “hundreds of miles”
into the Atlantic and Pacific
oceans, as well as the Gulf of
Mexico and the Caribbean Sea
(see siriusxm.com for specific
coverage details).
SiriusXM Marine customers
pay a flat monthly fee that can
range from $13 to $55, irrespec-
tive of how frequently they use
the service. Depending on the
type of subscription, users can
access weather information
that includes weather-radar
overlays, ofshore wind and
wave forecasts, and marine
observations from weather
buoys. The information for
these forecasts is supplied
to SiriusXM Marine by the
Weather Company (formerly
WSI), and combines data
from NOAA with informa-
tion from other government,
research and commercial
sources to create propri-
etary weather forecasts using
advanced post-processing and
data- analysis software. These
forecasts are then automati-
cally pushed to subscribers.
For sailors cruising beyond
SiriusXM Marine’s coverage
map, or for those who want
a second opinion, Internet-
based service providers such
as Theyr deliver detailed
weather forecasts. Theyr
employs diferent weather-
data sources in diferent
global regions and runs this
data through proprietary
forecasting models on a super-
computer, allowing its experts
to interpolate additional data
to create detailed forecasts.Theyr’s GRIB files play nicely
with computer-, phone- and
tablet-based routing software
available for Linux, Windows
and Apple platforms.
Taking things a step further,
Raymarine and Theyr recently
announced a partnership to
deliver forecasts to Raymarine
chart plotters through a sub-
scription service that starts at
about $15 per month. Users
can tap into this content via
Wi-Fi, cellular hotspot or sat-
ellite, but using this service
with a cellular or satellite con-
nection will add to your data
usage charges.
Users can control the
amount of data they consume,
however, since Theyr Weather
uses a “pull” model, wherein
users manually select the fore-
casts they want to download to
help contain costs. “Users can
constrain the size of the down-
load,” says Jim McGowan,
Americas marketing manager
at FLIR Maritime, parent
company of Raymarine. He’s
seen downloads as small as 25
kilobytes and as big as 15 mega-
bytes. “For example, a user
can download the weather for
Puget Sound rather than the
entire North Pacific,” he says.
These files are saved to the nav
system’s internal hard drive or
a micro SD card.
While satellite and Internet
weather services provide users
with a huge amount of infor-
mation, these forecasts are
displayed simply as a graphi-
cal layer overlaid on a chart.
The chart plotter doesn’t
perform the actual weather
routing, notes McGowan, but
rather shows you the variables.
Weather information is not
connected to the chart plot-
ter’s routing functions, but the
plotter can display the condi-
tions to be expected along a
particular route.
Much like radar imagery,
SiriusXM Marine and Theyr
Weather also provide a look at
what’s ahead, but users need
to know what they are seeing.
“It’s not like getting a forecast
on your smartphone,” says
McGowan. “These services
visually show you the forecast,
but you need to know howTimeZero’s routing software highlights a route in red to
alert you to possible hazards (top), or you can use a weather
overlay to find less wind and avoid a major low (above).november/december 2016cruisingworld.com108
BOATS & GEARSiriusXM subscribers can quickly see a big-picture
weather map (top) or drill down to monitor the direction of
individual storm cells (above). COURTESY OF THE MANUFACTURERS