Some time ago I posted a stream-of-consciousness list of some of the things that have worked well for us on the Fox after a full year of cruising. Now’s time to discuss what has not worked.
Fortunately, there has not been much that has broken or not worked according to expectations. I feel that’s partly to do with the fact that the Fox at 6 years old is a relatively new boat; built and designed by an outstanding Swedish yard whose customer service is lifelong and first-rate (thanks again, Malo!); well maintained by GB and me; and…lived-in 24/7/365 for 5 years – I would recommend to anyone, to live aboard your boat for at least one full year before setting off, because certain things on a boat behave differently when subjected to liveaboard use as opposed to casual vacation-style sailing, and it’s valuable to trouble-shoot as many systems as you can before going international.
Before I identify what has not worked, here’s the disclaimer to any potentially disgruntled boat-gear provider who might take offense at publication in cyberspace of their product: following is the opinion of one boating couple only – individual results may vary and what is written below is based solely on our personal experience. So, if you feel my criticism of your product is unduly harsh? Deal with it.
Only one item has not worked on the Fox, that I feel is important to safe cruising: our weather-retrieval electronics. All I wanted for weather forecasts offshore, was the ability to receive coherent weather information either from a known weather provider or other cruisers, so that I could compare the real-time information with various versions of GRIB files to which we have access. I really didn’t care whether or not I could transmit to other boats. I wanted to keep the weather info retrieval simple and cheap – which on a boat means "anything less than a couple grand." In our case we bought a Si-Tex SSB/high-frequency "communications receiver"-plus-software package for about $500 in 2004 US dollars, on the suggestion of one of those weekend cruising seminars that shall remain nameless. (John Neal’s – somewhat of a waste of time, very expensive as it’s basically a 2-day advertisement for his offshore sailing courses, but frightfully entertaining, especially since MS won a prize there. -gb).
This Si-Tex unit is so utterly full of FAIL it’s hard to describe – but let me try. The rate of suck of this non-functioning unit is equalled only by Si-Tex’s complete absence of customer service. Initially the unit looked OK – small and easily incorporated into our nav station, nice dial that spins through all the SSB frequencies, ability to retrieve weather faxes with a download of the appropriate software – what’s not to like? Well: initially all we got was radio static except for the Christian fundamentalist frequencies (i.e., no thank you), and the Si-Tex P.O.S. never – yes, NEVER – worked well enough to even download the software it needs to perform its weather-fax functions. If that weren’t enough suck, the software & Si-Tex people reassured us that the problem was that we were in Seattle and there was too much radio interference there to allow the P.O.S. to function. All we needed to do, they said, was get out of town and the receiver would work just fine. Yeah. Well.
Seattle does, in fact, have a lot of radio interference so we gave Si-Tex the benefit of the doubt. But, the Si-Tex continued to suck all around Vancouver Island and down the US west coast – no reception except for the Jesus Channels, sometimes – but that was again easily explained because in certain areas of coastal BC, nothing – not even VHF – functions because of the remoteness/topography/trees/ Bigfoot/space alien interference. Lucky for us, BC and the US have excellent government weather forecasting entities whose information can actually be heard over the VHF and is easily interpreted. We also had enough opportunities to access unsecured WiFi with our long-range antenna, that we could occasionally retrieve weather-map and forecast info from NOAA. So, we let the Si-Tex P.O.S. languish until we left Ensenada for a slow trip to Mazatlan.
The Si-Tex actually functioned during this 3-week leg of our voyage – marginally. Most days if there were no other ambient noise on the boat or anywhere nearby on the Baja Peninsula, we could juuust barely hear a morning SSB weather forecast – but other boaters told us they consistently got better reception and volume with their non-Si-Tex gear using the same frequencies we did. Meh – we adapted to what little we had and used the Si-Tex until we got to Mazatlan. Whereupon the damn thing died completely and irreversibly. Oh, you can still spin the dial and the frequency numbers show up on the pretty digital display, but there is no sound – at all. Which is kind of important in a RADIO RECEIVER.
GB contacted Si-Tex about this, and their replies were – in chronological order: We discontinued that unit, it’s obsolete, we provide no support for it (but, GB told them, you’re still selling it on your Web site); oh – yeah, we do still sell it so ship the unit back to us with an extra 39 bucks and for the $39 we’ll give you an estimate of how much it will cost to fix it and negotiate later whether we fix the unit or junk it; (GB said, we bought it online from a reputable company, does that make a difference?) Oh, in that case just work with whoever our distributor is and don’t bug us any more. Gee, thanks, Si-Tex.
Moral of the story: we paid $500 for an HF/SSB receiver that functioned – poorly – for only three weeks, It never could download its own software. It is now irreversibly dead. Si-Tex really does not want to hear from customers or trouble-shoot their own products, and I can see why, if our experience is the norm. Weather forecasts, as shaky as they are in these parts, are important to Miss Navigator here, so now we’re looking at a far more expensive replacement by a more reputable provider with products that are more widely used. Si-Tex took our dollars and gave nothing useful in return. My advice to all of you: never – EVER – buy any Si-Tex product. They are a very large black hole of suck.
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