Monthly Archives: March 2021

2021 Sailing Plans: Alaska or Bust!

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2020 was our 3rd year of full-time cruising, but certainly not a normal one. The border closure and pandemic meant we didn’t sail very far and didn’t get to go to our favorite cruising waters (in BC), leaving a big hole in our sailing rhythm. An intrinsic part of cruising is travel to new places. While there may be some who are content sitting mostly in one area year after year, 2020 taught us we’re not that type. The travel part of cruising – nomading, voyaging, exploring – is an essential element for us.

Last year this time our months of preparation got cancelled by the pandemic and we spent the next six months trying to figure out how to make the best of the new limitations on our lifestyle. Our biggest sailing adventure was sailing around Whidbey Island (lol).

After waiting a year for BC to reopen, we’re calling it quits and making a decision for very different cruising plans – Alaska will replace BC as our new cruising territory!  (we’re moving our home – ie, boat – to Alaska as our permanent residency)

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Installing a WeBoost Cellular Booster on a Sailboat

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In a previous post back in August I talked about how we added a cellular router to our boat and hinted we’d probably be doing more soon. Now we’re doing the next logical step which is to add a cellular booster. While a decent external router / antenna does the job in anchorages where we have okay cell tower reception, a booster does the job in places where we have a very weak signal or barely usable speeds.

There are very few anchorages like that in the San Juans, but there are some in BC and Alaska. It’s worth noting previous excellent writing has been done on this at Seabits.com. I’ll be focusing more on the latest install details plus logistics of where to actually buy this thing from.

First, what is a booster? In simple terms it’s a device that enhances your cellular signal. Before I knew anything about boosters I had a few misconceptions – so you should know: you don’t have to plug your device (phone, router) into the booster and you don’t need a SIM card for it. It doesn’t run on any particular cellular service and the best way to think of it is as a miniature cell tower repeater in your boat. You’re installing an outside antenna to pick up a weak cell tower signal and amplify it through a second antenna inside your boat for a slightly stronger signal.

Hardware

The WeBoost seems to be the leading player in the cellular booster market for boats, RVs and probably more. The WeBoost Drive Reach is their latest model and what you want – but from there it gets confusing with many variants of this package and many different distributors you can buy it from.

The Drive Reach is the booster itself – the red finned component plus some basic accessories – and the manufacturer packages it with components targeted at cars, trucks, RVs, or land homes – but not boats. They don’t make a marine package, but some of their distributors do bundle it with marine antennas. Different variants of this product name (“Drive Reach Extreme Marine”) are simply marketing terms for packages of additional accessories sold with the Drive Reach. The “marine” ones generally come with an outdoor marine antenna.

Main Product:

Recommended:

Additional items that vary depending on how you’re installing it:

  • Antenna rail mount (if you’re mounting it on 1″ rail tubing)
  • WeBoost mounting bracket (further comments on this later)
  • Blue Sea 1001 Cable Clam (to run the antenna cable through the deck)
    While there are various types / brands of cable clams, this is my favorite for this situation because you can pass the cable terminator through without having to cut it or reconnect coax terminators.

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