Maryline Bossar: you Hello everyone and welcome back to Full Displacement, the podcast by Current Yachts. I have a special guest today, a friend of mine. His name is Jeff Leach and him and I used to work together. So we'll get into that in a second. What I wanted to talk about today is how being prepared, especially around weather events can really impact your experience as a boater. And of course, limiting weather incidents means that you can also retain your vessel condition, avoid insurance claims. you ⁓ you protect your resale value in general, but also just as I said have a super experience and so our goal is to make sure that you're a happy boater and to do that we have to start with safety. So welcome to the program Jeff. How are you today? Geoff: Doing great, thanks for having me. Maryline Bossar: So Jeff, we met back in the day. I was working for Beneteau and you were at PassageMaker. These were the days in Eastport outside Annapolis. Do remember those days? At the time I was working with Beneteau on launching Swift Trawlers in the US and Jeff was actually my ad rep at PassageMaker and developed a lot of really strong relationships throughout the industry. And we've stayed friend ever since connecting at the occasional boat show. And today we're talking about Geoff: I sure do. Maryline Bossar: your specialty products at SiriusXM Marine. Tell us a little bit about that. Geoff: Absolutely. Yes, so SiriusXM Marine, we deliver weather directly to chart plotters. There's four different hardware partners. So whether you have a Raymarine or a Garmin or a Feruno or a Simrad, B &G or Lurance, all compatible ⁓ our weather receivers that bring down weather directly from the SiriusXM satellites. Maryline Bossar: Okay, so that's really cool and we're gonna unpack all of this in a second. Before we go on, you're a boater as well, correct? So you use your products probably every day or close to. Tell us what it is you do, sailing, powerboat, fishing? Geoff: All of the above. Just anything on the water. You know, think most of us just being on the water, it just these dreams and it just good. I always feel like I'm at a place of peace for the most part while I'm the water and it's just a wonderful feeling. So it doesn't matter whether it's swimming or paddle boarding or power boating or water skiing or fishing or sailing. ⁓ All the Just anything on the water. ⁓ yeah, ⁓ absolutely. ⁓ Maryline Bossar: Do you fish with your daughter? Geoff: Yeah, I think she's got 20 species under her belt now and she's 15. Yeah. Maryline Bossar: Okay. Wow. Okay. So maybe I need to try a different segment for my son who is almost 17 and probably despises boating to the highest degree. I haven't found the thing that makes him tick. So let me start out with a scenario. Geoff: you Maryline Bossar: You may have read about this because I think we're friends on Facebook, back in August, I want to say 2024, my husband and I were racing in the Gov Cup sailing race down the Chesapeake Bay on our J42. And we had planned for really nice sail. It was really one of our first attempts at doing some long distance double-handed sailing. The forecast didn't have anything major on the horizon. and we were just going to sail down the bay as fast as we could and things developed rather quickly. We were, we thought getting ready for a quiet night and as we started to look at the cells forming around us and not seeing all of that on the radar or on the forecast with our ⁓ started to get a little concerned. We're basically preparing to reef and it was already too late. So we had basically some scary moments there for I would say good two hours. Basically the wind was coming out of nowhere, very, very strong, and we had to react quickly. Now, thankfully everything was good. I did think for about an hour that we're going to lose our rig. And so here I was, you know, crouching at the helm, to think, okay, if the mast comes down, will I be protected in this space? We don't want to go through that, right? We want to avoid these scenarios. ⁓ I guess I wanted to ask you, Jeff, have you been surprised also by the weather? Have you been caught off guard? Can you relate to that story or is it just us? Geoff: No, absolutely. And by the way, I read your story and obviously unfortunate, very harrowing and scary. And especially as you, I mean, you've been a boater for years and were completely off guard. You would have never expected that. I'm sure you checked the weather reports before you left and everything looked good. So yeah, I've in that scenario several times. And fortunately, I've actually had our service ⁓ kind of saved me from some of those. Maryline Bossar: ⁓ okay. That's interesting. I want to get into details in a bit. So the captains do to stay one step ahead of the weather? We're going to start breaking down how SiriusXM Marine works and what it brings to boaters and how perhaps it bridges the gap between just the free weather apps and professional grade forecast. Can you help unpack this for us? Geoff: Yeah, I mean, so the best captains are those that are prepared and all of us have learned through our mistakes. you've been on the water, long enough, there's ⁓ no that you've learned some lessons along the way, usually the hard ones. ⁓ But really about situational awareness, ⁓ right? that's spending any length of time on the water, ⁓ you to be aware. You want make yourself ⁓ and your as comfortable as possible ⁓ and just prepared. And with that mind, it's really just having a plan. following the plan ⁓ checking regularly for updates, whether that's your systems, your boat systems aboard, ⁓ whether that's the weather and the conditions that surround you. And lots of tools, as you mentioned, for doing those things. Maryline Bossar: So I wanted to start with the sources of data that are processed by your systems. that data collected and how does it overlay on my chart plotter? Can you explain to us how we get from these data sources to relaying them to our screen on the boat? Geoff: Absolutely. So we have data partnerships with the likes of the Weather Channel. aggregate information NOAA and AI, as well Baron Weather. So all of data is compiled and aggregated. ⁓ And then through central, what we call our central nervous system here at SiriusXM, we use the exact same satellites that we bring SiriusXM radio down to your car. And we shoot this data up to our satellites and then down to your hardware on your boat that overlays directly on your chart plotter. So that's a really simplified version of you how it works. Maryline Bossar: Great, and I'm going to share for those of you watching on YouTube some of these screenshots. Evidently, if you are driving and listening to this while doing something you're not supposed to be doing looking at a screen, ⁓ please and we'll put the links to those images in the show note. Here is an example of a data overlay from your system, right? So this is one of the examples that you shared with me. It looks very much like what you would see on your television when they show the satellite images, right? Geoff: Very similar. Yeah, and what we're looking at here in one of the features and functionalities is weather radar. So you can see the intensity of storms. ⁓ You can see the breadth and depth of storms, something you can't typically tell from just a regular radar aboard your boat. in this, you're looking at NOAA zones as well as lightning strikes here. So you can see the lightning strikes, ⁓ how away they are. ⁓ And can animate this weather too. So you can, it'll actually go ⁓ across screen and show you kind of a timestamp. of the weather and where it's been. Maryline Bossar: Okay, very good. I'm going to bring up another screen again. I will share these images so you can refer back to them later if you're not watching on a device at the moment. This is a screenshot as displayed on a MFD, right? Geoff: It is. It's actually on a Garmin MFD just to be specific. And what Garmin is showing here is a weather warning. This is a marine warning. Typically when you get a marine warning that's broadcast by NOAA, it would, in this particular case, if you have your marine warnings feature selected, this little pink kind of translucent box that you're looking here that says marine warning on screen would pop up. And then you click on the marine warning and it'll give you an entire readout of what's going on. So Marilyn, this would have been critical during your sailing incident because this would have shown right on your display, even if you saw storms on the horizon or didn't, this pops up on your display, then you click on it and you have full situational awareness of what lies ahead. Maryline Bossar: Yes, I'm starting to think this is really awesome because eliminates your dependency on handheld screens that sometimes you use to supplement your MFD. And when you are spotting trouble, the last thing you want to do is fiddle with ⁓ a free that you could use to maneuver your boat around and have to hold a device to check and see what the latest is. So we couldn't see any of this on the even the ⁓ short ⁓ model, The H-R-R-R, for example. ⁓ But this would have been visible and in real time, correct? Geoff: Correct, yeah, and you mentioned, you know, free hands. There are some amazing apps out there, as we know. ⁓ So, you know, some really great ones that are useful, but they're not useful when you're out of cell signal, or if you only have one bar, you can't get it to animate. ⁓ And, you know, having hands-free is really, really useful, as you're navigating. Maryline Bossar: Yes, that makes a lot of sense. I'm going and ask you then, because the data ⁓ is more available for those, who with Starlink, say larger boats, that use Starlink for their communication, would that essentially allow for the same type ⁓ of updates? It's satellite, right? The only is guess Starlink doesn't have a direct integration to your MFD. What do people ask you about when they mention Starlink or what did you Will you caution them? Geoff: Yeah, no caution really. I Starlink is all the rage these days. Great service to to have communication access internet access, ⁓ you know, in the world. It's just amazing these days. I would say unique differentiator or the real difference is that, again, it's a marine-specific So it's not just a generalized weather and you're going to get those ⁓ marine zone reports, you're to get the warnings, you're going to get specific things that are marine-specific. Maryline Bossar: Okay. Geoff: and they show up directly on your chart plotter as you're navigating. You're again not looking at a small screen or an iPad or a laptop. And so that's really what sets Sirius XM aside. What we've found ⁓ that the people that are serious boating, the offshore fishermen ⁓ women and know sailors and or trawler cruisers, ⁓ usually have both. It's about redundancy and ⁓ yeah. Maryline Bossar: going to say there's not so much a caution it's an encouragement to again multiply your options different sources of weather and it's always great to have a backup in the case of you know a ⁓ failure right so should you lose power what other devices do you have available that is that is something to consider I'm gonna bring up another screenshot that you shared Does this connect with marine zones pull up the alarm for a Geoff: This does, yeah, we can show both screens here if you want to, Marilyn, but those, you're looking at these little opaque blue lines. Again, this is a Garmin Charplotter. What we pulled up here is marine zones. Maryline Bossar: Okay. Geoff: So each one of those little squares or ⁓ rectangular areas that you're seeing around the coast of Florida in this ⁓ are different marine zones. ⁓ These are exactly zones that you would hear if you pulled up your VHF and you went to the marine zone weather forecast and you tried as carefully as possible to listen to those zones as they repeat, nearly impossible to do. This is an incredibly simplified way of doing that. You click on whatever zone you want to hear a report from and then as you can see on screen it pulls up what this is four pages of data about that zone that you're interested in. So it's just a really easy way to see those forecasts and what's going on in those various areas. Maryline Bossar: And it is also quite critical, especially if you have the speed on board to travel through those zones pretty quickly to look at what else is ahead for that particular zone, right? So it's just a little faster. It's visual. It's just touch and go. Tell me what you're seeing over here in the cell. Now, of course, that could change, but it's really great to have because otherwise you're just limited to what's in is within range of your location, right? Geoff: Exactly, and a great planning tool too. So in the case that we showed here in this screenshot, we're looking at a boat that's in Miami and considering, you know, going over to the west coast of Florida, the weather scenario, the wind, the waves, everything could be incredibly different over there. So it's really useful just planning tool. Maryline Bossar: I mean, everybody loves redundancy. Sailors, boater really should embrace the redundancy. So that's terrific. ⁓ else have we not talked about that you want to bring up in terms of the ⁓ marine Geoff: I think it's really all about features, right? know, wind is critical. We do have a wind forecasting feature that shows you the direction of the wind and the speed of the wind. We have a wave forecasting feature which shows you three different elements of waves. So direction, the period, so seconds between one crest to the next crest, and then height. that's important as well as there's a bunch of buoys out there offshore and near shore. that have data that come out of them. ⁓ those available buoys, you can literally click on the buoy ⁓ it pulls up exactly what's going on at that time, what's happening in the buoy. So just again, very marine specific, useful as you plan and prepare. ⁓ Maryline Bossar: Yeah, we would typically go to the website, right? The NOAA website, pull up that buoy, but you, you know, this is much simpler, obviously. It's right there. It's the same data. It's available. It's real time. It's real conditions, which is really, really terrific. So of course now it begs the question, does this replace radar or is it a close supplement if you don't have radar on your boat? Geoff: Yeah, I think that's a good question. I you'll find a decent amount of electronics dealers out there. If somebody's between radar and they just want radar to see weather that lies ahead, then I think this is a less expensive option and much option. Because again, with this service, you can see the breadth and depth of the storm. You can see the direction of storm, how far away it is. ⁓ Radar, you have any of that. You can see where the storms kind of are, but you don't exactly where they're going, how far away they are, and how dense they are. Radar, of course, is for spotting other boats and you know situational awareness and fog and in a lot of anglers cases you know looking for birds you know to find the fish so there's a lot of practical uses for radar so I don't know that they necessarily replace each other as far as really getting the details ⁓ storm systems and fronts this far superior. ⁓ Maryline Bossar: You know it. So going back to my example on the bay, I should add that this really strong windstorm came with no other, precipitation, right? There were no clouds. So I don't think radar could have read just heavy, heavy winds versus perhaps here I would have had either a warning or some awareness. So just thinking that this is a nice add on. I should say we're very, pleased with our Raymarine electronics. We had just done an extensive upgrade. We have a really nice, you know, latest gen MFD and radar. And again, it wasn't there. So that information would have been really good to have and something to consider whether or not we should reactivate this subscription. Actually, my husband did say we had it on the boat at one point. So I'm going to have to poke him on that. Geoff: Yeah, we'll get that taken care of for you. You know, one thing to really consider is pop-up storms. I mean, in the Chesapeake, they do happen. I know you're referencing the Chesapeake. I've had a pop-up storm hit me pretty hard too in the Chesapeake, but in places like Florida, ⁓ all time, ⁓ it's a daily occurrence. You'll be offshore a few miles off or ⁓ more that. And by the way, this service goes about 150 nautical miles offshore, extends our satellite range ⁓ signal. you'll be offshore and all of a sudden out of nowhere, was a beautiful bluebird day, ⁓ skies, ⁓ into absolute ⁓ You no idea what's going on. You have no idea which way to go. So this ⁓ total situational at your fingertips. hear from more than anywhere. We hear from Florida about those pop-up storms. ⁓ Maryline Bossar: Yeah, I hear you. Okay, so you just touched on something here that I want to revisit then. What does this mean for outside of US waters? Is the service available outside the United States? Say we're selling the Bermuda, are we going to be able to use the service there since it's satellite based? Geoff: You have service to Bermuda, down to about the Turks and Caicos, up into Canada, on the other west coast, northwest coast, you've got up to Juneau, Alaska, and then down to Baja and Sea of Cortez. But no, beyond that ⁓ it is on our satellite range and signal, and we do not really go beyond the US waters. ⁓ Maryline Bossar: Okay, so no plans at the moment to even expand to other regions for those travelers who just go around the world and may spend a season in the Med or something like that. Geoff: Not at this point, just because the dependency on our actual satellites in the range. Maryline Bossar: Gotcha. And it's fair to say you don't really have any other competitor. I mean, it is evidently a very expensive endeavor to put satellites out there to relay this information. It's very niche. Sounds like Starling has bigger fish to fry. It's just you, right, providing the satellite-based service at the moment. Geoff: Yeah, especially coming directly from our satellites. Maryline Bossar: Awesome. So I'd like to move on next to practical weather for boat owners. Can we ⁓ do a roundup then of what would be the perfect ⁓ sequence of for planning and sailing or cruising safely? And then we'll get into another application, which is fishing. I'm sure a lot of folks out there will want to hear more about the fishing applications. And that's one of the ⁓ specialties of product. But how do you build a pre-departure ⁓ weather check routine. How does XM Marine integrate into that? Tell us a bit about the differences too between coastal or a little bit more offshore. Tell us about what your customers do. Geoff: Yeah, I think everybody really has their own routine and I'm hoping that most people that routine. ⁓ online, before you go out, ⁓ for your day. think most of us have weather apps ⁓ our phones as well as access on internet ⁓ various sites, whether that's NOAA or some other site, ⁓ really just make sure the forecast is looking good. And wind, as we all know, on the... is just probably one, if not the most critical element ⁓ important to keep in touch with. And it's when you get aboard, you know, doing that planning, as I mentioned, the Marine Zone reports, ⁓ the radar, really just looking further out to see what may lie ahead. Those advisories. It's critical. And then, you know, while you're underway, and this sounds silly and simple, but we often just get immersed in our boating experience and our navigating and just the joy of being out there. You kind of forget to pay attention just to just check in occasionally. You know, every so often check your chartplotter and just make sure weather is looking okay. Maryline Bossar: Yeah, sometimes the entertaining function too is, you you're tubing or you're, you know, entertaining and definitely want to keep an eye on that. All right, and then you're looking for a passage or you have a destination, then I guess the only difference is you would just reassess daily. Look at those zones ahead of time. Preview your forecast on your normal apps, let's say, when you're not on the boat. But if you're on the boat, you can use all these tools to kind of plan the next day ahead. Is that right? Geoff: Absolutely, yeah, we have quite a few cruisers that use this service whether you're in a sailboat or a trawler or motor yacht and yet just looking ahead and planning accordingly. There are forecasts with our highest tier of service that go out to 48 hours and of course you've got those marine zone reports which take you out of ways as well. Maryline Bossar: So one other thing that I know for planning purposes we tend to pay attention to is the local notice to mariners. That's different from the notices you were just talking about. Geoff: Yes, I think that those are different. So I was really referring to those Marine Zone reports, those NOAA Marine Zone reports. ⁓ We also, and the weather warnings as well, but that's more of a critical alert at the time. Maryline Bossar: Correct. But just a reminder for all the boaters, check all of your data sources because the local notice to mariners, you know, that is something you have to also monitor separately from the weather portion of planning. Okay, sounds good. I think we pretty much answered my question as far as the planning, the resources. And there's just one subscription, right? You're a subscriber to SiriusXM Marine. It gives you access to everything to populate your data overlays, correct? Geoff: Yeah, there's a couple different tiers, really basic tiers that don't have the forecasting feature. We have sea surface temperatures, really most important for offshore anglers. But sea surface temperatures could also show you, you referenced going to Bermuda, ⁓ you want see where that Gulf Stream is, ⁓ we'll show in a graphical representation exactly where that Gulf Stream is coming up ⁓ and you see it very clearly in the temperature breaks. Maryline Bossar: Okay, kind of like that, especially if you're racing to Bermuda and you're trying to time your sleigh ride, especially coming from Newport, very interesting. Now we were talking about the anglers. So I wanted to do a little bit ⁓ a segment around the fishing applications and how people who fish really the product. And I saw a lot of collaborations with you and ⁓ some say influencers in the fishing sphere, talk us about that and how you use the product too as. Geoff: Yeah. Maryline Bossar: the guy who does fishing. I don't speak fishing, so go ahead. Geoff: Yeah, so our fishing features really are designated for one type of angler, and that's the offshore angler that's hunting for the pelagic species, you the tuna, the mahi, the kingfish or wahoo. So we partnered with a data company that is filled with PhD scientists, oceanographers, ⁓ they've gotten their high level degrees ⁓ in looking at ocean conditions. And we broadcast through a tier of our service Maryline Bossar: Okay? Geoff: called fish mapping. is our superset that includes all the weather features as well as dedicated offshore ⁓ fishing features. So things like sea surface temperature fronts, plankton, which is the food source for the baitfish. Of course, where the baitfish are is where you're going to find the pelagic fish they're feeding on them. Something like upwellings and downwellings because the water is constantly ⁓ you know, moving up and down, ⁓ is critical for finding eddies and different movements of water. as as the oceanographers Maryline Bossar: Right? Geoff: recommendations. ⁓ each species has its own little recipe ⁓ the water temperatures it likes, the depths that it likes, what kind of bathymetry or bottom contours there are. So populate fish recommendations by species twice a week. ⁓ So ⁓ Maryline Bossar: I had no idea this even existed. This is like totally foreign territory. Geoff: yeah, just a really useful tool. And we've had a lot of people that have responded and said, thank you, you got me in the area where the fish are. ⁓ Some that have been tournament winners, which has been great, you know, like the White Marlin Open tournament and ⁓ some tournaments that just really helped anglers. ⁓ You can't bring a fish in the boat for somebody, but you can help them find the general locations. ⁓ Yeah, know, it's no ⁓ guarantee going to catch a fish, ⁓ but certainly a useful tool. Maryline Bossar: You can tell them where it is and that's pretty great. ⁓ All right, I had no idea this was even a thing. So it must be working because it's a subscription-based application. If it didn't work, people would stop using it, right? This is amazing. OK, well, this is not what I do with my boating today. But if I'm ready to do some offshore fishing, for sure I'll go for that upper tier with all the fish finding ⁓ And can you share with us the name of the company that provides the data for all ⁓ Geoff: That's right. Maryline Bossar: the water specifics that help identify where the fish are. Geoff: Yeah, so the biggest, one of the bigger Google satellite imagery companies is called Maxar. They actually build satellites. launches a lot of their satellites. In fact, they built our SiriusXM satellites for us. ⁓ had an oceanographic division and I said had past tense ⁓ that oceanographic division that was made of these PhD scientists that I just referenced ⁓ actually purchased by Garmin. So Garmin actually that data and those scientists ⁓ now as part of their team. they own that business. ⁓ Maryline Bossar: Very interesting. But again, the system in general, whether the fish finding applications or just the weather is compatible with everything. Can you give us a bit of a rundown then of the different products? suppose, so Garmin, Raymarine, Furuno, you name it. Is there any that doesn't work with you that you cannot connect into? Geoff: So yeah, good question. The only one that's really not compatible is Humminbird at this point. then some of the older chart plotters that are not compatible or don't have the processing power that are Maryline Bossar: So perhaps this is a good segue into a question I had that I wanted to ask you. is coming next for marine weather technology or fish finder technology? Do you have any tidbits could share with us, whether it's still in the discovery or you're working on some new exciting features? Geoff: Yeah, quite a few things still in discovery. It's all about feature sets, right? What is most useful for voters? and not to let the cat out of the bag and we're not quite there yet, but know, fog, especially in certain areas is really important. ⁓ how you demonstrate that ⁓ a user interface ⁓ really critical. that's of the ones we're toying with and some of the other ones I'll keep secret for now, but it's really all about adding value and usefulness for our subscribers. ⁓ And ⁓ like product or service, ⁓ you it's a matter of staying up with that. and being a useful go-to resource. Maryline Bossar: That's awesome. And so going back to who might be the best candidate for your product in general, it's not just going to be recreational users only. Then you may have commercial applications, commercial use. Geoff: yeah, yeah, we have marine fleets out there, marine police, ⁓ DNR, fleets, the US Navy vessels are equipped this on their Furuno displays. lots of different companies use this to keep their captains in the loop, the know, situationally and safe possible. Maryline Bossar: And so I wanted to kind of bring it back together now. What is the number one weather mistake that you think, I'm to speak to recreational boaters here, that they make. What have you seen and heard? And then maybe summarize then how your product, your company kind of removes that friction. Geoff: Yeah, I think it's the mix between pro-action reaction, ⁓ So ⁓ there a plan in advance? Did you know what was coming your way? ⁓ are you ⁓ while you're underway so you don't have to react in critical situation? When you're on your sailboat, in your offshore, or even in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, ⁓ you can't come about and get to shore quickly if something's gonna hit you quick. it's being in the ⁓ Maryline Bossar: Yeah, also remember on a sailboat, know, our hull speed is limited. It doesn't matter how much RPMs you try to crank into that engine. You're going to be cruising at six knots in best conditions, know, seven knots maybe. If it's, you know, there's current, if there's waves, you can't outrun a storm. You have to plan. Okay. Geoff: Yeah, and there's people that can outrun storms. You know, it's not highly recommended, but if you see a dense storm, you could shoot the other direction or try to navigate around it. In your case, what you really want is slow-going trawler or sailboat. You know, don the foulies, put your life jacket on, reef the main, or put your sea anchor out. Maryline Bossar: No. Sure. Mm-hmm. Geoff: you know, something that would prepare you better. all the hatches, you know, but you had no, ⁓ had no indication this storm was coming and you just got hit and ⁓ of a sudden you're unprepared and you're scrambling and you're probably, you know, feeling crazy, ⁓ you inside. The emotions are going. ⁓ Maryline Bossar: Yeah, we had to decide if we would cut off the main because basically the main sail snapped out of the track. That's how crazy this ⁓ was. ⁓ we've now double slugged. So this won't happen again. Geoff: Not fun. Maryline Bossar: But it was just everything that could have happened ⁓ and go wrong at once did. So we broke a jib sheet. We were about to lose main. And you drop the halyard for the main and it's not attached to the mast, guess what happens? You know, you have a kite now all of a sudden, regardless of what's going on, you're just kind of not really in control of your direction until you can control that sail. And so we had to get it on the boat. And it's very, very humbling, very humbling. I should also point out that when you're two people, the demands of your crew make for a very tired crew. And my husband was becoming dehydrated and it was really hard for him to think clearly. Geoff: Yeah. Maryline Bossar: and I had to think of on my feet and also think about well what happens of course he was tethered in but at one point had to untether to clip elsewhere because he needed to tend to other things on the boat and I had to be prepared because if he had fallen in the water what do I do and of course you don't want this to happen and you take every precaution but there comes a time where there's some decisions that you have to make to protect your boat and yourself and you just got to be as smart as you can with the conditions that you're given but it was very humbling experience. And you know, we had sailed to Bermuda and raced twice that year. So we thought, ⁓ it's the Chesapeake Bay. can go wrong? Well, let me tell you. ⁓ what can go wrong? Can you share with us now your story about scary weather and hopefully a happy ending? Geoff: Right? Yeah. ⁓ Yeah, I didn't have anything as drastic as your scenario, but I have a small ⁓ dual console powerboat and I'm ⁓ 10 miles away from ⁓ dock. And had one of those weather warnings pop up on my Garmin chartplotter ⁓ and I even see anything in the horizon. I had no idea. And I my family aboard, young kids, and it popped up and I said, ⁓ wow, something's going on. And I clicked on the report and ⁓ apparently from the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay, ⁓ there with all these pop-up storms developing and heading right towards us. I had the opportunity to outrun it. So I got up to 30 miles an hour, got all the way back to the dock, and literally, as soon as we got back to the dock, kids run into the car and storm just opened up. And I so thankful that we were not out on the water. My kids and wife weren't getting hammered and just having a miserable experience and dangerous. ⁓ So just little incident. like that and if I can you know if that kind of incident can be averted for myself or anybody else using the service it's it's worth its weight in gold you know just having that comfort and not have to go through those situations that are only awkward but potentially dangerous. ⁓ Maryline Bossar: Yeah, 100%. Especially when you have the kids, right? You're like, this is... It was just the two of us, two adults, you know, making decisions as good as they could, but at least we didn't have all the crew to be concerned with. ⁓ But yeah, I can't imagine. Geoff: Well, and you have a lot of scenarios too, husband and wife-wise, where one of the partners is not as comfortable in the water, or it's not really their thing as much as the other partner. I know you guys, in your scenario, both love sailing and being on the water. But it can be awkward. And to put one person... ⁓ Maryline Bossar: I was practicing. I was like, okay, I'm going to call the Coast Guard on the VHF if this happens and this is what I'm going to say. And I was practicing. ⁓ My tip of the day, if you this out of this episode, always carry your spotlight in the pocket at night. Don't wait until it's later and you go get it because guess what? By the time we stuff that mainsail into the companionway, we couldn't get down below. And so I had to crawl. It was very difficult, but we found our way through. Geoff: Good. Right. Maryline Bossar: and I didn't have a spotlight and I needed to alert the vessels that were racing still in the golf cup race coming the other direction from us as we were trying to head back up to where we came from while avoiding shoals. Because of course shoals pop up as you're doing this. So it was nighttime. Other vessels did not have proper lights on their vessels and so we were trying to signal to them that we had some distress going on. It was under control but we wanted to be seen. And so ⁓ spotlight, just take it on deck every time at night so it's ready. Geoff: We can't. Maryline Bossar: So so much for this, Jeff. This was super helpful. I to ⁓ summarize the takeaways. We talked about preparation. We talked about redundancy. We talked about using the tools and learning to use the tools, building a routine. That was incredibly valuable. How do people connect with someone who understands the Sirius system? Do they just go to their local electronics dealer and inquire about what's best for their boat and their boating? Geoff: Yeah, you can find your compatibility. and our various plans on our website at series6m.com forward slash marine. ⁓ But West Marine's your local electronics dealer, the vast majority of electronics dealers out there will have this product to be able to install it aboard your boat. It's a fairly simple install. only exception is running the antenna with clear view of satellites. ⁓ you don't want to put it below decks, you want to put it somewhere that it's got that clear view. ⁓ that usually involves a little bit of cabling. Maryline Bossar: Okay? Okay? Okay, very smart. Okay, well thanks again for everything. We look forward to seeing you on the water or at the next boat show. Thanks again and for our listeners, whether buying, selling, or just continuing to outfit your boat, ⁓ here to make sure you have the best team by your side. If you have any questions, post your comments below. We look forward to seeing you on a next episode of Full Displacement. And thanks again, Jeff, for joining us. Fair wins. Geoff: Yeah, thanks for having me. Thank you. Maryline Bossar: is Cirrus XM Marine legal in fishing tournaments? Geoff: Yes it is. Maryline Bossar: What is the entry level monthly subscription costs for Cirrus X-Timerine? Geoff: $37. Maryline Bossar: And how many years have you been in the marine industry? Geoff: Whoo, too long. 23. Now I've been loving every minute of it. Maryline Bossar: Okay, and how many boat shows is that? Geoff: ⁓ jeez. over a thousand.