MY Loon all set to help co-ordinate disaster response in the Bahamas

A motor yacht’s mission to deliver essential data in the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian is supported with bandwidth provided by e3 Systems and Speedcast.

Following the devastating effects of Hurricane Dorian across the islands of the northern Bahamas, the 47m/155FT Christensen motor yacht Loon has set sail to the area with disaster relief specialists and aid on-board.

The yacht, skippered by Captain Paul Clarke, is sailing as a first responder and will transmit images and video from the affected areas as part of the disaster response. This data is vital for the Bahamas NEMA (National Emergency Management Agency) to support them in response decision-making.

To enable this, e3 has coordinated with its service provider, Speedcast, to instantly provide the increased bandwidth.

Roger Horner, Group Managing Director of e3 said: “We were approached by Yacht Aid Global (YAG) founder Captain Mark Drewelow and Norma Trease, YAG Board Director, to help with their response to Hurricane Dorian, by providing increased emergency bandwidth on Loon. Obviously, in the light of such a disaster we are very pleased to help in any way that we can, and I am very grateful to Speedcast for their extremely rapid response and desire to donate free bandwidth to support this effort. Our thoughts are with everyone affected by this tragedy.”

e3 provides mobile connectivity to MY Loon using two satellite solutions, one that uses a conventional antenna and a second using a flat panel antenna.