Elon Musk disrupts South Pacific

Nations left with expensive fibre cables as Starlink takes over

When a whale crashed into an American yacht in the South Pacific in March, it made for a splendid Moby Dick global news story, complete with a mostly happy outcome. The 13.4 metre Raindancer sank, and it's interesting to note that many of the comments in online news stories asked ‘how is the whale?’ Who's to know?

But what are the implications around the successful rescue of Raindancer’s souls. At one level, the whole South Pacific maritime safety protocol seems different? Are rich American holiday sailors saving their lives with new technology, while poor i-Kiribati fishers lose theirs, thanks to communications? 

At another level, have South Pacific governments and their donors blown millions of dollars on undersea fibre cables so that their people could have Facebook, when a much cheaper option was arriving? 

And arriving now in villages and atolls across the South Pacific is Elon Musk’s Starlink internet system; who knows what that will do to the region.

When Rick Rodriguez and three others aboard Raindancer were sailing to French Polynesia, they were hit by a whale, sinking within minutes. The story has been well told in the New York Times and Washington Post. Pacific lore and literature is full of great rescues - and losses. What interests us here is technology.

As the crew abandoned their yacht for a liferaft, they activated ‘old’ technology, the reliable emergency position indicating radio beacon (Epirb). Its distress signal and position was picked up by satellite (it could equally have been a passing plane or ship) and was transferred to Peru who had search and rescue responsibility for that area. They passed details to the U.S Coast Guard Pacific in Hawaii. They established that the nearest ship was at least 10 hours away from their position, about 3,900 kilometres west of Lima, Peru, and 2,900 km southeast of Tahiti.

Adrift Photo: Rick Rodriguez