M/Y Loon is well known for its social media presence, with its crew demonstrating daily what life is like on board to their followers. Why should an Atlantic crossing be any different? Thanks to the advent of Starlink’s high-performance marine satellite, gone are the days of spotty connections at sea. Capt. Paul Clarke decided to livestream their Atlantic crossing on their YouTube channel. While Clarke was not on board for the entire crossing, Chief Officer Tyler Viljoen brought the boat across. “We were able to stream at pretty good high-speed bandwidth the whole way across,” Clark said, noting that this year was the first time Loon had access to high speeds for their crossings. “The crew was able to watch Netflix and stream Prime videos and FaceTime with family and friends, where even two, three years ago, it was dial-up speeds,” Clarke said. “We figured we’d go along and share the journey with the almost half a million people who tuned in over the course of the two weeks.” Loon left Gibraltar on Oct. 5 to head to Fort Lauderdale, streaming the entire 17 days of the crossing, including two to three daily check-ins of about 15 minutes. They would do Q&As and weather updates as they went. “It was really cool to connect with the audience a bit more than we normally do just through the comment section on the videos,” Clarke said. While many non-yachties were tuning in, other boats also occasionally left comments or checked in on the weather at Loon’s location. Despite the active hurricane season, Loon was not faced with significant weather events. “We had to be careful with Oscar, which is the one that was in the Bahamas, just as the boat was coming in,” Clarke said. Otherwise, while there were a few rough days, especially in the beginning, it was mostly “smooth sailing.” “It was Capt. Tyler’s first crossing as a captain,” Clarke said. “All the crew did such a great job, with the added stresses of throwing half a million people on board with him during the trip and everyone watching and scrutinizing his and all the crew’s every move. I’m super proud of the whole team — they got the boat across safely and efficiently.”