Personal Maritime or Roam? The Plan Call for a 45–50 ft Family Boat
Roam Unlimited still works for US/Canada seasons. Personal Maritime is the plan that removes the 30-day abroad clock — if Starlink accepts your papers. Here is the eligibility friction, the 40-to-60 ft change, and how I am choosing for a family boat that will not fly home every month.
In early September I wrote about Global Roam dying and Roam Unlimited shrinking to 30 days abroad at a time. That piece was the plan rewrite. This one is the purchase decision that sits on top of it: for a privately owned family boat in the 45–50 foot range, do you stay on Roam, push for Personal Maritime, or keep a Priority month in your pocket for passages?
Same referral. Different question. I am not re-litigating August 17. I am walking through what it actually takes to land on Personal Maritime, and when Roam is still the right answer.
The two consumer plans that matter
Roam Unlimited (price depends on your registered country; US accounts have been in the mid–$100s) gives you unlimited data in your home country or grouped region, land use, and a 30-day international clock per trip outside that region. Beyond about 12 nautical miles you turn on Ocean Mode — $6 per GB as of September 27. US and Canada count as one block. Mexico, the Caribbean, and French Polynesia do not. Return home (or to the grouping) and the clock resets. Stay out longer and you change plans, localize the account, or go dark.
Personal Maritime is $185 a month. Unlimited data in territorial waters worldwide. No 30-day Roam-style international travel limit (except rare local-regulation cases). Same Ocean Mode meter beyond ~12 nm at $6 per GB. Land use is prohibited. Commercial and charter use are prohibited. It is not on the public shop page. You get there through a support ticket or an invite email, with vessel paperwork.
Ten dollars a month is not the story. Eligibility is the story.
The paperwork and the length line
Starlink wants, at minimum: vessel name, flag state, length overall, a unique ID (HIN, CIN, MMSI, or ITU call sign), and a copy of the registration. Fail to provide it, or provide something they do not like, and they can refuse or terminate. The plan language still says it is for personal, small watercraft — not yachts, not commercial vessels — and it is not a safety-of-life service.
Length has already moved once. Early terms used about 40 feet as the example of a prohibited yacht. On September 4 that example became 60 feet. That shift matters for every 45–50 foot cat and mono on a family circumnavigation worksheet. Length is judged off registration paperwork, not a tape on the dock, so bowsprits and davits usually do not count against you — until a support agent decides your papers say otherwise.
I am treating under-60-feet-on-the-papers as the working door for our boat. I am not treating the rule as finished. Early approvals above the old 40-foot line were inconsistent. If your LOA on the certificate is 52 feet, budget time for a ticket, a follow-up, and a plan B on Roam while you wait. Do not cancel Roam the day you submit the form.
Inland waterways, Great Lakes, a haul-out yard, a winter on the Intracoastal: Roam used to name inland waterways out loud. Personal Maritime talks about territorial waters and stays quieter about the rest. Until that is clear in your own account terms, a boat that lives half the year in a marina and half the year island-hopping may still be swapping plans at the dock — Personal Maritime for the abroad season, Roam when you need land use between seasons.
Who should stay on Roam
Stay on Roam Unlimited if most of your year is inside the US/Canada grouping (or your own home region), you need the dish ashore between seasons, or you cannot produce clean registration papers for a private vessel under the current length example. Soft-gap coastal seasons, Baja hops that never leave the block, and shakedown months before the boat leaves home are still Roam jobs. The 30-day clock is a non-issue when you are not abroad.
Stay on Roam temporarily while the Personal Maritime ticket is open. Approvals are not instant. Keep Ocean Mode off at the dock. Do not burn $6/GB on a marina Wi-Fi problem.
Who should push for Personal Maritime
Push the ticket if the boat is privately owned, LOA on the papers is under 60 feet, you will spend whole seasons outside your home grouping, and you can live without land use on that account. For a family of six pricing Mexico, the Eastern Caribbean, or the Societies as multi-month blocks, Personal Maritime is the consumer plan that matches how we actually travel. Roam's 30-day reset assumes a flight home. We are not budgeting that flight.
Open-ocean legs are still metered on both plans. Ocean Mode at $6 per GB is a fuel gauge, not a lifestyle. Morning weather and email, evening calls, off overnight. If a passage month looks like it will chew through Priority-sized data, buy a Global Priority month for that month and drop back — do not pretend either consumer plan is unlimited offshore.
The stack I am pricing
Hardware: Flat High Performance dish for a boat that moves. Account path: activate through the consumer referral, run Roam for shakedown and US/Canada seasons, submit Personal Maritime with registration in hand once the hull exists and the papers are clean. Keep Iridium (and the EPIRB) as the day the terms move again. Nothing in the Personal Maritime SKU changed that thesis.
If you are starting from scratch on the consumer side, this is the door I would use — hardware and a Roam or Residential activation through the referral, then the support ticket for Personal Maritime when the boat and the paperwork are ready:
I am not recommending Personal Maritime for a 65-foot boat, a charter operation, or anyone who needs the dish in a driveway between seasons. I am not recommending you drop the second satellite system because Starlink published a maritime SKU. Personal Maritime is still an account. Accounts have terms. Terms change. The 40-to-60 foot edit already proved that.
Disclosure: that Starlink link is a referral link. If you order through it, Bluewater Navigator may earn a credit toward service. It does not change what you pay for the hardware or the plan, and it is the only Starlink URL I am putting in this piece.
Charts, Checklists & Sea Stories — practical gear and passage notes for a family planning a circumnavigation. Free email when a new piece goes up.
