Commercial Maritime Operations
Crew payroll, port coordination, and compliance reporting without shoreside connectivity
The Problem
Commercial maritime operations — container shipping, towboat companies, offshore supply vessels, ferry operators — manage complex multi-crew, multi-vessel businesses from platforms that spend days or weeks beyond cellular coverage. Crew payroll calculations happen on paper and get reconciled weeks later at port. Port coordination requires expensive VSAT or Inmarsat connections running $3,000-10,000 per month. Compliance reporting (hours of service, maintenance logs, cargo manifests) accumulates on paper and gets entered into systems retroactively, creating accuracy and timeliness issues. Vessel-to-office communication for routine operational matters — schedule changes, supply requests, personnel issues — either waits for port or consumes expensive satellite bandwidth. The gap between vessel operations and shore-side business systems creates delays, errors, and compliance risk across a $150 billion U.S. maritime industry.
How M6:6 Solves It
M6:6 provides a cost-effective communication and transaction layer that operates independently of VSAT infrastructure. The 25-byte Mustard Envelope transmits structured operational data — crew hours, maintenance entries, position reports, supply requests — via satellite burst at a fraction of VSAT costs. The Mite POS handles onboard transactions: crew advances, commissary purchases, and passenger payments. The SMS bridge enables routine vessel-to-office messaging without VSAT activation, keeping VSAT bandwidth available for critical operations. Herald Translation supports multilingual crew communication — essential for the international maritime workforce. Mustard Chain's tamper-evident ledger provides compliance-grade record-keeping for hours of service, maintenance logs, and cargo manifests that are cryptographically verifiable and resistant to retroactive modification.
Key Capabilities
Crew Messaging
Unlimited SMS bridge for vessel-to-office communication without VSAT costs
Onboard POS
Process crew advances, commissary sales, and passenger payments at sea
Compliance Logging
Tamper-evident records for hours of service, maintenance, and cargo manifests
Multilingual Crew Support
Real-time translation across 38+ languages for international crews
Position Reporting
Automated vessel tracking via satellite burst at minimal airtime cost
Frequently Asked Questions
How does this compare to VSAT costs?
VSAT service runs $3,000-10,000/month for always-on connectivity. M6:6's satellite burst messaging costs $0.01-0.15 per message for the same operational data exchange. For routine communication (crew messages, position reports, supply requests), M6:6 reduces satellite communication costs by 90-95% while maintaining VSAT for high-bandwidth needs like chart updates and video.
Are the compliance logs legally admissible?
Mustard Chain creates tamper-evident records where every entry is cryptographically bound to its predecessor. Any modification to historical records breaks the hash chain and is immediately detectable. This provides a stronger integrity guarantee than paper logs or conventional digital records, though specific regulatory acceptance may vary by jurisdiction and agency.
Can this integrate with our existing fleet management system?
Yes. M6:6 data can be exported via API to standard fleet management platforms. Position reports are compatible with AIS and NMEA formats. Compliance data exports to common maritime reporting formats. The system operates alongside existing VSAT and fleet systems rather than replacing them.
Ready to take your business off-grid? M6:6 works anywhere on earth.
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