Staying connected as part of Sail Maldives

by Sarah Harvey on 2 Mar 2017 Sail Maldives’ official telecoms partner, Dhiraagu, is playing a huge role in helping sailors and organisers stay connected during the 60-day rally, which traverses hundreds of remote Indian Ocean islands. As you can imagine, a lot of work goes on behind the scenes when it comes to coordinating the arrival of vessels from around the world - as well as ensuring everything goes smoothly as they travel from the far north to the far south of the Maldives archipelago. And although the rally began on February 25th, even more yachts are continuing to join the rally at various points along the route.

The Maldives is made up of 1,200 tiny tropical islands and there are 42 checkpoints and 470 nautical miles between the start and end-point of the rally.

Sailors can check-in and have their paperwork processed at a choice of three locations; Uligamu in the far north, Male’ in the central atoll, or Gan in the far south. So, the Sail Maldives team is constantly working to respond to new arrival requests from sailors, coordinate their registration documents with the authorities, and keep the ground crew up to date with the arrival logistics.

“It wouldn’t have been possible to professionally and effectively coordinate the rally without strong telecoms support from Dhiraagu,” says the Sail Maldives organiser, Adeel Ahmed.

“In addition, Dhiraagu generously donated SIM cards with 1GB data allowance for us to give to all the captains and crew taking part in the rally. It’s important that they can keep in touch easily with the Sail Maldives team, as well as their family and friends at home, since the satellite phones on board the vessels have their limitations. With Dhiraagu’s excellent reception and reliable network for calls and mobile internet, keeping in touch is easy!” he added.

The rally fleet is being accompanied by a team of Sail Maldives ground crew as well as a water-sports team for entertainment.

Dhiraagu is the Maldives’s premier telecommunications company. It was the first one to be established in the Maldives, back in 1988. Appropriately, “Dhiraagu” is the shortened version of the Dhivehi (Maldivian language) name “Dhivehi Raajjeygé Gulhun” which means “Connection of Maldives”.

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