Penpal for sailors
An AI you can email from the boat
Penpal is an AI assistant you use entirely by email. Offshore, that matters: you send a few lines of text, Penpal does the looking up on its side of the world, and you download a short plain-text answer. No browser, no app, no heavy web pages over the satellite.
What comes back
What is the marine forecast for Block Island Sound for the next two days?
Here is the National Weather Service marine forecast for Block Island Sound, issued this morning by the Boston office in Norton, MA.
Today (Wed): SW winds 5-10 kt. Seas 1-2 ft.
Tonight: SW winds 5-10 kt. Seas around 2 ft.
Thursday: SW winds 5-10 kt. Seas around 2 ft.
Thursday night: SW winds pick up to 10-15 kt, gusts to 20. Seas 2-3 ft.
Friday: W winds 10-15 kt, turning NW in the afternoon. Seas 2-3 ft.
No advisories in effect over this stretch. Seas are significant wave height, so individual waves can run higher. Zone ANZ237.
A real reply, not a mock-up. Penpal did the looking up; you downloaded the answer. Replies to a Winlink, SailMail or OCENS address are kept deliberately short: the one above is about 530 characters. What lands on your side also depends on your mail gateway, since email headers travel with every message and some gateways strip or compress them.
3 free replies a day. Replies are plain text, usually a few kilobytes.
What sailors can ask
- "Summarise the marine forecast discussion for the Bay of Biscay for the next 48 hours."
- "What are the check-in rules for a US boat arriving in the Azores?"
- "The watermaker's output dropped by half. What should I check first?"
- "We have rice, tinned tomatoes, onions and a jar of capers. Dinner for four?"
- "Translate this note for the harbour master into Portuguese."
Penpal can search the web and read pages for you, then send back only the part you need. It keeps replies short automatically when you write from a Winlink, SailMail or OCENS address, and you can always ask for "the short version".
Setting it up on your email service
Winlink. Winlink only accepts mail from senders on your accept list. Before you leave, email SYSTEM@winlink.org with the subject ACCEPTLIST and the line ACCEPT: askpenpal.com in the body, which accepts the whole domain. Sending one message to hi@askpenpal.com also adds that single address, but then a reply from support@askpenpal.com would never reach you. Just reply to Penpal's messages to keep a conversation going. Remember that Winlink is amateur radio: nothing you send is private, business traffic is not allowed, and you are responsible for following your licence rules. Use the free daily replies there, and do not buy credits over the radio.
SailMail, OCENS OneMail, PredictWind and similar. Allow the whole askpenpal.com domain, not just one address. Answers come from hi@askpenpal.com, but anything handled by a person, a refund or credits that did not arrive, comes from support@askpenpal.com. Allow only the first and you would never see the second.
Starlink. It is just email. Use any address you like.
Garmin inReach. Send a message from the device to hi@askpenpal.com. Penpal answers on the device, through Garmin's own reply page, usually in one text and never more than three, each at most 160 characters. Each text counts as a message on your Garmin plan. The free daily replies work the same way, but you cannot buy credits from the device. We built this from how Garmin's reply pages work and have not yet seen it on a real device in the field, so if you try it and hear nothing, email support@askpenpal.com once you are back in signal.
ZOLEO. Email hi@askpenpal.com from your @zoleo.com address. ZOLEO says an email can be 194 characters, subject included, so Penpal answers in one short message that fits, with no footer and no links. You cannot buy credits from the device. We have not yet seen a ZOLEO reply arrive on a real device, so if you try it and hear nothing, email support@askpenpal.com once you are back in signal.
We have not tested every gateway yet. If you write and hear nothing back within an hour, email support@askpenpal.com from a shore address and we will look into it.
Keep it safe
Penpal is an AI and it can be wrong. Do not rely on it for navigation, weather routing decisions or medical care. Check official forecasts and notices, and in an emergency use your VHF, EPIRB or call the rescue coordination centre, not email.
Cost
3 replies a day are free, every day. If you need more, you can buy 100 replies for $5 from a link Penpal sends when the free ones run out (not over Winlink). See the terms and privacy pages.