Marine is the environment that punishes every unspecified accessory. Salt water finds every unprotected fastener, every unsealed cable entry and every cheap coating. Vibration and roll find every mount that was designed for a stationary roof. And a boat has no wall socket, so the power budget is entirely on the battery. If you are supplying hardware for boats, these three constraints drive every decision below.
Corrosion: specify the finish, not the word "stainless"
"Stainless steel" is not a finish, it is a family of alloys, and the wrong member of that family will show tea staining within a season on a boat. What matters is the base material and the coating system. Anodised aluminium with a marine-grade powder coat, or 316-grade stainless with passivation, will hold up; cheap zinc-plated carbon steel will not, no matter what the listing says. Look for a documented salt-spray test result — hours of exposure, standard referenced, model number on the report. That single document separates the marine products from the general-purpose ones, and it is worth asking for before you buy rather than after the first season of complaints.
Mounting: the sea is constantly moving the dish
A boat at anchor in a swell is applying a cyclic load to the mount every few seconds, which is a fatigue problem rather than a strength problem. The mount must hold the dish's aim under that cyclic load, which means a positive mechanical lock — a clamp with a through-bolt and a locking nut, or a socket with a retaining ring — not a friction-fit collar. On a pole mount, the pole itself must be stiff and must be triangulated if it is tall. On a cabin-top mount, use a reinforcing plate or a bonded pad; composite decks and thin aluminium both need more than a single screw into a flat surface.
Power: nothing is available but the battery
On a boat the supply is 12V or 24V DC from the house bank, and the load has to fit inside the charging capacity the vessel actually has. That means a regulated DC unit with a stated input range and a stated efficiency, and it means the installer has to do a real load calculation, not a guess. Our recommended approach for a liveaboard is a dedicated, fused 12V supply with an appropriate charge path, sized so that the Starlink load is a small fraction of available charging capacity. For a day boat with no house bank, a self-contained battery pack with a regulated 36V output is the practical answer, and it needs to be a pack with real over-current and over-temperature protection rather than a cell-hold-and-forget enclosure.
Sealing every entry point
Every penetration into the deck or cabin side is a potential leak point. Use a proper cable gland matched to the cable diameter, bed the seal with the correct compound, and keep the strain relief inside the gland so that movement does not work the seal. The DC connection on the boat should be made with a mating connector that is rated for the exposure, not a bare splice wrapped in self-amalgamating tape. The tape fails within months and the corrosion under it is what you will be dealing with at the next service.
What belongs in a marine kit
For a reseller serving installers, the marine bundle is: a corrosion-resistant pole or cabin-top mount with positive locking, a matching DC cable in the length the vessel needs, a cable gland kit, a regulated power supply matched to the house bank, and a protective cover or transport case for the dish when it is stowed. Add a pair of corrosion-resistant fasteners as standard rather than as an option, because stainless replacements bought locally are rarely the grade you specified.
Ask for the marine specification
Send us the vessel type, the deck and cabin materials, the house bank voltage and the mounting position, and we will specify the mount and the power chain for it, with the salt-spray documentation and the MOQ tier for the marine line. We will also tell you which of our standard products already meet marine conditions and which need the dedicated marine variant — usually that is only the mount and the fasteners, and the rest of the range carries over unchanged.