Comms are dependent on electricity. If one loses the power generated by the ships generators one is dependent upon batteries to provide back up power. That back up power is limited by time and the quality of the batteries. On more than one occasion I have seen back-up batteries fail a load test. If one doesn’t have back-up batteries available as immediate spares and the ship needs to sail immediately? Yes it’s possible to lose comms for that system but it would take the failure of back-up batteries on more than one system to totally lose communication. Is that out of the realm of possibility? No, ship owners are notoriously cheap BUT the office and captain must communicate underway so it would take a pretty rogue operation to make it happen.
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The bridge VHF, the GMDSS HF/MF and SAT-C all use the so-called GMDSS batteries for back-up power, it’s required by SOLAS. The SAT for the internet, email and so forth does not have battery back-up (at least not on my ship) because it’s not required by SOLAS.
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One hour for a ship with EDG. Six without.
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Useful. Thanks
If the baddie was the vessel’s ETO then he could sabotage things? Most ETO’s I know are quite good at blacking the ship out without even trying! 
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The Green Bay. not one of Waterman Steamship best days.