AIS Question

[Malabar]

AIS was not introduced for safety, it was for security after the 911 incident. it was around July 2004 it became compulsory for ships over 500gt to carry.

Working on ship with lengths of 330 meters having a min CPA setting of 100 meters would be no help as we would have the potential to hit the remaining 230 meters of ship! But yes, they should have a min CPA setting. And ought to notify the operator of close quarter situations developing.

More and more modern ships are using integrated electric charts and AIS. So AIS 'targets' are displayed along with radar images onto the charts. Giving better awareness to the operator.

Not that it affects the arguments, but AIS was actually conceived after the Exon Valdez stranding in 1989. The first IMO Draft Resolution on AIS was issued in 1995. But back to the point, yes certainly in some circumstances the Class B returns can be over-ridden by Class A but the Class A sets are significantly more expensive and use a great deal more power. For the price of a Class A set you can provide both a radar responder and an AIS rx/tx, plus have some left over for some new warps etc.