Solent based: Do you have AIS?

[luke collins]

What website would you recommend to view small craft with AIS Tx/Rx fitted. Think it’s a good safety aid, any aid is helpful at night or if visibility is low.

 

[Gary Fox]

Marine Traffic has a useful free app

 

[Rappey]

Turning it off at sea kind of defeats the object of having it for all vessels in the vicinity.
You may not wish to use it but another vessel heading towards you may find it very useful

 

[RichardS]

IIRC Ships above 400 tons were required to have AIS but only the newest of them had it on the plotter screen displays other than as a list in a drop down menu of vessels. I Believe the situation now is different. Somebody may know better and advise. My response related to our case that for sure when outside of Solent we would have OURS turned on, radar too.

Having looked it up, the Ouzo incident was in 2006 so it was much longer ago than I thought. In those days AIS had only just become mandatory on large ships and Class B for leisure vessels had not been introduced.

Richard

 

[LadyInBed]

The plotter. The AIS receiver just passes on the data from the signal it received, it’s up to the plotter whether and how to draw it on the chart.

Pete

So Rappey has a crap or very old plotter!

If the ais could display the different coloured boats like marine traffic website does it would be awesome as it's not always obvious which of the large amount of targets is the large ship.

 

[Rappey]

So Rappey has a crap or very old plotter!

?. My plotter and ais are one of the same.

 

[LadyInBed]

?. My plotter and ais are one of the same.

Which one? so others know which model doesn't show different classes of ship.

 

[lustyd]

Having looked it up, the Ouzo incident was in 2006 so it was much longer ago than I thought. In those days AIS had only just become mandatory on large ships and Class B for leisure vessels had not been introduced.

Richard

My point was not that it would have helped Ouzo in 2006 it was that she was in local waters and that today it’s foolish to turn off a safety feature you have fitted. You can’t know when or where you’ll have a problem and eventually there will be a MAIB report where a skipper turned of AIS in local waters. There is no advantage to switching it off in the same way there’s no advantage to not wearing a life jacket.

 

[RichardS]

My point was not that it would have helped Ouzo in 2006 it was that she was in local waters and that today it’s foolish to turn off a safety feature you have fitted. You can’t know when or where you’ll have a problem and eventually there will be a MAIB report where a skipper turned of AIS in local waters. There is no advantage to switching it off in the same way there’s no advantage to not wearing a life jacket.

I understand but I was responding (indirectly) to your point that "Ouzo was in local waters when hit by a ferry that would certainly have AIS fitted today". The ferry did have AIS fitted but the Ouzo did not because Class B was not available.

Richard

 

[Never Grumble]

My point was not that it would have helped Ouzo in 2006 it was that she was in local waters and that today it’s foolish to turn off a safety feature you have fitted. You can’t know when or where you’ll have a problem and eventually there will be a MAIB report where a skipper turned of AIS in local waters. There is no advantage to switching it off in the same way there’s no advantage to not wearing a life jacket.

Today the ferry would have AIS but still no obligation to have it on the yacht.

On the local waters issue and whether you should have it switched on in the Red Falcon v Phoenix MAIB report they said
Improving situational Awareness
...
Phoenix was not fitted with an AIS transceiver or a VHF radio, both of which are routinely carried on many recreational craft. An AIS transceiver would have enabled the display of Phoenix as an AIS target on Red Falcon’s ECS, which was readily visible to the ferry’s chief officer, and the display of Red Falcon as an AIS target on board Phoenix.

Now how much the ferry bridge staff would monitor AIS tracks I don't know. But the MAIB did think it might have helped. I suspect there isn't the man power to keep a constant watch on the AIS screen and they spend most of their time looking out of the windows, which is what they should be doing.

Someone else mentioned Marine Traffic type apps, the downside with these is they are necessarily updated in real time. I can click on my Ipad app and it will show a boats position but when you look at the detail that might be several hours old.

 

[Robin]

I understand but I was responding (indirectly) to your point that "Ouzo was in local waters when hit by a ferry that would certainly have AIS fitted today". The ferry did have AIS fitted but the Ouzo did not because Class B was not available.

Richard

And Ouzo was NOT in the Solent which was original discussion concerning information overload/clutter from multiple AIS transmissions.
Do I also recall commercial vessels have the ability to turn off/disregard class B leisure craft transmissions,?

 

[JumbleDuck]

I don't understand. The ferry would have had AIS ( it wasn't that long ago surely?} but Ouzo obviously did not. If Ouzo had had a an AIS transmitter then it would have been displayed on the ferry screen and probably set off an alarm. I cannot imagine that Ouzo would not have been seen on screen by the ferry unless everyone on the bridge was fast asleep and I don't recall that being the case.

They actually saw the Ouzo before hitting her. Would seeing her on AIS as well have made any difference?

 

[RichardS]

And Ouzo was NOT in the Solent which was original discussion concerning information overload/clutter from multiple AIS transmissions.
Do I also recall commercial vessels have the ability to turn off/disregard class B leisure craft transmissions,?

You need to take up your first point with LustyD rather than me.

You are correct that Class A sets can turn off Class B reception but no Skipper is going to do that in open water or at night. In fact, I doubt whether they ever turn reception off and they will certainly not turn transmission off.

Richard

 

[RichardS]

They actually saw the Ouzo before hitting her. Would seeing her on AIS as well have made any difference?

In a present day situation with a AIS transmitter fitted to the Ouzo, the ferry bridge would have been aware of the yacht ahead of them miles before visual contact was possible and also aware that there was going to be a close crossing situation, as would the crew of the Ouzo.

Richard

 

[lustyd]

Unless the imaginary present day Ouzo switched theirs off in some misguided attempt to reduce clutter on the plotter screens of people who don't know how to use their equipment, and forgotten to switch it back on. Then they'd have been in the same situation as having not invested in safety equipment.

Out of interest, for those switching it off, is the plan to switch it back on before or during a Mayday/pan oan to aid with rescue? Would you switch it on following someone elses Mayday/pan pan so the coastguard could assess which vessel to request an assist from? Seems easier to just leave the thing running, given that there aren't any real downsides to doing so.

 

[Never Grumble]

They actually saw the Ouzo before hitting her. Would seeing her on AIS as well have made any difference?

Hopefully. As perhaps would having integrated plotter screens as the report mentions the ferry watch keeping officer going backwards and forwards to the chart room to plot the ships position.

 

[doug748]

Assuming it was daylight and not foggy, it is difficult to see what safety assistance AIS is in the case shown. It's quite entertaining and, as the others have said, you can track friends etc. However safety? Not so convincing. With such a complex picture I have found alarms are rendered unusable.
One possible exception is to alert you to a fast moving vessel coming through the ruck, though it's difficult to argue that you need electronic aids to spot a ship in inshore waters.

I have a set with good filters that could exclude much of the clutter shown above, though a class B zapper would be more convenient. Generally it is just easier to switch the thing off until it might be of use.

.

 

[Blue Sunray]

My point was not that it would have helped Ouzo in 2006 it was that she was in local waters and that today it’s foolish to turn off a safety feature you have fitted. You can’t know when or where you’ll have a problem and eventually there will be a MAIB report where a skipper turned of AIS in local waters. There is no advantage to switching it off in the same way there’s no advantage to not wearing a life jacket.

Absolutely agree that it seems daft to turn off AIS, however I do wonder if this will be an unintentional side-effect of the upcoming Studland restrictions and the expansion of such schemes as people will be reluctant to broadcast their identities. Even if the restrictions are voluntary I can foresee the 'eco warriors' using such data to take direct action against individual boat owners, they increasingly seem to think a bit of criminal damage is justifiable to make their point and indeed they showed how easy it is to get at boats in Falmouth back in Aug 19. IMHO a far more likely scenario that official enforcement.

 

[lustyd]

Good point, I'll be switching it off when ploughing for seahorses!

 

[Robin]

You need to take up your first point with LustyD rather than me.

You are correct that Class A sets can turn off Class B reception but no Skipper is going to do that in open water or at night. In fact, I doubt whether they ever turn reception off and they will certainly not turn transmission off.

Richard

Agreed, reply was general not person specific. Military/border force do turn off transmissions mind but never reception I suspect! But a container ship headed in to Southampton on a sunny weekend might very well be tempted to clear the screen clutter