What I want most of all is...

[benjenbav]

...I thought it was a Triumph Bonneville T100 McQueen but having spent yesterday on the boat I now know that what I want, what I really, really want is for everyone with an AIS B transmitter on a 40ft Westerly Overload Rag n Stick (on moderate sized boats it always seems to be raggies) to just switch the fecker off.

Geez, I spent an hour on a mooring buoy in Newtown Creek and the raggie on the next buoy was transmitting AIS B. On the blimmin mooring fer gord's sake.

Between Cowes and Soton Water it's now virtually impossible to see the plotter for red triangles. Trouble is you see one and swivel your head round desperately hoping to avoid the VLCC with your name on it and all there is is a poxy sailboat bobbing away.

Grr.

 

[MapisM]

Why don't you just switch the AIS receiver off and keep the T100 in your Xmas list instead? Life's too short...

 

[benjenbav]

There is that! But one of the things I like about AIS is having a bit of a nose at the details transmitted by ships transmitting AIS A whereas AIS B vessels just come up as "Unknown Vessel". So they're boring as well as profligate.

Hey ho, think I'll just use the paper chart and the radar to miss the obstacles.

 

[jfm]

yup, mine is now switched right off (both Tx and Rx) becuase otherwise the plotter is full of sodding triangles and alarms go off. It is only turned on for big sea passages esp night time

 

[Moody]

On the run from Swanwick Marina to Southampton Water my collision alarm is almost constantly going off as I pass boats in Mercury, Port Hamble and Hamble Point.

AIS is received via the VHF and there's no way to turn it off, so it drives me mad.

I've now taken to leaving the VHF off and using the handheld for that part of my journey

 

[sarabande]

perhaps Chanelyacht can have a word with line management, and get a few posters on the entrance to marinas asking for people to turn them off when not under way, maikng way/ on passage / when people can see more 5 miles / ...

 

[tangerine]

Why don't you just switch the AIS receiver off and keep the T100 in your Xmas list instead? Life's too short...

Better still,make it a Norton Commando. Im sure I can help out there!.

 

[benjenbav]

Is there a device out there that allows receivers to see AIS A but not to see AIS B?

Seriously, I would say that even until 2011 AIS was really useful. Now everyone's had an AIS B transmitter for Xmas and it's become more of a burden than a boon.

Maybe ragboats tend to fit it because they don't show up very well on radar? I would have thought they could fix that by either fitting a SeaMe active radar reflector or, better yet, shoehorning in a couple of decent-sized engines.

 

[epervier]

Martin I'm with MapisM, stuff the AIS, get the bonnie, 'cause in a very short time you'll be too old to enjoy it

No offence intended re; your age.

 

[benjenbav]

Coming from the inventor (populariser?) of desert dune boarding behind a toyota landcruiser, I reckon I've got to take that comment seriously.

 

[epervier]

Coming from the inventor (populariser?) of desert dune boarding behind a toyota landcruiser, I reckon I've got to take that comment seriously.

But I was a much younger man then

 

[benjenbav]

This was the scene from buoy 3 looking at the entrance to Newtown Creek at mid-tide, neaps. The commercial traffic was clearly piling in through the gap and running down anyone who wasn't transmitting AIS B. I saw three craft sunk on that very stretch of water just while the kettle was boiling.