Notebook

Installing an Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) is becoming a mainstream option for yachts. Prices are dropping and AIS equipment is evolving, resulting in a greater variety of instruments on the market. That variety will no doubt increase further, but we can see distinct categories of AIS equipment emerge.

For those looking to invest in a system, we're going examine those categories in a series of six posts. We will look at the full gamut of equipment, ranging from economical class B receive-only units through AIS integrated with Radio Receivers and Chart Plotters, right up to standalone class A systems.

There is already so much choice that we won't be able to cover every available unit, but we will highlight representative equipment and discuss which features to look for.

I started a listing of magazines including their online companion sites which might be of interest to Australian Cruising Sailors.

Please have a look and comment on what you think and if you'd like to add any  other magazine to the list.

At last there are now some tangible signs that Coastal Patrol and Coast Guard organisations along the NSW coast are integrating their operations. 

Nick Jaffe just cleared customs in Coffs Harbour after a 2 year solo sail from Europe. Apart from being an accomplished sailor, Nick also worked out how to make the Internet work for him along the way.

And not just by getting regular weather reports via a Satellite…

Check out his Website, Blog, his Flickr photostream, his Video and his Tweets. And of course, there is a tracking page.Well done, Nick!

I guess it had to be a 27 year old to show us how it’s done…

I've been exploring various tracking options as part of an exercise to move Skipr tracking up " a notch". Here is the track which we created using an iPhone, taking Te Moana from Iluka to Camden Haven recently.

GPS tracking powered by InstaMapper.com

The iPhone reported positions via the boat's wireless broadband connection. Because of restrictions by Apple on the way applications may be developed, the phone needs to be devoted to reporting GPS positions, rather than report "in the background". If a phone call is received, the iPhone stops tracking, but will resume after the call is finished.

A few friends have asked about the Wireless Broadband Internet and phone setup aboard Te Moana. Last year, we fitted an Ericsson W25 on our boat. Previously, we had USB modems (Maxon CDMA and later the Maxon Turbo modem) with Telstra mobile data plans. Today I still use the (orange) Maxon Modem while we're ashore (handy in the train or at a customer). But while on the boat I take the SIM card out of the modem and plug it into the Ericsson W25 which Andersen Marine installed on Te Moana last year.

I'm very interested in the use of AIS on yachts, and not just as an aid to navigation, but also as a way of tracking boats. There is now a proliferation of websites which "aggregate" AIS transmission from boats and plot their position on a map. Probably the most popular of these is MarineTraffic.com, which I have written about earlier. At first glance, that would make a terrific way of tracking cruising yachts along our coast. But is it?

Last weekend's Sydney to Gold Coast race provided an opportunity to see the difference between class A (commercial shipping) and class B (leisure vessels, work boats) versions of AIS as a couple of the boats in the race carried AIS transponders. Here is what I found....

We went out on Te Moana yesterday to check out the Sydney to Gold Coast fleet as they passed Broken Bay. It was a gorgeous day apart from the fact that there was no wind. So we parked ourselves near the race rhumb line, killed the Volvos and just waited for the fleet to crawl towards us.

I kept myself entertained playing with various yacht tracking technologies. I'm eagerly awaiting the day when we can use 'off the shelf' economical systems to track yachts, rather than clunky, expensive satellite transponders or cheap but error prone manual systems.

Every since the 2nd generation iPhone was launched last year, users can determine their location through the built-in GPS (the blue dot marks our position off the coast on the Google Maps iPhone display),

Recently, Google has been promoting its "Latitude" service, where you can share your location with your friends. This works by allowing your phone to transmit its location to the Google service, but...

We've been tracking yachts on this site for almost 4 years. Over the coming year, we're expecting to introduce more ways to conveniently track your boat. Most of those features assume internet access while at sea. But we're not forgetting internet deprived boats. From today, we're starting a trial allowing users to submit position reports by mobile phone. You'll still have to register your boat as per usual (here's how), but to submit a position report, you can send us a SMS text message in the following format:

date time latitude longitude comment

AIS stands for Automatic Identification System, a marine system which identifies a ship to others in its immediate vicinity. It does that by continually  transmitting a ship's position, course and call sign on dedicated VHF radio channels.