Please turn your AIS off when docked/moored/anchored

[nigel1]

Originally Posted by donradcliffe

ROTFLMAO! Here's what professional mariners on ships are capable of--turning LEFT in front an oncoming supertanker.
The Most Intense Bridge Conversation EVER – USS Porter Collides With Supertanker [AUDIO] | gCaptain - Maritime & Offshore News

The CO of the Porter was really taking the p#ss ordering 5 short after trying to cut across the bows of the stand on ship.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Paul Elliott

I still barely know how to use my DSC VHF. I really ought to study it, but it sure hasn't caught on here on the West Coast, at least not among pleasure boaters.

I still wonder if that Russian freighter wasn't some sort of spy listening station.

Major thread drift going on here, but I can't resist -- interesting topic.

That's a shame. DSC is terrific. Instead of broadcasting your call to the whole world on 16, you put in the MMSI number of the party you want to call together with the working channel you want to talk on. The call goes ONLY to that party, and his radio will switch automatically to the requested working channel if he accepts the call. If you program the MMSI numbers of your friends into the radio's memory, it's just a couple of button presses -- hardly requires a lot of study of the manual.

Now what would really be great would be SMS via VHF and HF DSC. Would have been extremely simple to implement, but it wasn't This is really too bad, as you could probably communicate 80% of everything you need to communicate over marine radio in SMS messages, further, more reliably (could have receipt ACK like on mobile phones), and taking up a tiny fraction of the bandwidth.

You do have this functionality over certain satellite devices like the Yellow Brick, which seems like a terrific device to me. It's interoperable with the world wide GSM network, too

As to the Russian ship: I bet the radio operators on Russian spy ships don't need to practice sending AIS SMS's with yankee yachtsmen

[Paul Elliott]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

As to the Russian ship: I bet the radio operators on Russian spy ships don't need to practice sending AIS SMS's with yankee yachtsmen

Perhaps that was a pretext? There were U.S. Navy exercises going on in those waters, and as we were leaving there was an announcement of scheduled GPS disruption north of Oahu. I thought is was a bit of a coincidence that as the Navy games were going on a freighter with a Russian-sounding radio operator had nothing better to do than steam in circles and talk to me. Perhaps they wanted to make sure I wasn't spying on them? I satphone-emailed a blog entry while this was happening, in case we somehow "disappeared" out there. Here it is: Friday, Aug 10, 3:00PM PDT « VALIS. Afterwards I sent another report: Close Encounter « VALIS.

But, I've talked over the VHF with lots of bored crewmembers on big ships when on the high seas...

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by nigel1

The CO of the Porter was really taking the p#ss ordering 5 short after trying to cut across the bows of the stand on ship.

I have been reading about this incident since last year, and still can't understand what happened. Was there ever a report issued on it?

And what do you mean "order five short"? Five short blasts, "I wish to communicate"? WTF?

[Paul Elliott]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

You do have this functionality over certain satellite devices like the Yellow Brick, which seems like a terrific device to me. It's interoperable with the world wide GSM network, too

The old Iridium satphones only could receive SMS test messages, but the newer ones let you send text messages as well. Not generally useful for communications between vessels though...

AIS/DSC integration is one of the reasons I got the Standard Horizon AIS-aware VHF radios. You don't have to copy down, then punch in that nine-digit MMSI number in order to make a DSC radio call.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I have been reading about this incident since last year, and still can't understand what happened. Was there ever a report issued on it?

And what do you mean "order five short"? Five short blasts, "I wish to communicate"? WTF?

I just saw this:

CDR Salamander: "Five Short! Let's go!"

pretty shocking stuff.

[goboatingnow]

The fact is Nick is right ,AIS is no where near its technical limits in the situation Evans described. Even if it was its not relevant.

Evans problem is the state of art for AIS in leisure vessels isn't good enough , or more correctly what he has isnt good enough. ( and that is a general comment on current AIS ) .then you couple in what people like myself and boatman think of relying on alarms in harbour approaches. !!

Nick is fundamentally right. aIS on or off isn't the issue. Evans moral argument is all well and fine but has no relevance , its like asking the people on a cell to disconnect their phones just because you can't get a signal. The problem is Evans issue to deal with , either with better equipment or changed SOP. Its not correct to demand everyone else change so ones life can be improved.


This does not alter the fact that I support the good practice of turning off AIS once the boat is powered down ( note that nots the same as some others ). But good practice is just that.

Dave

[nigel1]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I have been reading about this incident since last year, and still can't understand what happened. Was there ever a report issued on it?

And what do you mean "order five short"? Five short blasts, "I wish to communicate"? WTF?

I'm sure you knew this, but Rule 34 (d)
When vessels in sight of one another are approaching each other and from any cause either vessel fails to understand the intentions or actions of the other, or is in doubt whether sufficient action is being taken by the other to avoid collision, the vessel in doubt shall immediately indicate suchdoubt by giving at least five short and rapid blasts on the whistle. Such signal may be supplemented by a light signal of at least five short and rapid flashes.

Listening to that audio from the bridge of the Porter, seems like no one had a grasp of the situation, and how they missed seeing a 300,000t tanker until the last minute is a bit mind boggling.

Sorry, thread drift

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by nigel1

I'm sure you knew this, but Rule 34 (d)
When vessels in sight of one another are approaching each other and from any cause either vessel fails to understand the intentions or actions of the other, or is in doubt whether sufficient action is being taken by the other to avoid collision, the vessel in doubt shall immediately indicate suchdoubt by giving at least five short and rapid blasts on the whistle. Such signal may be supplemented by a light signal of at least five short and rapid flashes.

Listening to that audio from the bridge of the Porter, seems like no one had a grasp of the situation, and how they missed seeing a 300,000t tanker until the last minute is a bit mind boggling.

Sorry, thread drift

Ahhhh.... a bit of paper saying you Passed does not a make seaman... Captains and Commanders are a dime a dozen....

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by nigel1

I'm sure you knew this, but Rule 34 (d)
When vessels in sight of one another are approaching each other and from any cause either vessel fails to understand the intentions or actions of the other, or is in doubt whether sufficient action is being taken by the other to avoid collision, the vessel in doubt shall immediately indicate suchdoubt by giving at least five short and rapid blasts on the whistle. Such signal may be supplemented by a light signal of at least five short and rapid flashes.

Listening to that audio from the bridge of the Porter, seems like no one had a grasp of the situation, and how they missed seeing a 300,000t tanker until the last minute is a bit mind boggling.

Sorry, thread drift

Oh, right, duh. I don't have a whistle so that rule kind of faded in my anyway poor memory . . .

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

The fact is Nick is right ,AIS is no where near its technical limits in the situation Evans described. Even if it was its not relevant.

Evans problem is the state of art for AIS in leisure vessels isn't good enough , or more correctly what he has isnt good enough. ( and that is a general comment on current AIS ) .then you couple in what people like myself and boatman think of relying on alarms in harbour approaches. !!

Nick is fundamentally right. aIS on or off isn't the issue. Evans moral argument is all well and fine but has no relevance , its like asking the people on a cell to disconnect their phones just because you can't get a signal. The problem is Evans issue to deal with , either with better equipment or changed SOP. Its not correct to demand everyone else change so ones life can be improved.

This does not alter the fact that I support the good practice of turning off AIS once the boat is powered down ( note that nots the same as some others ). But good practice is just that.

Dave

I think all the techies agree along the same lines; it is our apparent inability to explain this to the rest that frustrates me. We all gave it our best and didn't even come close...

@all: yes the messages might be class-A only; I have class-A so didn't realize this; it is indeed used often; ports give safety messages or schedules etc. and like reported by Nigel I think, tows give specifics. This is used routinely while I never see serious DSC messages apart from distress calls that are mostly false.

[Kettlewell]

This is used routinely while I never see serious DSC messages apart from distress calls that are mostly false.

DSC can get seriously annoying on a summer weekend in a busy area due to periodic false alarms, to the point we occasionally turn off the VHF when in the past we would leave it on. As far as I can tell, there is no way to prevent hearing the piercing alarm tone. Like AIS alarms, I wonder if we are suffering from too many devices crying wolf too often, so we end up muting or turning them off, or putting on filters that eliminate both the annoying alarms and some we should be paying attention to.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by nigel1

Listening to that audio from the bridge of the Porter, seems like no one had a grasp of the situation, and how they missed seeing a 300,000t tanker until the last minute is a bit mind boggling.

Sorry, thread drift

I have a feeling the Officer of the watch knew exactly what would happen but discipline ruled the day and the senior officers orders were followed despite attempted sit-reps...

[colemj]

Originally Posted by Paul Elliott

I still barely know how to use my DSC VHF. I really ought to study it, but it sure hasn't caught on here on the West Coast, at least not among pleasure boaters.

I think it has to do with the radio engineering (well, programming), and there is hope there. We have a new Standard Horizon DSC radio and using the DSC functions (all of them) are as simple as using a telephone. None of them take more than 2-3 pushes of a single button labeled "call". Many friends of ours have Icom radios, and the DSC functions on those radios may as well be in Sanskrit. They have most of the same functionality as we do, but using it is beyond those without MIT engineering degrees.

I always attempt to help people set up and use their DSC functionality and everyone is immediately hooked.

It is wonderful to have hailing channels quiet, call someone without all the Aunt Bea's following the conversation around and quietly and quickly poll your friends positions to see where they are in a cruising ground.

When I am out in the dinghy spearfishing (with our HH DSC), Michele can push a button and my location shows up on our chart plotter. Similarly, when I find a good fishing reef or mount offshore, I can push a button and the position of it gets plotted back on the boat.

So yes, there are countless DSC sets out there with the owner having never figured out how to use them. Everyone with newer Standard Horizon sets seem to know how to use it, so I can only hope that the implementation of this functionality gets better engineered over time. There seems to be no real learning curve or hurdle to using it - just implementation of its functions.

Mark

[colemj]

Originally Posted by Paul Elliott

I thought is was a bit of a coincidence that as the Navy games were going on a freighter with a Russian-sounding radio operator had nothing better to do than steam in circles and talk to me.

Hmmm. I've talked to many freighters and they all seemed to have Russian-sounding radio operators...

Mark