New study quantifies what we already knew: 75% of fishing vessels don't use AIS

[deblen]

Legal requirements of AIS on US & Cdn vessels:
https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/ais-requirements


AIS regs-Canada.PNG Views: 102 Size: 72.1 KB ID: 285121" style="margin: 2px" />


Your boat-your choice-to rely on AIS

[boatpoker]

Originally Posted by deblen

Legal requirements of AIS on US & Cdn vessels:
https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/ais-requirements


Attachment 285121


Your boat-your choice-to rely on AIS

Good Grief !
At least the Canadian rules are written in English

[SaltyMetals]

a certain size "must be FITED with AIS" but "fitted" is the important word. It does not oblige them to actually be transmitting on AIS.

If a fishing boat has its nets out i doubt it could avoid you and thereby stay dark. I fact in Biscay and Med i have sometimes found that a fishing boat lying directly on my heading will briefly turn ON their AIS transmit to show their position.

How else can they maintain their navigational priority if you cannot see them?
Andrew

PS: I am not for one moment wishing to suggest that AIS can be a substitute for radar. Both have their important uses.

[Siberian Sea]

I’m a commercial fisherman in Alaska and anyone who would depend on AIS to avoid vessel route conflicts over a radar is foolish. Your best defense is simply paying attention and maintaining spatial and situation awareness. So many vessels don’t even have real local charts opting for a digital plotter of even worse some tablet with a navigation application. Even more don’t even know how to navigate and just find their way around by looking for their position flashing on the screen. My advice is to learn how to navigate, read real charts and pay attention to what’s happening around you spending less time with your face pointed at that plotter with AIS overlay. This might seem harsh to some of you I know but it behooves everyone including yourself to never assume the vessels in your area are broadcasting electronic navigation signals nor displaying proper navigation lights. Trust me, I do this for a living. Be safe out there.

[markxengineerin]

Even more don’t even know how to navigate and just find their way around by looking for their position flashing on the screen.

I count myself as one of these- I would be pretty lost without GPS. But what's the problem with that? There are about 10 GPS's on board and in the event of losing all 10 of them, the odds I find my way back to civilization are still very high with just a compass and knowing where the continents are. Am I missing something useful about "old school" navigation? I'm guessing that the additional skills you're referring to involve dead reckoning, looking at lighthouses and other physical markers, estimating visual distances, and paper charts? I just don't see the practical application for these skills when GPS is so good. GPS + depth sounder + common sense seem enough in 2024.

[boatpoker]

Originally Posted by SaltyMetals

a certain size "must be FITED with AIS" but "fitted" is the important word. It does not oblige them to actually be transmitting on AIS.

Rule - 5
Every vessel shall at all times maintain a proper look-out by sight and hearing as well as by all available means appropriate in the prevailing circumstances and conditions

[P3sailor]

I worked on a tuna super seiner and I'd bet a nickel to a dollar the reason some don't use AIS is because, the commercial fishing world is very competitive and these boats don't want their rivals to know where they are if they're into fish, I've seen it time and time again.

[P3sailor]

To depend solely on GPS is not very intelligent, in my opinion but that's another issue. Electronics have been known to fail and gps has already been messed with by other countries recently, mainly china and russia from what I've read recently.

[Mike OReilly]

The point is, AIS is a useful tool, but it should never be relied on as a primary means of collision avoidance. Any suggestion that AIS can replace eyeballs or radar, is foolish.

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

The point is, AIS is a useful tool, but it should never be relied on as a primary means of collision avoidance. Any suggestion that AIS can replace eyeballs or radar, is foolish.

Exactly. Each tool (including eyeballs and radar) gives us more information to work with. But none of those tools does anything so magical that it makes all of the others unnecessary.

[Bill_Giles]

I am keen on AIS and it is reliable when tracking big ships. Not so much fishing boats which anyway seem a law unto themselves. If they are into fish then they appear to lose situational awareness of other boats and expect them to get out of the way with little heed to giving time and opportunity to keep clear.

I was sailing around the NW corner of Spain, of course is was night and F7 on the nose. We could see on AIS a long string of fishing boats stretched across our course. Now and again they would slow down and start turning sharply, then disappear from AIS. We assumed that they had hit a shoal of fish and were hiding it from their fellows. The trouble was that these small wooden or glass fibre boats were virtually invisible to radar.

We managed to dodge them until suddenly a crew mate pointed out some lights on our course. As they got closer we could see that the two boats were lit up like Christmas trees. They were heading straight for us with us going between. Suddenly it became apparent that their lights indicated that they were pair trawling. Our speedy tack was something to behold! We cleared them with not a lot of space. Fortunately that was the last of them.

We got around the headland and bore away and had a great final sail into La Corona.

[Senojev]

75% sounds very low. In Maine/ New England, I would estimate 95% is more realistic and with the fogs in Maine it can be downright dangerous without good radar.

[Nicholson58]

Originally Posted by Tin Tin

I think the title should be 75% of fishing boats don't "broadcast" their AIS position, and I would imagine that is to either not be caught in no fish zones or to tell the competition where they are, apart from not having any AIS device at all. We have been hailed a few times up the US east coast at night by fishing vessels that know our name, but are AIS invisible to us ( we see their lights and radar signal).

The illegal Chinese trawlers in the Caribbean, removing every last fish don’t appear on AIS.

[JBsurfin]

Originally Posted by shimari

A new study in Nature compared 2 petabytes of satellite data with AIS data and found that 75% of fishing vessels don't use AIS.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06825-8

A concise summary of the paper is here https://theconversation.com/we-used-...lopment-219367

The results aren't surprising, but I guess the interesting use of the datasets made it eligible for Nature.

what % of recreational cruisers don't have it? I dont.

[sailorboy1]

wait till you have a collision with a commercial fishing boat and find out this whole thread is just a waste of time