“Person overboard!“

Few phrases conjure darker fears among mariners. The good news, of course, is that contemporary beacons and geofence-breaching pendants can swiftly alert a skipper and crew about an MOB emergency, and can often help with rescue efforts. The less-than-cheery news, however, is that this equipment requires crewmembers, guests and family to carry or wear the equipment. This scheme can also presuppose that a person who has gone overboard is still conscious, treading water and capable of activating a beacon, probably in a seaway, maybe at night.

For the owners and captains of superyachts that carry at least 18 feet of freeboard, MARSS Group’s groundbreaking MOBtronic system provides safety without active user participation.

The Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act of 2010 mandates that all cruise ships operating in US waters carry equipment that can detect or capture imagery of people who have gone overboard. The resulting ISO standards are strict: Systems must achieve a 95 percent probability of detection while recording no more than one false alarm per day, on average.

Flash-forward to today: UK-based MARSS has developed a solution called MOBtronic, which it has been selling to a few superyachts longer than 300 feet. While MOBtronic currently has a significant freeboard requirement, it employs active-detection technologies rather than pendants or beacons. It can autonomously sense a person overboard and immediately advise its human-on-the-loop operator.

MARSS is also exploring a solution with lower freeboard requirements for smaller yachts. While this technology is not currently available, MOBtronic offers a look at what’s possible when sensors and hybrid intelligence converge.

With regard to hardware, each installation involves a network of MOBtronic sensor pods that are installed along a vessel’s upper decks. Collectively, this equipment creates 360 degrees of coverage. There’s a virtual or physical server running NiDAR CORE, which is MARSS’ hybrid intelligence system that blends detection technologies and human input. There’s also a dedicated touchscreen display. Each sensor pod measures 14.1 by 10 by 3.6 inches, weighs 14.55 pounds and carries an IP66/67 rating. Each pod houses Doppler-enabled, microsize solid-state radars that constantly sweep an area measuring roughly 262 feet long and 26 feet wide (and at least 18 feet high). The package also incorporates a thermal-imaging camera and a processor. Additionally, owners can spec a daylight camera, but this isn’t required by ISO standards.

For scale, a large cruise ship might be fitted with 12 sensor pods, while a 300-plus-foot yacht might carry six.

“The sensor pods themselves have computers built into them, and they are doing most of the heavy-lift processing,” Mike Collier, MARSS’ business development manager, says of the radar- and video-feed analytics. “It’s very light on data that has to go back to the central server.”

The way MOBtronic works starts with radar, which effectively serves as the system’s tripwire. From there, it progresses to thermal imagery and analytics. Each MOBtronic radar pipes its signal to its processor, which has been trained via digital signal processing to identify an overboard person’s volume, size, shape and velocity (think bird mode, but for finding human beings).

Should the radar signal detect a possible match, the pod’s thermal-imaging camera begins working to verify, via video analytics, if this is actually a person in the water.

“It’s a five-stage process,” Collier says. “It takes data from the radar and does two calculations on that, and then it looks at the thermal-imaging-camera data and does some analytics on that as well. And if both things match, then an MOB alarm is raised.”

A human operator is then notified, and that person decides whether and how to escalate the situation. Go-to procedures include conducting head counts, notifying rescuing authorities and nearby traffic, and launching rescue craft and drones.

MOBtronic provides the vessel’s networked navigation system with its GPS location at the time of the emergency. In turn, the nav system can often calculate the person overboard’s predicted set and drift. Some nav systems can also cue a networked camera to follow that real-time position.

MOBtronic doesn’t track the person in the water, at least not outside the area of sensor coverage—but Collier says this isn’t the point. “The system was always focused on the detect part because that’s the most difficult part,” he says. “The bit that was always missing from the puzzle was accurate detection of someone falling from a vessel, and that’s what we focused on. The operator of the vessel can make the decision what they do next.”

As for the system’s 18-foot freeboard requirement, which is currently a limiting factor for many yachts, Collier says it has more to do with meeting and exceeding ISO standards than it does with sensor blind spots.

“It’s really difficult to achieve 95 percent probability of detection and only one false alarm a day,” he says. “We need to give the radar sufficient time to create a track … and for that track to continue all the way down to the water.”

Relaxing the freeboard requirement for use outside of the cruise-ship sector is already in the works. “It won’t be the same technology,” he says. “It might be something slightly different.” One possibility is to add a form of AI called machine learning to the camera feed, which could help MOBtronic understand what’s happening faster and with greater accuracy.

In addition to superyacht-level freeboard requirements (and costs), the system will generate some human-on-the-loop work for the bridge or helm watch. That said, these drawbacks are small prices to pay for an active, autonomous detection system that requires zero participation from the people it’s protecting—especially on a charter yacht, or one with landlubber guests who make unseamanlike decisions. Going forward, this technology could be a compelling safety proposition for many yachts. After all, few things assuage fear faster than situational awareness.

The post MARSS’ All-in-One Detection System appeared first on Yachting.

For more than 25 years, Italy’s Videoworks has been a go-to company for yacht owners worldwide who want the latest onboard technology. The firm is known for installing audiovisual setups that rival those inside mansions ashore, as well as satellite communications, cybersecurity systems and, most recently, home automation packages that incorporate artificial intelligence. The custom interfaces that Videoworks offers let yacht guests control everything from streaming movies to lights and air conditioning aboard yachts, while the company’s Active Noise Control Systems help keep the din down wherever yacht owners want peace and quiet.

Now, the company is offering Health Remote Monitoring, an area of medicine that’s been around for decades but that really started to accelerate along with the internet’s evolution in the 1990s. During the pandemic the past few years, telemedicine systems got another technological boost, when all kinds of medical experts, including doctors and veterinarians, began offering patient consultations via video calls and online data transfers.

Today, numerous types of telemedicine systems are available, many of them in collaboration with service centers where on-call medical professionals are at the ready for incoming information and requests for help. Videoworks says it’s taking a slightly different approach, though, with more of a focus on patient privacy—what with overall privacy being a key concern aboard most superyachts worldwide.

“What makes this service truly original is the direct connection with the patient’s personal physician, rather than with a service center, as is commonly the case with telemedicine, in which the patient’s data is analyzed by whichever doctor is on duty,” the company said when announcing the service. “This preserves the patient’s privacy and, above all, ensures direct communication with his or her own doctor, who is familiar with the patient’s pathologies and state of health.”

Experts in the telemedicine field say one of the top trends to watch is the increasing use of AI in remote-monitoring systems, for everything from diagnosis and diagnostics to patient follow-up. Expectations also include an increased use of wearables in these systems, with watches and other technology now able to track people’s heart rates, blood pressure and other important vital signs.

All of these system integrations happening aboard a yacht, while still maintaining personal privacy for owners and guests, will require expertise in cybersecurity protocols, satellite communications and more. That’s what makes Videoworks so well positioned to become a major player in the telemedicine marketplace on the world’s oceans.

In September at the Monaco Yacht Show, Videoworks gave showgoers a glimpse of the future, allowing them to test the Health Remote Monitoring system. Visitors to the company’s booth could measure their blood oxygen level and heart rate using a classic pulse oximeter, reproducing what the system does on board a yacht.  

The post Videoworks’ Personal Health-Monitoring System appeared first on Yachting.

Two weeks before Christmas, when most Americans were ready to relax with friends and family, the U.S. Coast Guard command center sprang into urgent action. The 30-foot Catalina Atrevida II was not where it was supposed to be. Sixty-four-year-old Kevin Hyde, 76-year-old Joe DiTomasso and his dog Minnie had left Cape May, New Jersey, on November 27 for a cruise to Marathon, Florida. For a while, everything went fine. According to news reports, DiTomasso was known for losing his phone, so his family didn’t worry after the men left North Carolina on December 3 and then went silent.

But by December 11, that quiet was deafening. The US Coast Guard Fifth District Command Center in the mid-Atlantic was notified. Rescuers immediately issued urgent alerts and reached out to commercial vessels in the search area. Multiple aircraft and cutters were launched; vessels from the US Navy’s Second Fleet started searching.

By the time a tanker crew spotted the Atrevida II more than 200 miles off the Delaware coast, 10 days had passed. The boat was dismasted. The men were exhausted. They had no fuel or power. All their radios and navigation equipment were dead.

What likely saved their lives was the fact that they were waving a green flag—pretty much their only remaining option.

The Human Factor

Kevin Ferrie knows stories like this one all too well. He’s a retired US Coast Guard commander who now serves as a civilian with the US Coast Guard Office of Auxiliary Boating & Safety.

“The majority of accidents that are in our database—the root cause is human factors. Somebody did something or made a poor judgment call,” he says.

Ferrie knows what’s behind those statistics on a level that most boaters never will. He also provides shore-side support for the annual Salty Dawg regattas that guide groups of sailors down the East Coast to the Caribbean and back. And he’s a long-distance cruiser himself, having sailed from Maine to the Caribbean aboard a 45-foot Jeanneau with his wife, their four kids and a pair of Labrador retrievers. He once found himself in a situation where his autopilot broke, and he needed to use an Iridium Go! as well as a Garmin inReach to communicate with shore-side help. He didn’t need 10 days to start losing his mind; disorientation from trying to fix the autopilot hit him in a day and a half.

“It was in the lazarette. I had to pull out all this gear to get to it and contort my body in all kinds of ways,” he says. “Off and on, it took me like 36 hours to fix it, including communicating offshore and waiting for responses. I was exhausted.”

All his experiences have taught him one overarching lesson about offshore cruising: Preparation is key. “The minimum federal safety standards are important: You need your life jackets, your distress signals, your VHF radio,” he says. “But that’s really baseline. If you’re heading offshore, it’s not enough.” 

Communications

In terms of offshore preparation, communications technology that lets boaters summon help includes everything from cellphones and VHF radios to personal locator beacons and EPIRBs. Having as many types of communication as possible available is key, he says, because, in a lot of cases, simply being able to call for instructions or help can stop a bad situation from escalating into a dangerous one.

One recent example he encountered was with a vessel that lost its rudder this past fall off the East Coast. The husband and wife who were aboard set off their EPIRB and used their Garmin inReach to communicate with the Coast Guard and shore-side support.

What the couple initially feared was an emergency became a solvable problem because they were able to communicate, and because they knew other people were keeping track of them.

“At first, they were like, ‘Oh, my God,’ and we had to help them get through that mental problem,” Ferrie says. “Ultimately, they ended up with the Coast Guard arriving on scene and towing them in. But with help, they were able to make way toward the coast and rendezvous for help. They had the communication devices and the spares. They needed somebody to say, ‘It’s OK. You’re prepared for this.’” 

The Float Plan

Next on Ferrie’s list of important preparations for offshore cruising is filing a float plan. The US Coast Guard has a float-plan form online—for free—that boaters can download, fill out and leave with a responsible person ashore. It includes details such as the boat’s make and model, and the types of communication devices on board, and details about where the boaters expect to be, and when—all information that rescuers will need if the boat doesn’t show up where it should be.

In the case of the Atrevida II, family realizing the boat was overdue was a key component in the search efforts. That information is the essence of what makes filing a float plan such an important step in the offshore-cruising process. A float plan can sometimes be a boater’s only way to “signal” for help if an onboard emergency develops quickly.

“In a fast situation, the float plan is incredibly important because you may not even have time to make the mayday call,” Ferrie says. “Fire can happen really quickly on a boat. It can block access to everything except your way overboard.” 

Shore-Side Support

Having designated shore-side support people is different from filing a float plan. With shore-side support, a boater has volunteers or paid professionals helping to keep an eye on their course and anything happening around them, including developing weather systems.

“It’s more of an active person that’s watching out for your best interests,” Ferrie says. “With shore-side support, they’d be proactive and reach out to you. They’d say, ‘Hey, did you know this? Are you watching the weather? This is what I’m seeing heading your way in 12 hours.’”

Having shore-side support in place keeps everyone’s mind at ease both on the boat and ashore, he adds. During the Salty Dawg rallies, boaters are required to check in with the shore-side support teams at fixed intervals. Everybody involved knows that as the boats are making their way down the Atlantic coast, a failure to check in means something has gone wrong. For a boater having an emergency offshore with no other way to communicate, simply knowing that shore-side support people will take action can make all the difference between staying calm and panicking, which makes the onboard situation worse.

Safety Gear

Buying a bunch of top-notch safety gear and loading it onto the boat is not enough, Ferrie says. All the gear in the world won’t do a boater any good if he doesn’t know how to use it. “If you just buy a life raft, but you don’t know how to deploy it or what’s in it, that’s bad money spent,” he says.

Life jackets are a hugely important safety-gear requirement. According to the US Coast Guard’s most recent boating-accident data, 81 percent of fatal boating accidents involved people drowning, and some 83 percent of those victims were not wearing life jackets.

“Offshore, you should always wear a life jacket, and, with the inflatable designs, there’s no excuse about comfort anymore,” Ferrie says, adding that for sailors, “you also should always be attached to the boat. Run jacklines from the stern to the bow and clip your life jacket into them.”

He also thinks of communication devices as a form of safety gear, if boaters understand what each device on board can, and cannot, do.

“A personal locator beacon is basically an EPIRB for a person,” Ferrie says. “It will alert the authorities that there’s an emergency. But there’s also an AIS MOB beacon that alarms any boats in the area with AIS and gives them the position. So if you went overboard at night and the crew were sleeping, a personal locator beacon would not alert the crew, but an AIS MOB would wake them up.”

As for life rafts, they’re not required for offshore passages, but Ferrie highly recommends having one on board. He urges boaters to take advantage of the opportunities that come with every life raft’s required service intervals, which are a great time to learn how that particular piece of safety gear works.

“If your life raft is due for a service, talk to the service company, and be there when they open your raft,” he says. “Examine the raft. Visit the facility, and understand what rations come in the raft. Do you need more emergency rations? A ditch bag? You need to prepare that, and it depends on where you’re sailing. A coastal hop down the East Coast of the US is a lot different from a 30-day passage to the South Pacific. You have to think about how long it might take for people to find you.” 

Spare Parts

When Ferrie thinks about spares, his mind takes him to places well beyond parts and tools. Yes, those things are important, but he thinks about spare everything—including food, water and fuel—because in an extended emergency, a boater may need more than a 10 percent reserve of all three.

Carrying extra water is a must, he adds, because human beings can survive without food for a while, but not without water.

“Water tanks offshore can get contaminated in rough weather if you have saltwater intrusion,” he says. “Don’t count on being able to make water in a rough sea state. Have some water in five-gallon jugs.”

Many decisions about which spare parts and tools to stow boil down to the individual vessel and what its critical points of failure could be. “A lot of it’s in steering gear, the halyards if you’re sailing, fuel filters. If it’s rough, you may stir up sediment in your tank, and if you do that, you’ll have clogged filters,” Ferrie says. “You need to know how to fix that and have the critical spares on board.”  

Crew Endurance

Having enough crew so that everyone can be focused on-watch and resting off-watch is also “a huge one” that Ferrie thinks about in terms of preparations. If whoever is at the helm is exhausted when something goes wrong, the odds skyrocket of a solvable problem getting worse.

“There’s a saying: People typically break before the boats do,” he says. “At some point in a heightened-stress situation, it becomes a mental game.”

He adds that boaters should never, ever get themselves into a situation where they will feel forced to arrive at or depart from a certain location on a specific day or at a specific time, for any reason.

“You need to understand the weather,” he adds. “There’s a saying in cruising: If you have visitors coming, you can pick the location or the time, but you can’t pick both. When you’re forced into a schedule, you tend to make poor decisions. You feel like, ‘I have to get to this island because my mom’s going to arrive.’ Be patient, and wait for the weather window that suits your skills and ability and your boat.” 

Take Classes

Another key piece of advice is to  take boater-education courses. Many people wrongly assume that only beginners need classes; in fact, every page of this article includes a sidebar about advanced classes available for powerboaters and sailors alike. Classes can be taken nationwide, not only for offshore route-planning and passagemaking, but also for gaining a detailed understanding of how communication devices and mechanical systems work.

Everything a boat owner learns in those classes can be passed along to other crew members, including those who join a passage only for a short leg at a time.

“Think through possible worst-case scenarios and how you would respond to them,” Ferrie says. “Do that as an exercise with your crew. What would you do in a man-overboard situation? Do they know to stop and stare and point at the person?”

Yes, simply being able to keep eyes on a boater in trouble can sometimes make all the difference, as it did for the Atrevida II. After the tanker crew spotted the sailboat’s waving green flag, both the men and Minnie the dog were able to get aboard the tanker and hitch a ride back to New York. The men were exhausted and beaten up from the weather. They were taken to a hospital for observation to make sure they didn’t have hypothermia. One described his legs as feeling like rubber from trying to stay upright for so long.

But they both lived to tell their tale, just like the more than 75,000 people the Coast Guard Office of Auxiliary Boating & Safety has saved during the decades since its inception. And in a bad situation, that’s the statistic any offshore boater ultimately wants to be.

Learn the Basics

America’s Boating Club (previously known as the US Power Squadrons) offers an entry-level course for beginners who want to learn the basics of everything from navigation to safety equipment. This course also meets most states’ boater-safety education requirements.

Add New Skills

Boaters who complete the America’s Boating Club basic class can move on to higher-level courses. One course focuses on offshore navigation, with lessons in things like celestial navigation as a backup in case GPS equipment fails beyond the sight of land (and landmarks that can be used to navigate back home). This course also covers ways to set offshore navigational routines.

Cruise Planning

Another class that America’s Boating Club offers is focused on cruise planning. It covers how to plan a longer-term itinerary, as well as equipment the boater may need, key safety gear, crew training, communications, dealing with weather, handling emergencies and tips for cruising outside the United States.

Teaching the Tech

Yet another class that America’s Boating Club offers focuses exclusively on marine communication systems. It helps students understand the differences between VHF radio, the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System, radiotelephones, long-range communication systems and other technology that can help keep offshore boaters in contact with civilization.

For Sailors

The American Sailing Association has more than 300 schools across the United States as well as locations in other countries. After passing the basic keelboat sailing class, boaters can advance to basic coastal cruising, which teaches lessons focused on operating a boat during the daytime with wind conditions up to 20 knots.

Advanced Sailing

Upper-level classes from the American Sailing Association include advanced coastal cruising and offshore passagemaking. The passagemaking class is designed for boaters who want to sail extended offshore itineraries that will require celestial navigation. Sail repair, offshore first aid, abandon-ship protocols and other skills are also part of this course.

It All Comes Down To Preparation

“The minimum federal safety standards are important: You need your life jackets, your distress signals, your VHF radio. But that’s really baseline. If you’re heading offshore, it’s not enough.”

Basic Problems To Avoid

According to US Coast Guard accident data, top problems include operator inattention, improper lookout and excessive speed.

Main Types Of Boating Accidents

The US Coast Guard’s top five are collisions with other boats, collisions with fixed objects, flooding/swamping, grounding and falls overboard.

Watch The Weather

The US Coast Guard’s top 10 factors contributing to accidents include weather, which killed 30 people in the most-recent-year statistics available.

Being Offshore Is Different

The US Coast Guard’s most recent data shows that more boating accidents happen offshore in the Atlantic Ocean than in any single state. 

The post Offshore-Cruising Safety Tips appeared first on Yachting.

Life rafts are mission-specific safety gear. If you’re planning to stick to coastal cruising without ever heading offshore, then you might consider one type of raft instead of another. Ditto for cruisers headed to warmer climates as opposed to colder locations. Owner-operators who always cruise alone may be fine with a smaller raft, compared with a family of four, who would need a larger version.

All of which is why Jacksonville, Florida-based Revere makes a variety of life rafts for these purposes and more, with recreational and commercial versions in various sizes and styles. “We have been around since 1936. We have many different product lines,” says John Tuerk, senior sales manager.

The Regatta model shown here is built for offshore cruisers, which is indicated by its ISO 9650 rating. This raft’s features include a dual-tube design with independent air chambers, just in case one chamber deflates; an insulated floor to help the people inside stay warm; and a self-deploying canopy to provide protection from the elements.

Also included are hand flares, parachute flares, a signaling mirror, seasickness pills, a repair kit and other items that might be needed to keep people comfortably afloat until help can arrive. 

Take the next step: reveresurvival.com

The post Revere’s Life Raft Provides Offshore Security appeared first on Yachting.

Navarino, whose focus is IT and mobile connectivity solutions, and Vikand, a maritime healthcare specialist, have announced a partnership to offer remote medical care and mental health support on board.

The partnership combines Navarino’s Infinity and high-speed satellite connectivity solutions with Vikand’s OneHealth solution, which is a maritime healthcare platform.

OneHealth by Vikand includes real-time video calls with medical professionals, rapid diagnosis based on remote reading of vital peripherals, mental-wellness programs and crises intervention.

“We are pleased to partner with Vikand to offer our customers with a complete remote healthcare service,” Dimitris Tsikopoulos, CEO of Navarino, stated in a press release. “Our solutions provide the ideal technological platform from which OneHealth by Vikand, and its medical and mental-health management services, can help ensure the overall health and wellbeing of those who live and work at sea.”

What can the OneHealth service be used for? Physical and mental health, diagnoses, and mitigation of chronic, routine and emergency medical needs, strategies for overall health and wellness, and crisis communications.

Where to learn more: go to vikand.com

The post New Option for Remote Medical Care appeared first on Yachting.

In late December, the National Transportation Safety Board issued its findings about a collision that occurred a year earlier about 20 miles northwest of Nassau, Bahamas, between a 206-foot superyacht and a 159-foot commercial tanker. The probable cause of the collision, according to the NTSB, was that neither vessel maintained a proper lookout.

The findings served as a reminder to boaters on all kinds of vessels that maintaining a proper lookout is a mandatory part of basic seamanship, and that major damage and injuries can result from a failure to keep watch. The NTSB estimated the financial cost of the Bahamas incident at $7.9 million, including the sinking of the tanker and its cargo. In addition to that, three of the superyacht’s 12 crewmembers sustained minor injuries.

According to the report, the collision occurred at sunset on a day with visibility of 10 miles. Aboard the superyacht, the captain had left the wheelhouse to check on the guests, leaving the bosun in command. The bosun was working on log entries and facing away from the windshield at the time of the collision with the tanker, where the master had left that vessel’s bridge to use the head in his cabin.

The report further notes that both vessels had radar; however, “it is likely none of them had looked at the radar in the 12 minutes before the collision. … Additionally, there was no evidence that they used radar for long-range scanning. Therefore, neither crew used their vessel’s radar effectively.” The tanker also had AIS, but a power issue made it unusable.

The NTSB concluded that “had either kept a proper lookout, they likely would have detected each other and could have taken action to avoid the collision.”

The post Safety First: Having a Proper Lookout appeared first on Yachting.

ACR’s ResQLink AIS Personal Locator Beacon is the first to leverage the automatic identification system (AIS), the global navigation satellite system (GNSS), and the 406 MHz and 121.5 MHz frequencies. This multi-signal beacon gets position information from its GNSS receiver, and then bundles and transmits that information to a Cospas-Sarsat satellite via its 406 MHz transceiver. The beacon also shares its position information via AIS frequencies with nearby AIS-equipped vessels; it alternates its AIS bursts with 121.5 MHz transmissions that can be received by rescuing authorities.

“The real challenge of this product was trying to design an all-in-one product that meets our customers’ expectations,” says Mikele D’Arcangelo, ACR’s vice president of global marketing and product management. The solution, he says, involved miniaturizing circuit boards, bundling previously discrete componentry, and ensuring that the beacon satisfied AIS MOB and personal-locator-beacon regulatory requirements.

The ResQLink AIS Personal Locator Beacon measures 7.87 by 1.41 by 1.18 inches, weighs 0.42 pounds, has a 24-hour operational life, is waterproof down to 33 feet for up to one hour and comes with a five-year warranty.

How It Works

ResQLink AIS Personal Locator Beacons have near-field communications antennas. This tech lets ACR store all a beacon’s technical information in the antenna, which can be interrogated by a smartphone that’s running ACR’s Beacon App without draining the beacon’s internal battery. ResQLink AIS beacons are compatible with the Cospas-Sarsat Return Link Service, meaning an on-device LED illuminates when a beacon’s signal is received. The beacon also has infrared- and white-light strobes and can be fitted into a PFD to activate automatically if the PFD inflates.

Take the next step: acrartex.com

The post All-In-One ACR ResQLink AIS Personal Locator Beacon appeared first on Yachting.

It is a moonless night, visibility is bad and you are sailing on a busy area. Suddenly, the GPS signal is lost. Within a few seconds, alarms start to sound, your AIS targets disappear from the screen, your chart plotter indicates you have no GPS position and, one-by-one, the electronic navigation instruments stop working properly.

Losing GPS is not a just theoretical problem. The system operates by utilizing a group of satellites orbiting the Earth, but the signal they transmit is weak and not always reliable.

When the GPS itself suffers from errors, those errors pass straight into the AIS. The GPS feeds the AIS not only the ship’s position, but its course and speed as well. A single error on the GPS can lead to a significant amount of incorrect data being broadcast. Marine GPS errors can include Propagation, Multi-path, Ephemeris (Orbital), Receiver Noise and Relativistic Errors, among others.

Vessels receiving AIS signal have no way of verifying the accuracy of the data that they receive. There is no way to know whether a broadcasting vessel’s GPS is giving the correct data or not. You can confirm data with other means, like radar, but the underlying limitation remains.

Navigation Aids

GPS is the latest in a long line of navigation aids that have been used to help ships make their way safely through the ocean, avoiding hazards and other dangers. The earliest navigation aids were nautical charts, lighthouses, beacons and buoys.

The invention of the Global Positioning System (GPS) has made a monumental difference in the navigation of ships. As a deck officer on merchant vessels in the 1980s, my crewmates and I did not have such luxuries at our disposal. Traditional navigation aids were our only means of positioning the vessel. Nowadays, satellite-based aids, automatic identification systems (AIS), Electronic Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS), etc. are being used, making navigation easier and more efficient than ever before.

The increase of continuous position certainty combined with tools such as ECDIS and AIS have created a level of relaxation in regard to Closest Point of Approach (CPA), Operating Speed, proximity to shore and the use of the autopilot, even in confined waters. However, there is a misperception that GPS signals are infallible and as solid as the reference provided by a brick-made lighthouse. In a Safety Digest produced by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB), it was noted that “using AIS data, it is quite clear that ships are being taken closer to danger, and that passage plans are perhaps not as cautious as they once were.”

The advantage of electronic navigation aids is that they can be easily installed and have lower maintenance costs than physical aids. However, the probability of them being tampered with is also much higher, which is why they must be used in conjunction with physical navigational aids, especially when doing coastal navigation.

Complacency

The Costa Concordia disaster was the fault of human error because an overreliance on electronic charts and GPS positioning led to relaxed safety margins.

Although Automated Identification Systems are a tremendous advancement in navigation, there is evidence that its capability to provide useful information on the “other ship” can, like other new technology, lead to complacency.

AIS is a useful tool to assist watchkeepers in carrying out their duties. It does improve the safety of navigation for everyone; however, it is subject to some critical limitations.

The main limitations of AIS include:

• AIS is not compulsory on every vessel;
• AIS information may not be accurate;
• GPS signal may be incorrect; and
• Vessels may deactivate their AIS

The system is undoubtedly important and helpful to navigators, but they must not lose sight of these limitations.

AIS Blind Spots

It is important for navigators to remember that the majority of vessels on the water do not legally need to have AIS at all. Vessels not obliged to carry AIS include:

• Non-passenger, commercial vessels <300 GRT;
• Pleasure vessels not subject to SOLAS (Safety of Life at Sea);
• Small fishing vessels; and
• State-owned vessels like warships or law enforcement.

There are multiple vessels that opt to have a transceiver or receiver to add to safety, but they are not required to, so you cannot expect that this will be the case.

The International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGS) does not talk about AIS. AIS should not be used as a sole mean of collision avoidance, but rather to assist in the decision-making process. AIS enhances safety at sea and efficiency of navigation, but your primary tools for collision avoidance should still be your eyes and your radar.

The main challenge when using AIS as a source of information is that it displays the information supplied by the target vessel. As described above, these inputs are susceptible to multiple errors, but these errors can all be summarized as “garbage in, garbage out.” If any of the inputs are incorrect or corrupted, then that’s what AIS will show you, as opposed to the information from an Automatic Radar Plotting Aid (ARPA) or your eyes, which is independently generated. While those systems are liable to their own perceptions and issues, they are wholly self-supported.

AIS is most useful when detecting other equipped targets in situations where the radar detection is limited, such as around bends, behind hills and in conditions of restricted visibility by fog, rain, etc.

A study done by the International Marine Organization concluded that the data provided by AIS is not reliable in many cases. Therefore, mariners cannot wholly trust the equipment independently for collision avoidance, requiring such equipment be used in combination with other parameters.

Conclusion

AIS information should solely be used to assist in collision avoidance decision-making. When using the AIS in ship-to-ship mode for anti-collision purposes, the following cautionary points should be borne in mind:

1. AIS is an additional source of navigational information. It does not replace, but supports, navigational systems such as radar target-tracking and Vessel Traffic Service (VTS);
2. The use of AIS doesn’t eliminate the responsibility of the Officer of the Watch (OOW) to comply with the Collision Regulations, particularly rule 7, when determining whether risk of collisions exists. IMO Res. A.1106(29)
3. AIS complements radar information for vessels, which could be covered by radar shadows. In addition, the precision of the radar positions decreases with increasing distances.
4. Static data such as Maritime Mobile Service Identity (MMSI), International Maritime Organization (IMO) number, call sign, name, vessel type and dimensions (location of the positioning system onboard) are usually entered during AIS transceiver installation, and are therefore less prone to operator errors. Dynamic data is typically generated by systems (i.e. bridge equipment). Studies have shown that from the dynamic AIS data, the rate of turn (ROT) and the true heading (THDG) provide the highest amount of incomplete data.

Take the next step: safewatersmarine.com

Jorge Pecci is a Master Mariner, LLM in Maritime Law, Associate Fellow of the Nautical Institute and CEO of SafeWaters Underwriting Managers, a series of RSG Underwriting Managers, LLC. SafeWaters Underwriting Managers develops tailor-made insurance solutions to the Marine space through a group of highly talented industry professionals with knowledge beyond the traditional underwriting level. This expertise comes with actual shipping/engineering/claims hands-on experience, allowing the SafeWaters team to better understand the needs of our retail agent and broker customers and to develop solutions accordingly. Learn more at safewatersmarine.com.

The post Automatic Identification System (AIS) is Valuable, but Not Infallible appeared first on Yachting.

National Safe Boating Week starts on May 16 this year, with a goal of encouraging all boaters to be more responsible and wear a life jacket out on the water. And because the event happens in spring, right before the summer boating season in much of the country, it’s a great time to take an inventory of gear that can help keep everyone safe in an emergency—or, even better, help to avoid emergencies altogether.

An often-overlooked piece of gear that can need upgrading is binoculars. Often, boaters will buy a pair and use them for a decade or longer, not realizing that newer models can be a better tool. Bushnell, for instance, has the Forge line that includes a model with 15×56 magnification ($799). “The 15×56 could be very popular to the marine community, as it provides additional magnification and field of view to help scan the horizon, view wildlife, or to help identify nautical markers or maritime signal flags on commercial or military vessels,” says Bushnell communications coordinator Vic Ziliani.

Also worth a look for an upgrade are the life jackets stowed on any boat. Designs have come a long way in terms of comfort, making newer life jackets more likely to be worn, especially by people who want freedom to move around.

Spinlock’s Deckvest 6D life jacket (about $295), which became available in March, is intended to be “as much a piece of sportswear as a piece of safety equipment,” according to the company. Its features include automatic inflation and an optional harness-release system that lets the boater disconnect from a safety line by releasing a lever. The idea is to give a man overboard a way to disconnect from the boat if he’s being dragged through the water.

And in the digital-safety-device category, ACR Electronics has the ResQLink 400 personal locator beacon ($309). It’s buoyant, has a strobe light, and uses GPS and satellite technology to relay the boater’s position to search-and-rescue teams. The multifunction clip is designed to let boaters wear the PLB however they’re most comfortable.

As with life jackets, when safety and comfort meet, every boater wins.

The post New Safety Gear for Boaters appeared first on Yachting.

U Safe buoys are the first self-propelled, ring-type lifesaving device. U Safe buoys employ dual turbines (think of PWC drives), which are enclosed within each of the hull’s two legs. The turbines can propel the buoys at almost 8 knots.

The U Safe buoys are operated using waterproof (IP68) and buoyant joystick remote controls, delivering line-of-sight range via radio-frequency signals. A U Safe Buoy can retrieve a man overboard at speeds pushing 3 knots, or it can rescue two MOBs at a slower pace.

While the buoys look simple, Nick Bice—U Safe’s commercial director and a veteran of two round-the-world Volvo Ocean Races—says the crux of creating the buoy involved figuring out the right technologies and software. “Every component is custom-made, including the printed circuit boards, batteries and remotes,” he says, adding that the buoy’s real magic is its ability to be controlled by someone with little or no training.

As of this writing, U Safe buoys require a human interface; however, that won’t always be true. “For the future, we’re looking at options which include integration with both AIS and personal locator beacons,” Bice says, suggesting that GPS could also become part of U Safe’s ecosystem.

How It Works

• U Safe buoys are controlled from the boat via a handheld steering device.
• The buoys run on lithium-ion batteries that deliver 30 minutes of remote-controlled operation and are designed to facilitate multiple rescues between top-offs. Recharge time is four hours.
• U Safe buoys weigh 29 pounds, measure 39-by-31-by-8 inches and have four outward-facing handgrips.

Take the next step: usafe-global.com

The post Safe At Sea: U Safe Rescue Buoy appeared first on Yachting.