<Peter wrote in part: This one that arrived yesterday is an absolute cracker. In order to qualify for the permit, the visiting yacht must be fitted with an IMO AIS transponder or a Harbour Craft Transponder System (HARTS) transponder.> I suspect that this might be good for a chuckle today it will be common place in the very near future. The ability for the custom/CG/Border Patrol/etc of a jurisdiction to monitor all traffic approaching its coast/harbors/waterways will be a requirement. What better way than AIS currently? As the device come down in price it will be not be a burden for 99% of the operators of watercraft. I will venture that the prospect of AIS transceiver under $500 is not to far in the future and even less if requirements are made to carry them lets say on all "foreign" yachts, boats over say 30', etc. Volume drives the price as we've seen in GPS's. There is no more to a class B AIS transceiver than there is to a handheld VHF. Think a couple of $5 chips, some memory, some software, an output transmitter, a few connectors and some packaging. A need for a million units and your there ;-) Privacy and boating internationally have gone the way of the dodo bird. We are considered threats to those who look at us from shore as we are "unknown entities" and therefore are potential perps until we are identified. AIS give the authorities a way to identify the vessel but not the occupants. Maybe that will be next ;-( The good part of this is when cruising and trouble comes your way the DSC feature of AIS will transmit your message along with all the data of your vessel. Name, location, heading, speed, MMSI#, etc, etc. Good to have the responders know who's in trouble, where they are, what size of vessel, etc as part of the message. The DSC of the VHF doesn't contain this info. We continue to see AIS as a very important part of our future cruising into some more remote areas and knowing that other traffic in the area, aka up to about 15-20 miles, will know our location and presents. The recent thread on the person who was "missing" in Indonesia may not have happened, IMHO, if he had a Class B AIS. Another proposal is up for consideration with the IMO re AIS. Tracking by Satellite! The VHF signal that they transmit, which is line of sight as we all know, can be picked up by a satellite. This will/would allow worldwide tracking of AIS equipped vessels. One would need an antenna which is directed skyward vs. the horizontal pattern of normal Marine VHF antennas. The other is using the same the same system that the new "SPOT" locator uses. Cheap and effective to track anything from a widget to a supertanker anywhere the satellites can get the signal. Given the perceived need for a means to track all traffic these are very viable solutions. You can run but you can't hide...unless you turn it off of course ;-) As always YMMV.... Dave & Nancy Swan Song Roughwater 58

> The ability for the custom/CG/Border Patrol/etc of a jurisdiction to > monitor > all traffic approaching its coast/harbors/waterways will be a requirement. > What better way than AIS currently? > How does AIS protect a harbor? Doesn't the vessel's captain/owner load its AIS with the data he wants it to transmit? Couldn't a perp put "identity theft" info into his AIS? -- Jim Ague

You are correct... you can load the AIS with any kind of info you want, EXCEPT the position, COG, SOG. The key is that, being a transponder, CG and Vessel Monitoring people know exact where everyone is and is going, even boats too small or distant to show up clearly on radar. Nice, fat, data-rich targets instead of flaky blips on a scope. Recall that virtually all boating in Singapore is international. The entire country is only 20 miles by 10 miles (or something like that). Like with their airport, where 100% of the passengers are international, they have a very special situation when it comes to border management and security. Homeland Security has proposed the same thing for the US (AIS transponders), but (so far) it hasn't gone anywhere. Imagine if every boat out there had a transponder... our screens would be a solid mass of targets in the summer. I much prefer the current arrangement where all the big guys plus a handful of yachts have transponders. Having runabouts buzzing around, making constant course changes at 25 knots, would set off momentary collision alarms all the time. John Marshall N5520-Serendipity Sequim Bay, WA On Dec 19, 2007, at 6:34 AM, Jim Ague wrote: >> The ability for the custom/CG/Border Patrol/etc of a jurisdiction to >> monitor >> all traffic approaching its coast/harbors/waterways will be a >> requirement. >> What better way than AIS currently? >> > How does AIS protect a harbor? Doesn't the vessel's captain/owner > load its > AIS with the data he wants it to transmit? Couldn't a perp put > "identity > theft" info into his AIS? > > -- Jim Ague > _______________________________________________ > http://lists.samurai.com/mailman/listinfo/passagemaking-under-power > > To unsubscribe send email to > passagemaking-under-power-request@lists.samurai.com with the word > UNSUBSCRIBE and nothing else in the subject or body of the message. > > Passagemaking Under Power and PUP are trademarks of Water World > Productions, formerly known as Trawler World Productions.