Yipe, crossing the Channel with AIS
Ever wonder why the U.K. and Western Europe are such AIS hot beds? John C. send in this shot of his zoomed out screen, taken as he sailed across the English Channel yesterday:
I was heading northwest just about right angles to the main shipping routes. Those going northeast are heading up Channel to Hamburg, Rotterdam, Antwerp, Kiel Canal etc, and those heading SW in the other lane are heading to the rest of the world. A couple of cross channel ferries are more north/south. Equipment is a Raymarine E-80 with additional VGA screen (in photo) and Easy AIS receiver.
I wonder what this picture will look like with class B's as well! I am planning to upgrade to class B soon - please lets get some real user experience on this subject on your site soon! {I hope so too, but we don’t even have B over here yet—ed} BTW: with the class B's, do you know how I might differentiate between Underway Sailing, and Underway Motoring? {Anyone?}
PS I’d bet that if the 47’ Wahkuna, making a similar crossing in 2003, had had an AIS receiver like John’s, it might still be afloat. I wrote about the accident here, and the amazingly complete MAIB report is here.
PPS Regarding Underway status (and thanks to Marinate’s input below), apparently Class B can not send out Nav Status, but will see the Nav Status of Class A transponders.
That AIS screen didn't impress me at all. The photographer had zoomed out to a range that was pretty useless for navigation. On the NE bound traffic lane, the screen was showing about ten ships in a 30 mile section, or about one ship every 3 miles - big deal.
While the screen was set up and photographed in such a way to scare the average boater, when analyzed, it wasn't too scary at all. This was more photo trickery than useful information!