I’m anti AIS. BUT......

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by wingssail

I've been sailing for 53 years, cruising offshore for 35 years. From my perspective only GPS is more valuable than AIS. Like GPS, it has transformed cruising.

Absolutely 100%

[Lodesman]

Originally Posted by donradcliffe

First, in the Fitz case, the OOD was not trained, repeatedly violated her standing orders, lost situational awareness, froze, and did not sound a collision alarm. The captain got fired but she didn't.

From what I recall, the OOD was court-martialed, pled guilty and is no longer in the Navy - though that may not be through firing. It's wrong to say that she was not trained, however she lacked experience in the OOD role. The Capt was overly trusting in her competence based on her performance in her other role. There were other factors such as fatigue, new crew unfamiliar with the equipment, and numerous equipment deficiencies that exacerbated the situation.

The Capt was unlikely to remain in the Navy, due to his injuries - and despite the Navy's politically-motivated attempts at prosecuting him, eventually allowed him to take a medical release with his rank.

While there was traffic in the Fitz case, it was certainly no worse than I experienced going past San Pedro. In areas like that I turn off audible alarms because I am looking at the AIS display at least every 2-4 minutes while someone else is standing lookout in the cockpit and executing my course changes. The traffic does not last 24/7, and you catch up on your sleep in the less congested areas.

The LA area does not even remotely compare to that area south of Japan, which is a major thoroughfare for shipping from that half of the world. The fact is a Capt can't stay awake indefinitely, and has to be able to trust his watch officers/mates. Ultimately the Capt is responsible for ensuring the vessel is in every respect safe and able to proceed to sea - which includes the competency/ability of the crew.

If you want to get the attention of a ship, the VHF is best if you have its name from the AIS. 5 blasts from your pitiful horn is useless. A flare shot at the bridge would probably work for a cruise ship, but smaller vessels may have no one looking out the windows. The container ship in the Fitz did not have a ship's name because the Fitz AIS transponder was turned off "for security reasons" . The container ship did not call on the VHF, but flashed their lights to no avail. The Navy now as a revised AIS policy.

No doubt AIS is useful in giving the vessel name, day or night. They don't always answer the VHF either, even when called by name.

Remember ACZ Crystal flashed lights, but didn't actually do any anti-collision manoeuvring until it was too late. Overly relying on AIS is also a recipe for disaster - it's been previously discussed that some ships aren't transmitting, either deliberately or because of equipment failure, updates lag, and in busy shipping, it is highly possible the watchkeeper could fail to correlate the visual picture to the AIS picture; to be fair, this is also an issue with radar.

I honestly hope you don't advocate firing flares at ships' bridges. Good chance that anti-collision will take second-fiddle to searching for/fighting fires on board

[smj]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Ummm... let's see... the watchkeeper, who isn't blind at all does see the overtaking cruise ship. Says to self "hmmm, I'm sailing and he is overtaking from astern so I am the stand on vessel and must maintain course and speed and he will avoid me. In time it appears that he ain't gonna do so and a rule 17 situation is developing, so, following standing orders he calls the skipper. , Skipper makes the necessary course change and tragedy is avoided, Crew could have called earlier OR an AIS alarm would have (in this case) have been a good help by not dragging its feet in waking the skipper.



Not well executed perhaps, but I see no horrible seamanship on the skip's part., He had a watckeeper on duty, said watchkeeper was aware of the oncoming

ship and waited a bit too long to exercise rule 17 or to call the skipper to do so. The really bad seamanship was on the part of the cruise ship!



Jim

I’ll leave my statement as is, pathetic seamanship.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by wingssail

I've got to say, Bud, you attitude is somewhat arrogant. You call AIS a gadget with a "pretty screen" and only radar is worth anything. You can have that opinion but why discount everyone else's' opinion? Are you the only sailor on this forum?

My name is not Bud. I got all electronic aids and have commercial GMDSS license for all. Radar shows reality, AIS does not. This has nothing to do with arrogance, just facts. That is why it isn’t a matter of opinion either.

Counting on AIS alarms is a recipe for disaster, please keep a proper watch.

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

...Radar shows reality, AIS does not....

Radar shows no more reality than AIS. Both can miss targets. That is why your "factual" claim is nothing more than your own subjectivity.

Counting on AIS alarms is a recipe for disaster, please keep a proper watch.

Total (typical) misinterpretation. Nobody said "counting on AIS".

But my beef with your comments is not the subjective opinion you spout, you are intitled to that, it's that you dismiss all other opinions with an arrogance which is unmistakable. It marks who you are.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by wingssail

Total (typical) misinterpretation. Nobody said "counting on AIS".

But my beef with your comments is not the subjective opinion you spout, you are intitled to that, it's that you dismiss all other opinions with an arrogance which is unmistakable. It marks who you are.

Again, it is fact, not opinion. Many possible collision targets have no AIS but few, very few targets are invisible to radar. We’re talking about stealth technology navy ships or submarines.

When someone goes to sleep counting on AIS alarm it is madness, no matter how upset you get. Crazy! Read back in the thread, I don’t think you realize how crazy it gets. We had someone who wanted to just stop the boat and go to sleep at night a while back, but this keep on going on autopilot because AIS will wake me up beats it.

[Pelagic]

The biggest danger of any Electronic Nav Aid is often the tendency to rely on it and make assumptions, then decisions that degrade the primary functionality of a Watchkeepeer ....That is to maintain a Lookout and Avoid Collisions .... by ALL available means!

No one NavAid is the Solution!
Everyone of them can have Fixed of Variable errors..... but most common, is operating errors in use and reliance.

After WW2 when Radars became commercially available, everyone thought. ....."THIS is the end of big ship collisions"!!
.....But then the very opposite happened and we started to have what is called "Radar Assisted Collisions"

.... Same with Transit/GPS/AIS...

No Navidad is a substitute for keeping a Constant Lookout by all available means, most importantly being a 360° surveillance of the horizon.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

The biggest danger of any Electronic Nav Aid is often the tendency to rely on it and make assumptions, then decisions that degrade the primary functionality of a Watchkeepeer ....That is to maintain a Lookout .... by ALL available means!

No one NavAid is the Solution!
Everyone of them can have Fixed of Variable errors..... but most common, is operating errors in use and reliance.

After WW2 when Radars became commercially available, everyone thought. ....."THIS is the end of big ship collisions"!!
.....But then the very opposite happened and we started to have what is called "Radar Assisted Collisions"

.... Same with Transit/GPS/AIS...

No Navidad is a substitute for keeping a Constant Lookout by all available means, most importantly being a 360° surveillance of the horizon.

Exactly! Well said.

[donradcliffe]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

No Navidad is a substitute for keeping a Constant Lookout by all available means, most importantly being a 360° surveillance of the horizon.

How many ship's bridges have you been on that allowed a 360 degree view of the horizon?

[Lodesman]

Originally Posted by donradcliffe

How many ship's bridges have you been on that allowed a 360 degree view of the horizon?

All of them. Some you have to walk around to "clear the arcs" and frequently have to go out to the wings to see dead astern. A proper watch is an active affair.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by Lodesman

All of them. Some you have to walk around to "clear the arcs" and frequently have to go out to the wings to see dead astern. A proper watch is an active affair.

Exactly, all of them, even down the sides to the water right next to the hull.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by smj

I’ll leave my statement as is, pathetic seamanship.

so, other than calling the skipper sooner, what should he have done differently in your estimation... to avoid the "pathetic seamanship" bit?

Jim

[goboatingnow]

This thread definitely calls for more popcorn

[smj]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

so, other than calling the skipper sooner, what should he have done differently in your estimation... to avoid the "pathetic seamanship" bit?



Jim

So you consider letting a 15-20 story ship lit up like a city to get to within 3 minutes of running you down as being good seamanship? Is that what you would have done Jim? And if not, what actions would you have taken?

[donradcliffe]

Originally Posted by smj

So you consider letting a 15-20 story ship lit up like a city to get to within 3 minutes of running you down as being good seamanship? Is that what you would have done Jim? And if not, what actions would you have taken?

I was aware of the cruise ship when it was over 2 hours away and I went down for some rest. In retrospect I should have hit the navigator over the head with a winch handle and taken over the AIS myself to see the CPA and TCPA.