Trainspotting, Maritime-Style!

If you’ve spent any time around major commercial ports or vessel traffic lanes, you’ve probably wondered about all that traffic. What’s in those enormous ships? Where are they coming from? Where are they headed? How fast are they going? Of course, if you’re navigating in these waters, especially at night or in fog, obtaining accurate information about commercial traffic may satisfy a need somewhat more compelling than mere idle curiosity! But idle curiosity is actually what I want to talk about today.

In case you haven’t been paying attention, AIS receivers have been getting cheaper, and more chartplotters and navigation software applications can interpret the AIS datastream. This has been discussed in depth over at Panbo, so I won’t rehash all the details here. The point is that, for the first time, large numbers of pleasure boaters will consider adding AIS to their onboard navigation systems. Mostly, they’ll want AIS for fun. Oh, they’ll justify it to their spouses by saying how important it will be for navigation and safety, and while that’s true, I suspect a lot of people will want it because it’s just dang cool!

If you’re considering it, or if this is the first you’ve heard about it, then to get a taste of what you’d have aboard your boat, take a quick look at Brian Lane’s live AIS data displayed within Google Earth.

If you learn better by hearing somebody explain it, listen to the 16-minute podcast Raymarine has produced with special guest Ben Ellison (Panbo himself!).

And while your onboard chartplotter may not be able to display AIS data quite this way, you probably could generate views like this if you brought your laptop onboard.