Cool website

[Bill R]

http://marinetraffic.com/ais

Tracks vessels in real time on a Google Earth format map. I have been having fun watching the traffic in and out of Portland Harbor. Going to be even more fun tomorrow, since the roof of my office building provides me with a bird's eye view of Portland Harbor.

My apologies if this has been posted before.

[JBreeze]

Hey, that's really neat! I often wonder what I'm looking at coming in/out of Narragansett Bay. Now I have a way to find out some of the basic information.

I wonder why pleasure craft are registered in the Marshall Islands??

There are a couple in Newport, RI right now. Here's one of them:

http://marinetraffic.com/ais/showphoto.aspx?photoid=77204

[WX]

Not bad, not bad at all.

[Chris.]

Bloody excellent - by why is somewhere like Singapore and Malacca Straits showing no traffic?

[Ron Williamson]

Anti-piracy,If I had to guess.
R

[Bill R]

Anti-piracy,If I had to guess.
R

I made that assumption as well.

[Hwyl]

There's got a be a AIS (VHF) receiver nearby to log the boats. Notice that there are no boats crossing oceans either.

Bill knows more than me about this by large magnitudes, but the furthest I've picked up a solid AIS signal is 40 miles, and have received incomplete date at 60 miles. It's still mind boggling

[Hwyl]

Here's another view http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shiplocations.phtml

[Chris.]

Ron, Bill and Hwyl. Thanks for the explanation, I hadn't considered piracy at all. And like Malacca Straits, there is zip off Somalia :-)

Looking at that second website the ocean sure looks crowded - is there an equivalent for in-flight planes I wonder?

[Bill R]

There's got a be a AIS (VHF) receiver nearby to log the boats. Notice that there are no boats crossing oceans either.

Bill knows more than me about this by large magnitudes, but the furthest I've picked up a solid AIS signal is 40 miles, and have received incomplete date at 60 miles. It's still mind boggling

Since it is VHF based, range will be limited. Due to the type of black magic involved, VHF signals do not travel well over distance due to the curvature of the earth.

This app relies on shore stations for data reporting. if you click the "stations" check box, it will show the shore receiving stations.

[Hwyl]

You explained it better than I could. AIS is amazing however

[farwesthoops]

I have been glued to the AIS site since this posting. I sit back in my cockpit and watch the actual ship traffic in the Bay chug by my moorage and know destinations, names, etc. Great new way to postpone boat work. Thanks for the post.

[Soundbounder]

I have enjoyed this site a lot.
It is a big time killer.
Unfortunately it doesn't track ships within Long Island Sound or Buzzards Bay.
I am not quite sure why.

[Bark]

Yeah, this is a great site. Thanks for posting. We often wonder about the cargo ships we see transiting the Chesapeake Bay ... now we know. Cool.